For some reason, today feels like a Shakespeare kind of day.

Only a few years ago, we pulled ourselves through the Covid pandemic, thanks largely to the quick response of medical researchers in developing effective preventive vaccines . . . regardless of what Booby — sorry, Bobby — Kennedy Jr. might say.

But the world now is in the throes of yet another, very different, pandemic — one for which there can be no vaccine or magic cure. This one is a rapidly-spreading plague of depression, a sense of helplessness and dread in the face of unimaginable, widespread hate, anger and corruption.

There is so much sh*t going on in the world — stuff that we ordinary individuals are physically incapable of fighting and morally unable to adapt to — that we tend to shut it out, like the sound of that dripping faucet that we really need to have fixed if only we could afford the exorbitant plumber’s rates.

That kind of chronic depression affects different people in different ways, of course. Shakespeare’s Macbeth summed it up eloquently, viewing the effort we mortals invest in our lives as futile and therefore meaningless. I’ve quoted it — in whole or in part — before; but for the thousands of you who missed it, here it is again:

“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

– William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5

And on that note, I wish one and all a very happy holiday season. Macbeth may have given up hope, but that doesn’t mean we have to.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/26/25