ΘΕΑΤΡΟΝ

i've been thinking about this word this past week as i wasn't doing too well. i've been thinking about being a spectacle and not wanting to stand out as totally different. this led me to think about a theatre group i once saw in high school called "theatron"--the word is anglicized from the greek θέατρον, which means something to be seen/watched/contemplated/observed in addition to the place where the action to be seen takes place. this is the origin for our word 'theatre'.

i think about my part in this huge cast of humans on earth, and i wonder if i really do stick out as much as i think, or if i'm just one more person on the stage of the world or as part of the song 'reasons why' by nickel creek says: 'And standing on a darkened stage / Stumbling through the lines'. i think about walking with a heavy limp, a crutch, having to manually position my legs while sitting, and talking differently. and then i think of how Jesus was made a spectacle on the cross. they beat him, didn't believe him, cursed him, and killed him.

i just get funny looks.


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for more information on the origin of theatre:
"The term “theatre” which we currently designate as the literary genre as well as the physical space where it takes place comes from the Greek word θέατρον (theatron), which came to mean “place where you look” or “what you see”, so it is a noun created from the verb θέομαι (to see, look, contemplate, observe). So, what was in the beginning “the place” where one saw something, the θέατρον (what you see) also came to be “the group of spectactors” and, even more so, came to refer to the literary genre based on the representation where the spectators contemplated something (the θέατρον) which is what is contemplated (the θέατρον) in a space ready for such contemplation (θέατρον)" (-from http://club2.telepolis.com/mandragora1/ [originally in Spanish]).