What of the arrival

At my post. At home. Thinking. Breaks of thought, simply. On the infamous Beckett-effect. Soundtrack: complete silence. Except from some distant, annoying radio squeak that I suspect belong to my r'n'b-lovin' neighbours. Needless to say, that love doesn't go further than their doorstep. And, oh the bliss, getting to study Samuel Beckett and his plays, a man who has had such great influence on me over the years and whom I consider one of my greatest sources of inspiration, who never ceases to invoke contemplation, ever creative with his stations for my trains of thought; points of departure for my more deep and solemn reflections. Oh, I love the meta-science. The sheer incomprehensibility that still makes sense, and never managing to figure out just how he does it; not that I would want to, either, for that matter. But - it amazes me. Truly. Also, getting to read Paal Brekke and analyse his most beautiful verses; more on all that later on, presumably; both men invoking such massive thoughts, and making me shudder under the immense weight of undertoned meanings and figures and murder and brilliance; you name it. Been working on "Waiting for Godot" recently; still doing it, as a matter of fact; and this brilliant, lovable, endlessly expressive piece of modernism gives me goosebumps every single time I read it. Perfectly shaped theatre. Things that make me rethink, so to speak, as Beckett makes me reconsider everything. You never know your world, if you listen to him, and you certainly don't know your surroundings. Or the people around you; they may just as well be ghosts. Reminds me of parallell universes and worlds colliding. But it's utterly beautiful. Even the upmost, terrifying, tragic can have a level of beauty, Beckett tends to prove. I love the relations between his characters, how they deal with each other; how they relate; and how they talk beyond one another, making the dialogue meaningfull in its very word, not just put into a(ny kind of) context. There is a randomness, an essential playfullness, to Beckett - in addition to the ever-so-striking gloom, which increases the possibility for interpreation; and varied forms of such. He is a very subtle, very double writer - combining the ironic, almost hilarious tone with all the underlying sorrow. The hopelessness. He makes our world unbearable, yet the basic plot in most of his plays (usually) concerns the characters' having to bear all the world has to offer, and we see them struggle, we see them as we see ourselves. Bearing hope, or frustration, or just plain...surrender. Yet finding a way, somehow. As does he. Tricking us with tie-in jokes and allegories, it takes a true insider to get any particular message out of. But it's worth a try. Point is, with Beckett, there's no use in trying to understand, you have to live from the provocations, the evocations. As I mentioned above, he makes you see something; beyond what you normally tend to visualize. He makes you understand, in the sense that you don't. I can't explain it, and I shan't either. For this is the idea: you watch, you feel, you move, you get, you find and you absorb, and then you're challenged. You're revitalized. Your surroundings are brought into new light, but they still remain the same, and you might as well remain in the darkness. He is close and distant at the same time. You don't have to grasp, just - get. Received effectuation. The very truth that you don't fully realize what's going on, that you can't actually look for the "real and absolute meaning behind it all"; this makes the plays ever the more interesting. Intriguing, if that's a better word. His plays are indeed plays in the original translation of the concept. That's what they do; fool you, decieve you, touch you, adore you, play you. He loves the audience, the perceptive minds, he has to. Often, as in "Waiting for Godot", when the characters addresses the people they're faced with, the crowds, it's because they demand to be heard also from benath the fourth "veil", as I prefer to call it, and I find their methods - his method - highly effective. Original. You know how I love a true original. Unintelligible, in ways, because it's so absurd; allegedly. However, people tend to apply many negative connotations to that word, which I think is rather unfair. Beckett is abstract; yes, if it indicates how he's vague, floating, transcending barriers of walls and space, how he's defying gravity and time, breaking laws and building up new ones, but it's never bordering on ridiculous - which is just what, I find, most readers would understand by "absurd" nowadays. No, I regard Beckett's works as a unique example of proper classics, existing outside our general view of theatre, existing only for the eye that watches. They're are flooded with surreal momendum; awkward, funny, bizarre, helpless, loveless, love-filled, disastrous, wonderous moments; just like life itself. Consequently, his plays never have to picture life as it is; they could depict it by being an aspect of it, themselves, or by being it, in fact; for they're part of life just like humans are. They're elements of life, foundation bricks. And, may I emphasize that they're beautiful, essentially beautiful, in how they portray emotions, stages, paths, visions, future, past; and they can behold everything or nothing or whatever you want them to. Especially his pantomime sessions. There's no chronology, no distractions. No rules. He doesn't have to depart from any conventions, because in his Universe - none such exist. At least, he doesn't stick by them, or confront them. He creates a scene of his own. And sometimes, I escape to a Beckett-ish place in my daydreaming, it's quite peaceful there. Pensive, loud and thought-inducing, but still it's about peace. I like the blankness of his settings. The lack of affected decór. The constant alternatives, and the avoidance of certainty; determination. The only thing that's certain is death, they say. Beckett proves there's more, always something to come and be done, or be gone. Always searching for something else. Someone. Finding, losing; as long as you're there, you have a clue, you make a kind of difference, but it's not clear what it is; nor is it clear what makes the world go round, but I have no doubt these two are linked. Inexorably connected. He makes my head go boom and my limbs go frenetically shaky. He makes me unsure the world ever was, or that I'll ever be; that I was ever born or that I'll ever die. He makes me dizzy and harmonic and apathetic and static. I can't leave his visions. I can't live within them, I need my pauses, but I sure as Hell can't live without them. I need my recommended amount of Beckett-effect. Now and then, precisely the same as life. With all its other bits and pretty pieces.