Saturday, 3 January 2015

"To Be or Not to Be?" Is NOT the Question

A few months ago, I came across the famous Hamlet soliloquy. I've always had that ubiquitous mental image of Hamlet holding a skull and asking: "To be or not to be?" but I had never read the whole section (or seen the play for that matter...) I had heard the quotation cited endless times, but without never fully understanding its meaning. At face value, yes, but not the deeper meaning of the question. This time, when I read the soliloquy, something "clicked" inside my brain. I felt its meaning in a way that went down to the essence of my bones. 

After Judy's comment on the previous post, I realise that the question is not whether "To be or not to be?" but rather how to be?
How to exist in the wasteland that appears after you take the "Red Pill"? How to live without letting it take over or define your entire life?

There are no easy answers to these questions, no shortcuts, no one-size-fits-all solutions. Nobody can give us the answers: they are as individual as our circumstances and personalities. We're going to have to find out for ourselves...
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8 comments:

  1. Judy3 January 2015 at 23:55

    You're right. We, each of us, on our own, decide HOW TO BE. Do we accept personal responsibility to become who we want to be in spite of how we were raised to be? By accepting personal responsibility, we choose for ourselves, and it is, indeed, individual.

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  2. jessie4 January 2015 at 03:36

    That is so true. It is very difficult to navigate a new direction after no longer following the "same ol' rules" of N-engagement. Being in the driver's seat of our lives can be overwhelming.

    On a random side note, one of my favorite Pearl Jam lyrics (that related to this passage, I believe) "Oh, and do I deserve to be? Is that the question? And if so, if so, who answers.....who answers?" This lyric always struck a chord with me and it seemed to sort of relate here. Clearly the only one who can answer must be ourselves.

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    1. Kara4 January 2015 at 16:41

      Very fitting lyrics. It's a good question: Who answers? Yes, ourselves.

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  3. Calibans Sister4 January 2015 at 10:35

    This to me has been the most challenging part. Thinking about their motives, feeling everything associated with their Narc behavior, took up so much mental space over the years that once we really stop caring, it looks like a long Nebraska plain. That is very disorienting, how much free space is made available to feel other things; but part of the problem is that in cutting free from them at long last, there's been some inevitable deadening of feeling. Or numbness perhaps.

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    1. Kara4 January 2015 at 16:43

      I guess it must be similar to having a very highly demanding, highly stressful job and then not knowing what to do with oneself once one finally musters up the courage to quit.

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    2. Calibans Sister4 January 2015 at 18:56

      I think so. A feeling of being at loose ends, of not knowing exactly what makes us up. A feeling of being somewhat unconstituted.

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  4. TR21 January 2015 at 15:27

    Insightful post and comments. There is, after leaving behind 'how to be' with our FOO, an opening. That opening, in general, looks freeing and at the same time, I feel an immense amount of fear. Like I can't reach out to grasp anything. It is like the Nebraska plain, as CS mentions. I remember I went out to Wyoming once and we were driving towards mountains and we were on this long two lane road with nothing but open land. It was flat and at that moment, that open space felt overwhelming to me. Like I could choke from its vastness. xx

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