Years ago, when I taught American Literature to high school juniors, I looked forward every year to our unit on The Crucible. Not because it was an easy play. It wasn’t then and it isn’t now.
The language is dense, the concepts hard. But I knew what was coming. I knew we’d hit that moment when the play stopped being about witch hunts in Salem and started being about my students — about the whispers in the hallway, the rumors that spread faster than truth, the fear of not belonging, not being seen, not being believed.
We’d read it aloud in class. One student as Proctor, another as Abigail. The room would grow still when we got to Act III which features the courtroom scene. Chaos and accusations ensue. Girls are screaming. Mass hysteria on 17th century steroids.
Then we’d reach Act IV.
It always felt like a letdown.
No more fireworks or pointing fingers. No more drama. Just a cold jail cell, a broken man, and choices no one could fix. Some students would ask if they could skip it.
“Nothing happens,” they’d say.
Exactly, I’d think. That’s the point.
Act IV is where the truth lives. And like most truth, it’s not pretty. It’s not loud. But it means something.
And I’m thinking about that a lot lately.
Because in the attention economy, the world we live in now, there is no Act 3.
No curtain call. No softening light. No final monologue where the audience leans in and listens. Not to reply, or post, or react, but to feel.
Social media skips that part.
It moves from shock to scroll, from "you won’t believe this" to "what’s next?" And if you dare to keep living after your most viral moment — if you don’t die on cue — the feed quietly forgets you.
Joseph Awuah-Darko knows this all too well.
Haven’t heard of Joseph Awuah-Darko? He’s the guy who announced on Instagram he was planning to end his life because he couldn’t see the point of living anymore. 28 years old, suffering from bipolar disorder, an artist who by all appearances had lost his will to keep going.
He launched a project he called “The Last Supper.”
And the dinner invitations from around the world poured in. More than 150 of them.
Apparently it’s easier to show up when death is in the room. Presence becomes palatable when it’s temporary.
But he kept living. And now he’s stranded in the intermission of a play he may not have meant to write the way it’s unfolding in real time on social media. He’s still here. Still hungry. Still hoping someone will look into his eyes and stay.
And I get it.
We’re all craving that third act. The one with less applause and more truth. Less spectacle, more homemade lasagna with a side of hot, crusty bread and a wildly aged smooth-as-silk Willamette Valley Pinot Noir.
The one where someone knocks on your door with cake still warm from the oven and says: "I made too much. Sit with me a while."
But with every scroll, every “I’m just too tired to be bothered” thought, we’re ghosting ourselves out of the very thing we claim to want: Connection. Meaning. An ending that matters.
The algorithm won’t save us. Neither will the performance. We have to step offstage and into the kitchen.
Maybe that’s where the new story begins.
Not with likes or launch sequences or even “I just got a new job” announcements. But with shared meals where everyone participates. In conversation, passing the bread basket, and polishing off the bottle of wine while doing the dishes and giggling for no reason than because laughing feels good.
The curtain won’t fall for us, so we have to choose how — and with whom — we live Act 3.
Like we mean it.
Content Warning:
This essay discusses topics related to suicide and mental health struggles. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is struggling, help is available. Contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or text TALK to 741741 for support.