Was Shakespeare a Self-Help Master?
When I first moved onto the small piece of land in the Hawaiian rainforest I call home, my focus was on my own survival. For the first several years, I was completely preoccupied with clearing brush, planting a garden, and getting some kind of roof over my head. When friends came to visit, they had to sleep in the same big tent where I stored my garden tools; once, a friend of mine tried to chase an enormous cane spider out of her bed, only to have it drop its egg sack, releasing hundreds of baby spiders scurrying across the sheets. Another friend of mine was distressed to realize I had no electricity and therefore no refrigerator in which to store the fancy cheese and yogurt she’d brought down, and that taking a shower meant heating up a kettle of rainwater on the propane stove, then standing in the muddy yard and pouring it over your head.
I’m proud of my friends for continuing to visit me during those rugged but memorable initial years. I remember the way they stepped up to the plate, gamely washing dishes in a five-gallon bucket, hauling drinking water from the spring, and helping me carry the lumber I would someday use to build the first real structures on the land. But while I knew that they loved swimming in the waterfall, hiking to the beach, and playing card games with my neighbors, they were always a tiny bit relieved to go home—after all, you can only put up with spiders in your bed for so many nights.
Even though I enjoyed showing my friends around the valley, I was also a little relieved when they left: it was stressful to worry about their mosquito bites and muddy shoes, and to try to make them comfortable in a space and a life that had only really been designed to accommodate one person. The truth is, I wasn’t a great host. Carving out my homestead had toughened me, and I could feel impatient with people who wrung their hands over the discomforts I’d learned to take in stride.
I realized that in my scramble to gain a toehold in a challenging new life, I had built a hermit’s hideout, not a community space. My kitchen was only big enough for one person to cook in; two people could squeeze onto the tiny wicker couch on the lanai if they were skinny, but a third person would have to stand awkwardly on the grass nearby. It was hard for guests to do anything for themselves, because everything was so rickety and patched together; I was the only person who knew where to find the scissors or hang a wet towel.
It was clear that if I wanted other people to be truly comfortable at my place, I would have to make some changes—build a bigger kitchen, maybe, and replace the rotting pallets that always threatened to send a rusty nail through someone’s foot. It was also clear that I would have to make some changes on the inside, opening my heart to guests instead of feeling overwhelmed by their needs. But how could I do those things while preserving the simplicity I cherished? I didn’t want to turn my land into a five-star hotel; even getting solar power meant giving up candle-lit evenings and a deep silence I adored. How could I let others in to the life I had built without losing myself?
Hierophant author Kim Bradley, whose book Shakespeare’s Guide to Living the Good Life: Life Lessons for Comedy, Tragedy, and Everything in Between arrives in bookstores soon, lives in a hand-built tiny house in northeastern Florida. When she and her partner moved in during a cold snap in January, they had no furniture, blankets, dishes, or cutlery, and the only source of heat was a wood-burning stove for which they had to beg wood from a neighbor. Still, their closest family members insisted on coming to see the new place. Bradley recounts that they showed up with sleeping bags, pizza, and a bottle of wine which they drank out of mugs, reminding her of Balthasar’s line from A Comedy of Errors: “Small cheer and great welcome make a merry feast.”
In Shakespeare’s Guide to Living the Good Life, Bradley draws out ten timeless lessons from the Bard, on subjects ranging from persistence to friendship to thinking for yourself. Just like us, the people in Shakespeare’s time dealt with plagues and pandemics, political upheavals and family dramas, wealth inequality and conflicts over identity. Shakespeare’s take on all these subjects remains prescient today, and Bradley shows how we can use the playwright’s wisdom to find more happiness and meaning in our day-to-day lives.
When I first read Bradley’s chapter on hospitality, in which she discusses Shakespeare’s beloved play The Comedy of Errors, I found myself feeling some wistfulness about my hermit lifestyle. In Balthasar’s quote, the word “cheer” refers to the material elements of a feast—the food, the candles, the decorations—while “welcome” refers to the warmth and generosity of the hosts. I realized that although I’d done my best to give my guests both cheer and welcome, my ability to be hospitable had long been hampered by excessively rough living conditions, as well as by my own curmudgeonliness as a host.
It felt hopeless to make anything but the most intrepid guest feel comfortable in my space, so I’d discouraged all but my closest friends from visiting at all. Now, it occurred to me that maybe I ought to follow Bradley’s example and let more of my friends and family visit even though nothing was, or ever would be, completely clean and comfortable. Maybe I could meet friends halfway, sharing the joys of off-grid living without so many of the perils, and we’d all be richer for it.
A few months after I read the first draft of Bradley’s book, my neighbor helped me build an eight-by-twelve shed for storing solar equipment and carpentry tools. However, as soon as the shed was built and painted, I realized the protected indoor space was much too valuable to waste on storage. Instead, I bought the smallest futon I could find and turned the shed into a guest room. I put out the call to friends far and wide, announcing that I could now host them in the luxury to which they were accustomed—by that point, I even had satellite internet and a hot shower.
This winter, for the first time since I moved onto the land, I found myself hosting a steady stream of visitors. They came in groups of two and three, meaning that some people still had to sleep in tents. However, this time I made sure that even the people sleeping outdoors had lanterns, clean towels, and all the dark chocolate they could eat. When my usual water system ran dry, I guided nightly excursions to the waterfall to swim by starlight and rinse off the day’s sweat, turning a minor calamity into a beautiful adventure. I felt that I was getting the hang of this “welcome” thing, even if the “cheer” was improvised, ramshackle, and covered in muddy paw prints from the neighborhood cats.
Intrigued by all the visitors, my neighbors often came over to join in the socializing. When it became apparent that we needed a central place for all these people to hang out, I dragged an old, defunct solar panel out of the bushes and propped it up on a pair of sawhorses to make a table. A friend of mine helped me gather flowers which we stuck in Mason jars, cut up papayas and other fruit to serve everyone, and brew big pots of tea from the herbs in my garden. In the evenings, we lit candles and sat around the table talking and gazing at the blanket of stars peeking out from between the branches of the monkeypod trees.
Over the course of a few weeks, my hermitage was transformed into a gathering place. After the last of the off-island guests flew home, I kept the solar panel table in the middle of my yard. Almost every day now, one or more neighbors will drop by to sit at the table chat, and to check their e-mail and make phone calls on my internet connection. Often, I’ll come home to find a rack of bananas or a container of steamed kalo sitting on the table, a sign that one of several people I know and love has dropped by.
Even though my homestead still consists of little more than a tiny outdoor kitchen, a guest shack, and the hut where I sleep, it is nevertheless starting to become a community resource—a place whose existence benefits people other than me. The self-centeredness that characterized my early days on the land is slowly transforming; more and more, my thoughts have turned towards how I can best shelter others, providing comfort to both neighbors and guests. I have to confess I feel richer for it; my heart filled with welcome, and my table laden with cheer.
This spring, I hope you all find the wisdom you need to navigate your own comedies and tragedies—and that your table is always filled with friends.
Sincerely,
Hilary T. Smith
Senior Editor, Hierophant Publishing
“Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.”
So says Shakespeare, whose plays and poems remain as beloved in the twenty-first century as they were in the sixteenth. For all the years between us, the world he inhabited was much like our own—afflicted by political turmoil, divisiveness, extreme weather, the fouling of natural resources upon which everyone relied, and discrimination against people who were different. The bard’s remedy for these troubles was to offer respite and inspiration to his audience through his writing.
In this book, author Kim Bradley reveals the inspirational messages in Shakespeare’s works. Every chapter is a journey through one of his most notable plays, each with actionable life lessons to be learned from his writing.
“Yes, there is sickness, death, conflict, and division in today’s world,” Bradley writes. “But there are also sunrises, starry skies, families, friendships, laughter, and love. Shakespeare invites us to enjoy the latter while acknowledging the former, and shows how balancing an appreciation for both is key to living the good life.”