TO BE OR NOT TO BE

a consideration by Don R. Hender

What is man's obligation to live?

Burdened Lives - Troubled Youth? Loved ones death, all life's great expectations crushed, condemned to a life of nothingness, nothing worth living for left, and the worldly powers against you?

Tis the question of the young mind of the troubled Prince of Denmark.

Is such a world of trouble, pain, and sorrow worth living in? Hamlet is a play for young adults. What is the 'rub' which causes us to cling to the 'saneness' of staying attached to this world, and not to the 'insaneness' of removing one's self from it? Listen as young Hamlet verbally contemplates whether he, himself wants to live or die.


- 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 heartache, 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 despis'd 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 these 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 rememb'red.


    - Ophelia -

    Good my lord,
    How does your honour for this many a day?

    - Hamlet -

    I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

- Answer - To be, no question to worry mind about it:

Whether intended or not, Shakespeare has fallen into the timeless justification for religion. Of all the questions of despair, here is the one of primary care, the justification, intent and purpose of the life of man above and beyond one's own selfish inward grasp at understanding.
In the moral obligation to live one's life in the purpose and design of God for man in it, there is no question here to be pondered, that is, there is 'No Rub!' Man's relationship with the eternal divine requires it of man to live and life is always the answer whether in living in mortality or living on past death and beyond eternally. There is no sleep in death for man, first his spirit released from mortality and and eventually his resurrected being combined to bring forth from earth that temporal housing for the spirit to dwell within.

There is no 'sleep of death' for the spirit of man is eternally living. If there be rest, it but from the cares of the flesh for a moments time, as the spirit's life and consciencousness continues on forever. And what is lost is that wealth of experience intented for man to have in mortal ' life of the temporal being apart from the immediate presence and direct direct influence of such a being over the agency of man. The man's right of choice, to test is he will desire of himself to choose the right. Not to be free do any and every evil think which the flesh does crave or may become enslaved to, but to learn that the choice of light and truth, that is good over evil is the only existence therein whereby man may truly be free, that is freedom from the carnal and evil realm and to live in the moral and strait ways which the celestial heaven of the divine hold prossible for a man to rise to. And there to become one in and with God in that ultimate bliss of true life of living in the caring service of love one with and unto another for the good and welfare of all.

Indeed, what drudgery and despair the unbelieving man had taken upon himself, for there in he is left unto himself and the carnal creature of the natural man. And there to be pulled down into the inward self of such a question as self murder and destruction, having left the worthy heights of the highest living for the false presumption that he may choose without penalty or consequence of his action upon his own eternal being.

And indeed without the Lord's redeeming grace of repentance and forgiveness given by God's Plan of Happiness for man, then that man is left with the curse that for sure 'all his sins will be remembered.'

- Another -

Oh, but for the 'distrations of others' is the man lost unto himself who finds his mind of his own setting, that there is nothing higher than the quantum chaos which he inflicts upon himself as the case when itself is the very argument against it in its mathematical improbability of being so for 'nil' is the answer to it.

Hamlet, within hearing of Ophelia, states the argument for living over dying. He himself is torn by his burdens whether to live or die. Isn't it curious that Ophelia removes herself from reality and commits suicide by self induced drowning? Thus in her 'orisons' is Hamlet's sins remembered, for Hamlet loved Ophelia greater than 'forty thousand brothers.'

Further, amid the many questions and themes addressed by Hamlet, I'd suggest that Hamlet and Ophelia is the thinking man's Romeo and Juliet. Review through Hamlet the relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet. Has there ever been such a story of unfulfilled love as that of loving at arms length as is Hamlet's and Ophelia's?

Dear youth, read Hamlet. Get the 'drift?'


Then for whom is our lives? Ourselves or Others?


To live or to die - that is the query?

[And Death Is Hell]



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Rev. 6 January 2014