User:Eccence of is

Benjamin Peters “To be or not to be?” 9/25/2007

The question that changed the world

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, Th'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 th'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 undiscovered 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 pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. This soliloquy came from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. One of his most revered plays and the utmost popular among the English language. Also the longest play he ever wrote With 4,042 lines and 29,551 words, “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” was a twisted tale of betrayal and lies. But, we aren’t here to talk about the whole play, just this sililoquy written above.

Here’s the “To Be or Not To Be” speech in a nut shell according to the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer; “The essential purport of the world-famous monologue in Hamlet is, in condensed form, that our state is so wretched that complete non-existence would be decidedly preferable to it. Now if suicide actually offered us this, so that the alternative "to be or not to be" lay before us in the full sense of the words, it could be chosen unconditionally as a highly desirable termination ("a consummation devoutly to be wish'd" [Act III, Sc. I.]). There is something in us, however, which tells us that this is not so, that this is not the end of things, that death is not an absolute annihilation.” As for me, I agree with him to some extent. Of course our lives can hit a couple of really rough spots that sometimes we think we can’t get out of. But in eastern cultures like 1700 century Japan, suicide came after an act that brought on unbearable shame, and that person was happy to end their life to shield themselves from the public’s antipathetic stares and awkward looks. I think people drive other people to suicide. Today’s society is cruel and malicious. The people that can’t handle being judged and are forced to dignify their actions everyday, don’t survive, they chose to take arms against themselves and end their troubles. But, let us look at another of Shakespeare’s works, “Romeo and Juliet”. Romeo kills himself for loss of a loved one. There things in this world that some people can’t live without, like true love. I guess people don’t always cause other people to cut short their life. Some people just think it’s better to not live in this life. But to live in the next with the people they care about. Here’s another way of looking at it, “Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them.” This could mean that somebody is getting tired of being stomped on and pushed around, so they finally decide to get up and do something about it. But in the usual sense, it means to take arms against yourself and end your life in a brutal manner. Now this phrase could contribute to the “not to be” part as well as the “to be” part, “Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.” It could mean, we could lie their and eventually die from all the natural shocks this body is prone to. Or to sit there and tough it out until we see brighter days. All in all, life will have its hard spots, and life will have its brighter days. But we will always think about when we are going to die, whether we die young or whether we die old, it doesn’t matter. We will die, and if you cant be tough enough to live in this cruel and unforgiving world, by all means do what you wish with your life. I’m going to live mine to the fullest and love with all my heart. I’m tired of thinking that life wont get any better, and suicide won’t fix anything.