A Reflection on Waiting for Godot

For me, Waiting for Godot is about the postmodern condition.

There is no transcendent meaning; we choose meaning from the threads of tradition that have been handed down to us. Trying to weave them into something new or just trying to pull them forward or both, we scrape by. But we choose them, or at least we can if we are aware enough of the situation to do so.
We can choose to keep our appointments and responsibilities, though we know that doing so may have little benefit. We can kill our selves. We can leave or leave one another. We can beat each other. We have so many choices, and it can easily cause paralysis. And many of us are paralyzed, at least when it comes to making grounding choices. But none of them really provide a ground anyway. They just provide an aid in shuffling along, or shuffling in place.

Yes, things have changed since the play was written. We are, most of us, physically vagabonds. We are no longer physically hungry and wearing rags. (The reality of post war France, where it was written, was very bleek and destitute.) We have homes, food and clothing, often too much to the point that we don't know what to do with it or are distracted by it. We have our entertainment and our devices. We are never in need of Lucky's speech to pass the time. But what we have, is it much better?

And as we wait (because we are always waiting for something, even if it isn't Godot that we have chosen, even if we haven't consciously chosen at all) with all we now have, as things repeat again and again as we wait, are we any better for it? Godot could come at anytime, and we would likely miss him. But would that matter? We are missing the experience of waiting because we are always too preoccupied with passing the time. But maybe that is the true human experience: waiting. And we are missing it.

And we delude ourselves into thinking that nothing is repeating because we are so connected and so much is new and always changing. But things still repeat, we are just distracted from those details. And maybe that too is part of the true human experience: repetition.

Waiting for Godot is too dull and boring and meaningless for most people to stand. And maybe that is why so many people don't really understand what it is to be human and what a human life really is. They are just too busy trying to avoid it.