Soliloquy

I've always been a big fan of shakespeare, and I find myself constantly amazed at how talented he was. But again and again, I find some things about him less than genius. Such as:

Whenever characters have speeches by themselves (hence the title). I know that theatre is not real life, and that you need to learn somehow what all the people are thinking. Soliloquies do serve a purpose, but that doesn't make them any less annoying to me. No one does that, but even more so they tend to be boring. of course, there are definitely some shakspe-philes who will burn me at the stake for this but I can't stand them.

or:

The new evidence every so often saying that he didn't make it all up, or he stole the plotlines from someone else, or that he made errors in his writing. I almost don't want to listen to these, I would prefer to have never heard them at all. Is that irrational?

I normally have a strong policy that I want to know as much as possible. There is very little I don't want to learn: in the cheesiest way possible, knowledge is power. Why someone would turn down an opportunity to learn something new is usually incomprehensible to me, and yet in a select few circumstances I could understand. My idols, for example. not that shakespeare is my idol. But other writers, actors, just people I like in general. Discovering something negative about them is always such a conflict to me. I can't help wanting to know everything, but if you have looked up to someone for a considerable amount of time, only to learn that they, I don't know, cheated on their wife? beat their children? Could you honestly tell me that you would be glad to know that?

I don't think I would be. But at the same time, I would be unhappy not to know it either. There's a difference between total ignorance and lack of knowledge: if I never heard rumours or whispers about, say, Douglas Coupland's sex scandal (don't worry, completely hypothetical) I would be happy and unaffected. But if I heard it somewhere, then of course I would try to find out as much as possible. A perverse fascination drives us all, we cannot help wanting to know more, even if it isn't the best thing for us.

Oh, and sasha: we'll agree to disagree about karma. I feel like bringing back the random words: set. It has a good many definitions (the most in the english language I think), let's see which jumps into your mind first? I believe there are 137 different meanings; which is the first for you?