I read Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot in my modernist drama class. I had read it once before, in my freshman year writer’s studio. The play didn’t make much sense to me at the time, it was just two guys dicking around, killing time to wait for someone who never arrives. It was weird, a little experimental, but not profound. Not to 18-year-old me, anyway.
It was assigned to me again, by a professor who studied the play for three years before teaching it. This time, I took my time to read it. Partially because I’m now 21 and less of a punk, and also because I figured it must somehow be important to read if I’ve encountered it twice.
Despite my reading it again, it still didn’t mean much. It was tedious, nothing happened. Vladimir and Estragon spend two acts waiting for Godot, who never arrives. He always sends his messenger to tell the pair he’ll see them the next day. The next day is like the previous. It’s hellish in a way, like purgatory.
It’s like summertime.
I realized this after spending 3 hours listening to my professor pound the point into my brain. Beckett’s point was that life is just one big cosmic joke, a “universally shared predicament of meaningless action” (pulled verbatim from my notes). Time will pass regardless of what we do, so we need to give our lives meaning ourselves. Which is obvious, now that I think about it.
But school has let out for the summer, and I’m bored. Time passes slowly, and I have too much of it on my hands. Staying busy is my meaning as a student.
What will it be when I graduate?
Is my future meaning to write things that no one will read?
Who knows?