I am the marionettist

For so long I have ignored the vast, endless theater in which I sit alone, watching the stage-play in front of me. But I have only to close my eyes to see it stretching outward in all directions. What I have thought, and actively think is me, is just a small point of awareness sitting in the middle of this theater, eyes fixed forward on the stage lit in front. The theater is my firstself, and the performance on the stage is my thirdself.

As I regain firstself awareness, I remember that I am in a theater. My awakening, I realize, is a performance unfolding before me. The familiar characters who dance across the lit stage, then disappear behind the curtains before reappearing before me are marionettes following a script. A script I write.

I am the marionettist, and all the people are the marionettes. Do they know they are merely puppets in a performance I have staged for my own comfort? They do not know unless I write that into their script. They only perform, and any knowing is surface-level; a one-dimensional appearance, nothing more. If I scratch the surface by asking, they will repeat their script until I write something different.

Do I write something different? Do I flesh out the characters I have known and loved with a deeper sense of their own nature? Do I write their awareness into their performance?