To Be or Not to Be

Kriti
2 min readApr 20, 2020

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The wonderful line presented by Prince Hamlet’s soliloquy in Shakespeare's Hamlet-”To be or not be, that is the question”. Here the prince is skeptical in choosing between “to be” that is “to suffer the arrows of the outrageous fortune” or “not to be” that is “to sleep forever in the arms of the mother earth.”

But is it really a question?

My take on it- the question is unhelpful. “To be or Not To Be” is, in fact, a wrong question.

Asserting that the question is wrong may sound kiddish. Surely, the answers can be wrong, or even the assertions, views, hypothesis can be wrong. But how can the question be incorrect?

In reality, the question is wrong when the supposition is wrong. All that the question consist is something unknown and something pre assumed. Say, for example, if I ask you what’s the time right now? In this case I had already postulated that you are having a watch, and that you know how to read time and that there is something called time! If I ask what’s going on in your mind? I had already surmised that your wooden face and deserted eyes are the basis of my question.

This pre assumption may or may not be correct. Say for example, if I ask you at what time you will drop me off to home, I would wrongly pre suppose that you will be helping me out. Likewise, if I ask why you loathe me, I might wrongly assume that you do. So, when the presumption is wrong, the question is wrong. Wrong question may direct wrong solutions, that’s why asking with the right basis is non-trivial.

I believe that Hamlet’s “to be not to be” is also a wrong question. One wrong basis is that we only have two options: To Suffer or To Die. However, there was the other face of dice which wasn’t explored- to fight courageously and turn the tables.The third choice what we call was missing in this presumption.

But this is a fictional tale.

Therefore, the other way is to curtail the problems by facing rather than running. It is disappointing that people choose to end their lives rather than facing them. In the life dynamics, courage, bravery and fearlessness is what one needs at critical situation. A problem has many solution, and what road we choose decides our faith.

Hamlet didn’t have the third way, so the end was unhappy. But many of us have it, the only requisite is to open that box which has at last the happy endings!

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