As I've discovered over the past few months, one of the benefits of being unemployed, from a glass-is-half-full perspective, is that you have loads of free time.  Alongside this discovery has come another (of the glass-is-half-empty variety): that an unemployed person's free time has a different feel, weight, and quality to it than a working person's free time because there's no non-free time to counterbalance it.  But unemployed or not, time is time, and, to quote Annie Dillard, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives."  Of course, Annie, of course. 

So what better way to pass the days for a nerdy bibliophile such as myself than to read through a fascimile copy of Shakespeare's First Folio (a compendium, first published in 1623, of a majority of Shakespeare's plays.  You can find a free online version of it here)?

In terms of currently existing Early Modern English Literature, the Folio isn't necessarily rare (there are ~230 extant copies, give or take a dozen), but in terms of quality, it's as good as it gets.  And now, thanks to a can't-pass-up-even-if-unemployed deal at Powell's books and a bad economy, I can fill my days reading plays penned by the finest English playwright in history from one of the finest works in English literature (okay, it's just a copy of the Folio, but still). 

What makes the Folio so incredible, aside from the fact that without it, we as a human race would have most likely lost almost 20 of Shakespeare's plays to sands of time, is that it allows modern-day readers to see and study how the plays were originally printed, quirks and smudges and nonstandardized spellings and all.  I could go on and on about the joys of reading something that nerdy bibliophiles since the early 17th century have been reading, but I'll spare you the pain and instead pick one little line from "The Tempest" that has reminded me just how relevant and timeless Shakespeare's words and works are:

"what's past is Prologue "(II.i.253)

With this anemic economy, I often find myself with my head tossed over one shoulder looking at that ever-elusive thing: the past.  And while I think reflection is a great thing, sometimes I get caught with my head turned so far around I start (metaphorically and--more often--physically) tripping on whatever is right beneath me.  But how truly refreshing is it to take Shakespeare's words to heart and view life-especially present-moment life--as one big play that is just beginning?  Forget about the past, or at least view it merely as preparation for the right-here-right-now.  The lights have dimmed, the prologue is over, the curtains have risen, and you're on the verge of breaking the silence, speaking out into the darkened void, uttering those hallowed first lines.