Hamlet

Lately, I've been going through a lot of obstacles in my life. Just when you think everything might be going smoothly for once, suddenly, life throws you an earthquake. Of course, that might be a fair bit of melodramatic exaggeration, however, things are certainly not looking great for me. Well, superficially anyway.

Everyone has their own problems, certainly, definitely. Everyone of course thinks the crosses they carry are the heaviest, at least at some point in time in their life. Lately, I have been pondering the famous soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

I haven't actually read the play proper, but I remember the plot. It is a such a dark and macabre tragedy, akin to the Duchess of Malfi. The protagonist, Hamlet, discovers that his father, the King has been murdered by his cousin Claudius after receiving a message from the ghost of his father. The ghost then commissions Hamlet to avenge him. Like any loyal son, he does, and across the story pretends to fall deeper into madness. Depressed greatly by the events unfolding around him, he considers suicide and utters the above text.

He considers deeply whether it is worthwhile to succumb to all the pains and sufferings of life or to fight them to the death. How easy does it seem to simply die, it would be the end of all suffering and end of life's unjust and unfair schemes.He has even convinced himself that in suicide, true courage is found.

Somehow I wonder if I am running, alone, on a similar path. I know where it is going, but I am so stubborn that I cannot stop myself. It is most self-destructive and eschews any concerns of the future. Or perhaps, even dispels any possibilities of the future before they make themselves available. Maybe, I'm just waiting for someone to save me from my foolish stupor, though experience tells me otherwise.

I always tell my friends in similar situations that they're very lucky they don't have full knowledge about the possible extents it could lead to. I wonder where I will be heading to…

and in that sleep of death, what dreams may come….