To Feel Or Not To Feel

Emulation of Shakespeare's Soliloquy 'To Be Or Not To Be' from the play 'Hamlet'
By: Jake Jollimore

To feel or not to feel – that is the question:
Whether ‘tis more gentle to be numb
And devoid of all emotion,
Than to face this wicked mental pain
Amidst the violent commotion.

To cry, to feel foulest hatred—
No more – and by shutting down moral thought
Destroy the part that makes weak and frail our minds—what beats;
The organ sweet—
‘Tis but flesh and blood
A soul within there’s not.

To ache, to feel—
To feel, constant; without rest. Ay, there’s the con,
For in constant feeling one will surely err
When we are thinking too much in depth
Must we—we must—do wrong.
That creates the weakness in feeling.

For who wants the mind to be logically bereft,
Clouded by morals,
Waning amidst the pressures of life ev’ry day,
The soul always crushed, making matters far worse,
Destroyed and dark in an invisible tomb,
Torn and ravaged by what other souls have wrought,
And the searing rage
That burns within and is as a contagious infection,
When are they filled by my
Rage explosion; noisy expulsion?

Who blocks the pain of every day,
To yell, whimper and want to leave this foul existence,
But that the horror that something may be missed while floating,
The days that pass wanting our presence and
Rich words unspoken
While the others mourn for a bit,
Wishing we had stayed around
Instead of seeking that ultimate calmness?

Thus the chance of losing life and face does close off this blazen trail,
And thus the rest of silence sweet
Is tainted by the guilt we would be consumed by,
Before the deed was done with; complete
With this regard the chain will go on
And lose not life in favor of a soul to lack.

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