Fundamental Question That Can Determine Your Direction in Life
“To Be or Not to Be?”
We’ve all heard that phrase at some point in our lives. It’s a famous soliloquy spoken by William Shakespeare’s character, Hamlet. He was contemplating suicide. To be or not to be, to live or to die? Shakespeare wrote this play around 1601. Fast forward to 2020; are we as humans still contemplating that same escape?
Mental health and depression are still very real issues, and only recently have people started expressing the courage to come forward and raise awareness.
Shakespeare wrote that soliloquy 5 years after the pre-mature loss of his son. Those words may have been written in 1601, and maybe we’ve evolved over the years, but our brain cell structure is still very much the same. We still process tragedy the same way. We still feel that same earth crushing pain.
I think as Humans we’re always going to contemplate life and death, the bane of our exitance, and whether or not there’s life after death. It’s likely that when writing those words later to be spoken by Hamlet, that he too was feeling that same pain; conflicted with that same question. Do I live and suffer through this extreme loss, or do I “take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep…and by a sleep to say we end the heartache, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.”
Perhaps through Hamlet, this was his attempt to show a different, darker side. To bring awareness to the pain that he was suffering through. Maybe Hamlet was his cry for help. Or maybe it wasn’t. One can never know for sure what’s in someone else’s mind. It could be personal with emotional connection, or it could just be something that came to his mind.
Either way, whether those are Shakespeare’s thoughts and feelings, the fact that he has written the words at the very least establishes the understanding, that this questioning the meaning of life, is an acknowledgment of the way the mind can work, something that is easily relatable, and not only understood but is a shared feeling.
From then to now, I think we’re still in the same rocky boat, trying to navigate our way through life. With all of life’s unpredictabilities, and super high highs, and super low lows, we live in those moments. Feel those moments. The ups and downs are enough to shake anybody. And of course, make us question why we’re here, and are we better off leaving it all behind.
If you ask me, Yes. This is still the question. And it’s a natural one. So, “To Be or Not to Be?” Maybe it can also be, “To Give In or To Fight!?” And that’s a question worth asking.
