Or Not To Be

Be not afraid. Our focus piece consists of a mere 262 words. Certainly you have given thought to the subject of life and death since that sophomore (lit, wise fool) encounter with Hamlet's Soliloquy. Rejoice in knowing, with the translation of a few obscure words and after a lifetime of experience, it is no longer the intimidating piece you might recall from your high school English class. We are finally ready to conquer the territory, marked on the maps as There Be Dragons, that is labeled Or Not To Be.

We’re not entirely sure whether Hamlet was speaking as some twitching depressive over the recent murder of his father or engaged in general philosophical reckoning when he wondered aloud in his Act 3 Scene 1 speech about taking arms to oppose all the slings and arrows in that sea of troubles and to simply die, to sleep. How simple it would be, with a bare bodkin – a knitting needle – to be shuffled off this mortal coil (Elizabethan word for the fuss and bother of life).

But then, he says, there’s the rub (a lawn bowling term meaning an obstacle on the turf that diverts the ball’s trajectory) that makes us pause about going down this one-way street to the unknown. Indeed, conscience – oh yeah, there’s that – does make cowards of us all (not to mention certain other Beliefs that would condemn one to Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell).

Anyway, by the end of the soliloquy, he pulls himself out of this reflective funk by deciding that too much thinking about it may actually prevent such contemplated action. Life may be burdensome and devoid of power – just count all the things that annoy him – but, in the end, such lack of power prevents us from actually taking action for fear of the unknown.

What thinkest thou?

A couple of years ago, while shoveling snow, I found myself face down on the icy pavement. The issue was not so much the fall – it was actually more of a slow, twisting, controlled collapse – as it was the weakness that precipitated it. The residual effects after years of once-active bouts with multiple sclerosis had left me with an awkward, lurching gait along with a susceptibility to a profound lower-body collapse. The onset is normally signaled in advance.

Not this time. I was left pinned to the pavement without the means to regain my footing. The greater the struggle, the greater the exhaustion. There in the cold came the thought of simply relaxing into the moment and letting nature take its course. Another part of the brain then kicked in to fashion a body maneuver – resembling a newly-hatched chick emerging from its shell – that managed to bridge those twenty feet to the patio door.

The event sparked no panic at the time and only later did it strike me as having been a Hamlet moment.