Lear

Last night I put together my new computer desk.  This is an attempt to clear some of the clutter out of my life.  My computer desk had been over burdened with manuals, diskettes, disks, blank media, games, papers, receipts, contracts, mail, empty jewel cases, pens, paper, paper clips, envelopes, well, you get the idea.  So now my computer desk includes: monitor, keyboard, speakers, mouse and scanner.  Very clean, very uncluttered.  The clutter is now in boxes in my living room. 

I'm getting ready to head south to Ashland, Oregon, to take in a production of King Lear.  Here's my thesis on Lear:  he's not mad, he's in a state of what Freud would call "hysteria."  He's not delusional, he's in denial.  "I am a man more sinned against than sinning,"  he says, and in that statement we see his self-pity, his refusal to take responsibility for his own acts.  By the middle of the play, however, his tune has changed, and thus we see Lear's transcendant evolution into a tragic hero:

"O, I have taken too little care of this...take physic pomp [meaning himself, the king, Lear's speaking in the royal third person] expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, that thou mayest shake the superflux to them, and show the heavens more just."

In context, this is spoken while Lear is at his most piteous extremity, completely alone (save for the Fool and Kent), lost, penniless, little more than a beggar himself.  Although Lear has a long way to go yet, this moment, in Act 3, scene iv, marks the beginning of his reemergence.