A Commentary

"To be, or not to be..."

Choice makes man imperfect, my friends say. Give a donkey two piles of hay and he'll die starving before he can decide which he should eat first, Buridan says. Funny how this is reflected in so many of our everyday activities. A restaurant menu and a shopping mall's collection and a presidential election, for example. But we don't like not having choice either for all the obloquy we heap on choice. It is a complicated thing, this life of ours. And I don't pretend to understand. It is just that it would be easier if someone told us exactly what we had to do but they sat only on the advisory committee and not on a decision-making board. If the choice were offered to us, we can always choose not to be at all on the committee. But that is illegal if you don't succeed in getting out quick enough.

"...ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come"

My friends sometimes snore in their sleep. I think this indicates they are having a good, dreamless sleep. I wish I snored too. I don't. And I dream the most painful dreams sometimes. They are not nightmares but they are frightening. And then they wake me up at all odd hours of the night. If only I knew I wouldn't be rudely jolted awake by some painful nightmare, I wouldn't mind sleeping. As it is, I need to coax myself into sleep every night. It is a bitter, ironic, painful thing. But what can I do? I still am hoping to get the 'X marks the spot' dream so I can get rich.

"The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office..."

I am not a big fan of the institution of marriage. The social strictures are too much a strain. It is even more complicated when the Immigration Office is involved. A friend had to go to great lengths to prove his love for a woman to the Officer, who wouldn't accept they were married. Then the whole thing got delayed on some technicalities even though he had a plane to catch. Finally, when the visa did come it was pretty peremptory in tone. It is a commentary on the human social culture, I think. Human association below the seriously physical layer is bound to be a problem. In fact the list of wrongs owing to all the elaborate setup perpetrated ostensibly for man's good can be extended indefinitely and I sometimes just want to shoot myself rather than go through with the whole mess.

"...conscience does make cowards of us all"

I think I am too squeamish when it comes to doing what I want. It just does not do in this world and time. Only children and cowards can afford to stand by and watch with mouths agape while men, real men would toil. There is always something or the other that tries to hold us back, the truth even sometimes; but progress is not something we can compromise. There is only one way - ahead, and if we become all too worried about mythical creatures like the Winged Mortal Destructor, we will just stay put in our suburbian homes watching nonsense TV and reading maudlin poetry. What is needed now is action and not conscientious objectors who would ruin the whole show. All this he explained to me. But I ran away when he brought out his fiery red book with the obscene pictures in it.

"...Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd"

Madness has a natural claim over me, I think. I am not sure but it has been a while now since last I looked in the mirror. I fear what I will see. A shaggy beard and a head of unkempt, unruly, disheveled hair maybe. Sunken eyes and a shallow countenance. But that does not matter. What matters more is that I have forgotten to beg. That is more important. Everybody begs or needs to beg once in a while to remain sane. It requires courage to beg of other beggars and yet we find lots of people who do it. They beg and grovel and sometimes we don't even know they were begging and groveling. It has all been refined over time. Then there are those who, cowardly, beg in their private chambers, of imaginary beings. They cannot beg with a straight face or stand manly in the face of their weakness but have to go down on their knees and beg with averted face. There are other beggars even more deluded who use the wrong formulas, who beg the way they command, hoping nobody recognized them for what they were. They often beg of people who would not give, who would not condescend even to acknowledge their pitiable submission and they break themselves. But all these beggars remain sane. Begging keeps them sane. And I have forgotten how to beg and so I cannot beg. But I have always been forgetful and unassuming and so I think I was made for madness. I can only hope someone else goes down on their knees and begs for me to restore my sanity. But that of course is selfish of me.