I remember when I was a child and I used to repeat "to be or not to be, that is the question" (in Spanish, of course), without knowing from where it came from. I didn't even know about Shakespeare, I have just heard it somewhere (on the TV, I guess). Then, when I grew up I learned a little bit about this quotation and its context that I would like to discuss in the following paragraphs.
After reading Hamlet's soliloquy over and over again, I have concluded that he is second guessing himself about whether to continue to exist or not; to act or not to act, as he considers that acting is being himself. "Acting involves following passion and forgetting about reason. Shakespeare chracterized this character as a man who is heavily afflicted by rational decision making as well as supporting the dramatically and alluring thought of passion versus reason" (Anonymous student from Saanag University, 2010).
Through the soliloquy a situation is analyzed. As our dear teacher said, theater is connected to life in the sense that it questions to act or not in life in general, just as Hamlet. This brought me to tell you the case of a friend of mine, (let's call her Juanita): Juanita has been in love with someone for many years. They had a relationship of girlfriend/boyfriend but it ended a few months ago because he wanted to have new experiences... Don't think that! He meant meeting new people and being by his own. Well, they are still in love, he regrets it and he had begged Juanita to be his girlfriend again. The thing is that my friend acts as as she is over him, but she doesn't! Yesterday, she told me that all she wants is to be with him again, but she prefers showing the world that she has moved on.
In that moment I remembered Hamlet, Juanita has decided "not acting". She isn't being true with herself, she has decided to stop existing and to play a character that is more convenient for her, and I totally disagree! I think that if you want to live peacefully and happy you must listen to your instinct and your heart; thinking too much doesn't allow you to be authentic and to live freely. It isn't healthy to cover your feelings and beliefs because at the end you will end up regreting not acting according to them.
"To act" means leaving uncertainty and insecurities aside. "Decision making can be explained through psychology”—a paradigm that turns attention to the difficulties attendant on rational decision making, emphasizing, most importantly, constraints on information that is necessary for good decision making. Hamlet is shown to be a case of decision making under uncertainty, where the consequences of error are unthinkable and where a decision cannot be avoided. Far from showing us a personality constitutionally unable (for whatever deep reason) to decide, the play shows us the difficulties attendant on this class of decision problems—a demonstration highlighted by the fact that those difficulties must be faced by an individual better equipped than most for decisive action" (Orbell, 1996).
Anyway, sometimes when we just listen to our inner feelings (passion) and we end up taking the path that "our heart told us to take" rather than the reasonable one many consequences arrive for the circumstancces of this prevous decision weren't considerer and everything turns up being a chaos (Celina, 2011). But, what can I say to refute that is that everything is so relative in this life, in this universe that any decision you take will have consequences (good ones, and bad ones); indeed, we could relate this matter of choices and consequences to DESTINY, and conclude that it's better to be true to yourself and do what your heart and instinct says as there will always exist uncertainty and repercusions.
So, according to this, my friend should shut up their thoughts and take control over the problem; she should take a truthful decision and stop second guessing.
Now, what are you going to do next time you have to decide something? (A suggestion: Don't be a Juanita)
References
http://www.sanaaguniversity.com/reason-or-passion-shakespeares-hamlet-example-essay.php
http://rss.sagepub.com/content/5/1/127.abstract
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Decisions-In-Hamlet-765045.html
http://rss.sagepub.com/content/5/1/127.abstract
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Decisions-In-Hamlet-765045.html
Andre, I really enjoyed reading your entry especially because it is something I have also been thinking a lot. Many times, we sit for hours to watch romantic movies and dream about people following their instinct and marriying the person they love or fulfilling their biggest dreams while we are too afraid to do anything. This is also related to what you said about theater and plays because their purpose was to make us question to act or not in real life.
ResponderEliminarI think the main factor that prevents us from acting is fear. But fear of what? Dissapoinment.And the truth is that yes, many times when we decide to act we are going to end up being dissapointed because we didn't achieve our expectations. And I think that is just life, we are never going to get everything we want but that is part of the process of growing and becoming wise.
So, the next time you or me face a moment when we are not sure of acting or not (being or not being) I think we should just try it; despite the result I think we would have learned something.
Andre, from my personal point of view, I see that Juanita is really "dando jugo" when acting a role that has been imposed by herself instead of "not acting" and being true to what she really feels and also desires.
ResponderEliminarI have to say that I partially agree with the comment above regarding the fear of dissapointments. I think that we are afraid of them because we don't really know what the other persno really feels, unless that person expresses it in an understandable way for us, and also because we want to demonstrate our personal--and sometimes non existing--toughness.
Anyway, despite the fact that I strongly believe in the deceivingness of our heart, in Juanita's case what we would need is to stop wearing a mask to pretend what we really are not and just be happy.
Thank you for sharing this experience with us, your friend is anonymously famous :P
I couldn't agree more on what you stated here! I think that we overthink everything, though. I may sound stupid now, but I do think that we are two people at the same time. On the one hand, the heart knows what it wants -which is not the best for us in most of the cases.- On the other hand, our mind knows (or at least thinks) that it knows what is the best option to take, the one that will bring us benefits. Our minds are just afraid of trusting our hearts because of what has been postulated in comments above, our minds are disappointed, maybe because of previous experiences that had been a pain in the ass (maybe) or those experiences had broken ourselves into tiny pieces of nothing; why should it be like that the next time? I do think that there is destiny or an ethereal force that, in a way, rules our lives, but I also believe that we have the power to change it and take fate in our hands as we are the owners of our lives and we know what we want, what is good or bad for us. So, I encourage you fellow classmates to take fate in your hands and why don’t believing in our hearts and our instincts? I think that to be free we should let our hearts lead the path sometimes, as some people say, if you fall down, then you will stand up, move on and try again, that is one basic rule of life that I have do not let anything to drown me, to start running I need to walk first. Make a good decision and ACT, don't play roles that other people impose you, be yourself and trust your hearts!!!! XoXo Antonella Castro Aspe.
ResponderEliminarHello, Andre! I think that your post was fantastic :) I really enjoyed it. Personally, I totally agree with you on acting over not acting. Think about Hamlet did, for example. After thinking it--or overthinking it--he finally opted "to be", to take revenge, to die...
ResponderEliminarIn regard to soliloquies, I think that they are a part of life; if you stop to think about it, we are always wondering "should I do this or do that?". Even after taking a decision, we are still wondering, questioning if what we have done was the right thing or not. Everyone has gone through a soliloquy, even myself, and I have always preferred to act over not to. Why? Because I cannot stand wondering "what if?" I decide not "to be". That being said, I am not a Juanita :) and I hope I will never turn into one.
Thanks for your post!!!
Regards =)
Hi!
ResponderEliminarI really enjoyed your post, Andre because you brought Shakespeare's Hamlet closer to us by relating it with a very common situation.
I agree with you in the fact that we need to stop putting masks to our personality and acting a role that we -or maybe society has--have imposed over ourselves. I do believa that people have to be true to themselves in order to "be authentic and to live freely," as you stated in your post.
Despite trusting our hearts and feelings, sometimes it is better to follow our instincts because overthinking situations -as Hamlet himself did in his various soliloquies --lead us to wrong solutions.
The truth is that we cannot sit in our sofa and wait for things to happen/appear right in front of us. let's be honest, nobody will do things for us, so we have to take our own future/life/fate in our hands and start buikding what we want for ourselves.
I hope you agree and thanks for this post! It was a lot of fun
P.D.: Tell your friend Juanita about the conclusions you just came to. Maybe it would help her make up her mind :)