To Be or Not To Be...

My Type of Place

Photo by SB

... that is the question.

Not long ago I quoted part of Hamlet’s famous “To be, or not to be” bit from Hamlet 3/1 written by William Shakespeare in a comment in Joe and Dr. L’s blog. Joe was writing about dreams and it made me think about the line.

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub

I know Hamlet was contemplating the benefits of suicide at the moment, but I was not making a comment about suicide on the post. It was just a line I thought of for that moment. Since then I've read these famous lines over a dozen times. Each time I get something new from them.

I suffer from sleep walking and night terror dreams. Every night I sleep: perchance to dream. Many nights my dreams and sleep are peaceful, frivolous and sometimes fun. Other nights, not so great: ay, there’s the rub for me. Which will it be tonight?

It has been 23 years since I really looked at this famous speech, soliloquy, or whatever its literary term is. I was a junior in high school and had lived through a close friend’s suicide (you can read about Laura’s death here). I read this play in my humanities class. Back then, I didn’t see Laura’s death relating to these famous lines. Now that I’ve added some life experience to my mix, I still don’t know if these thoughts went through her head before she jumped off the cliff.

Occasionally, I contemplate suicide. I don’t think I suffer from depression, but sometimes I wonder if my existence needs to exist. As I read through Hamlet’s contemplation over the issue, I deeply understand his questions for I ask them of myself.

... 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

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. I wonder if my friend Laura felt this overwhelming need to end those thousand natural shocks.

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

I don’t usually feel weary, but I feel life can be dreary and empty of fire and passion. When I feel this, I wonder if there is any worth or meaning in my efforts to accomplish anything. I question if my accomplishments even have meaning beyond my existence.

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?

There is the ultimate question of faith. We fear that undiscovered country from whose bourn No traveller returns. This bit is the most powerful part of the whole soliloquy for me. Of course it applies to my fear of death and the unknown beyond it. Is there some spiritual afterlife or when my spark of life goes out, is it gone from the universe?

While that question of faith and the great beyond is there, I also see the last part of it as a test to my ambitions to try anything new while living.

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Damn, that is a powerful sentiment. I am looking at one of those moments in my life. I am forty. I am doing well financially (not rich, but comfortable and protected). From the outside I have it all. Yet my heart yearns for things that “ ...makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of.”

I want to dedicate myself to becoming an artist. The creation of art is a deep part of my soul. I don’t want to create it to admired or loved (although the praise is embarrassingly pleasing). I want to create something that shows my soul and how I see beauty. This is my “undiscovered country.” Why was it so much easier at 18 to go to college and start that life change than to do it at 40?

I look at my friends, family, and coworkers and see how this fear of the unknown paralyzes us. So many times I hear them (and me) say, “I wish I could (insert dream or passion of choice here).” We are afraid of that big step into the next part of life.

Some of my role models are Dr. L, Z, Stephen Haynes, Jim, and Joe. They all have made(or in the process of starting) huge life choices that followed closer to their heart’s desires. They took that plunge into the “undiscovered country.” I hope to join them soon because I am already looking back at my life and wonder why I haven’t done it yet.

Here are Hamlet’s famous lines.

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 remember'd.

Photo note. I love the empty decay of this room. One solitary bright chair in a dead place. I plan to try to get in there and work with a model in that simple setting.

And here is Kenneth Branagh’s take on it.