Random Rants

“…The dread of something after death, the undiscover’d country from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear those ills we have, than fly to others that we know not off…”

Synthesizing and untangling Shakespeare’s language, we can the understand this passage that tells us that the dread of an afterlife, of a final judgement if you like, drives us to settle with what we have, no matter how painful. But not only does this apply for “those ills we have”, but also to whatever boons we come across, whoever they might be. We hold tight to them in fear that if we let go of them and stretch out for something that appears better, we might not reach this second thing, or worse, find out that it was in fact inferior to the original blessing, knowing pretty well that our greed will have cost us this first favour. Every now and then we gather enough courage so as to venture outside of our known realms, and even if sometimes we do succeed, it is the failures that matter and remain in memory. For this lack of success makes us weary of ever attempting a leap ever again, out of fear of falling on our faces once more.