Enlightenment: on Shakespeare's 'Stage'

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts; his acts being seven ages.”

These lines are from Shakespeare's comedy play, As You Like It. When I think of these sentences apart from the play, it seems to me what Shakespeare suggested could be an indication of enlightenment, and an epiphany: The moment we realize that the world is a theatre and we are only playing our parts, all the happy and sad moments lose their meanings. Because we do not have much control over what we have to face; then it becomes meaningless to suffer for what we cannot control, or be happy for something that will come and go from the 'stage', metaphorically, our lives. Well, I might be slowly relating Shakespeare's ideas to Nihilism, but the point I want to make is that there can be various ways to attain Enlightenment. While Kant emphasizes the importance of using one's understanding and attaining autonomy, Shakespeare might have regarded Enlightenment as understanding the way the world operates and the parts that we are supposed to do as players.

I have found THIS PAGE on which Dr. Robert Puff offers similar ideas (and expresses them more clearly than I could). Though the writing seems a little long, I recommend you to read to the end as Puff offers a soft analysis to Shakespeare's lines and shows how we can apply these ideas to our lives.

I hope you will enjoy Puff's views and will be 'Enlightened' players for the rest of your lives...