Giving up. . .

Giving up is not something that comes very easy to me, if you ask anyone who knows me they'll confirm this I'm sure. After being through the things I've been through including but not limited to living homeless on the streets, spending a year in the toughest prison in Illinois(which okay we're not California and it's not Azkaban, but still Menard is no resort) then being Diagnosed with not 1 or 2 but stage 3 brain cancer I've been pretty well conditioned to NOT give up NO MATTER the circumstances.

So today I have been forced to give up on helping a friend. . . My problem here where most people find it completely okay to give up and stop trying to help a friend when they refuse to listen is that I look at the situation as if it were me. I would never want a friend to give up on me, it's happened in the past and it's devastating. But then comes the point of "It's hurting you" which okay it does hurt seeing a friend continually make a bad choice while ignoring all prior advise and forewarning. But it reminds me of a quote from one of my favorite movies "It is foolish to listen to someone who will not listen to you."

That is what it comes down to in the end I guess, you can listen to their excuses for their actions all day but what is the point in listening to their reasoning if they will not listen to yours? Also as mentioned earlier it causes emotion pain, it's not easy watching a friend suffer, and because they're a friend, as much as you might like to, you can't really turn around as say "I told you so. . ." no that would be kinda dickish if we're being honest(which I can't help but to be). But the biggest issue becomes putting your own well being before your friends, by giving up I'm admitting that I care more about myself and my own well being than I do theirs. . .or at least that's how it seemed to me at first. Who am I to put my life before anyone else?  My issue here is. . .although I'd almost rather not admit to it. . .I'm a christian so I believe Jesus sacrificed himself, his life to save not just the lives of those who followed him at the time, but to save even those who placed him on the cross. He gave everyone a chance at redemption yet here I am complaining about some shed tears and hurt feelings. Seems kinda selfish to me.

My whole life has become a WWJD situation (Wait everyone does still know what WWJD is right? What would Jesus do? Never know, I've met people who haven't seen Boy Meets World) but back to the point everything I do I have to think about that first and in this situation I don't think he'd give up. . .but then again I'm sure Jesus had better powers of persuasion. So it comes down to me giving up on a dear friend who I can no longer attempt to help. She has chosen her side I guess, and yeah it hurts, but the pain stops here.

What I've realized. . .and I guess what the point of this chaotic ramble of a blog is, is that it's okay to give up TO A POINT. I've found it's okay as a friend, or loved one, to let a friend make mistakes no matter how bad or possibly life threatening they may be. Sometimes you just have to let people learn for themselves, that's what mistakes are, learning experiences. Your job as a friend is to be there IF or when things go bad, be there for support, time and time again, not matter how many times they make that same mistake, STICK BY THEIR SIDE and helkp them to their feet. It's like I once told a friend "If he breaks your heart I'll be here to help pick up the pieces and ut it back together for the next guy. That's what friends do, you can't always make the choice, but you CAN always be there to help pick up the pieces.

So in the end it's not really giving up completely, just giving up on trying to help, not taking the blame for someone else's mistakes. . ."If I'da just tried harder I'da gotten through to them maybe" you can't go through life thinking about the what if's. . .if you do you'll never move forward. Life isn't meant to be a series of moments rewound and relived over and over again. Everyday should be exciting and new, something different, something wonderful. Sometimes it won't be, there's nothing you or anyone else can do to stop that, BUT sometimes it will be. Some days will be tragic and make you doubt your future, others will be amazing and inspire you. Live for today, but prepare for tomorrow. Live for your friends and family, but not through them. It's okay to try to help other people, in fact it's probably better to, but you can only do so much. You can't let a friends failure reflect on you as your own, all you can do is your best, all you can do is try. If you've done that then be happy with yourself because you've done more than most would.

Remember regret doesn't remind us that we did badly it reminds us that we can do better. I hope I've somehow throughout this post been able to get some kinda point across, but either way I'll end this as I do every post. LOVE EVERYONE, including yourself, remember to ++SMILE++ and most importantly LIVE LIFE, I love YOU. The One and Only: John Holt YO!!!

English Final, Eye for an Eye

For my first blog I'm just posting my most recent paper written for my english class, I think there are some good point missed in the play Hamlet and hopefully I do a good job of shedding some light in those dark area's. I promise more original and more uplifting posts to come :D

The Eye of Hamlet

      It doesn’t take much attention to see the eye for an eye theme in Hamlet by Shakespeare, a play about revenge where in the end everybody dies. It’s a classic theme but in Hamlet it is taken to an extreme, to say the least. But the difference between Hamlet and  other plays which incorporate a revenge theme is the “Eye for an Eye Leaves Everyone Blind” concept. Hamlet is the story of a boy whose father has been murdered by his greedy uncle, after the murder Hamlets father’s ghost appears to him and tells him to seek out revenge on his murderer. Hamlet then spends the most part of the play setting up ways to prove too himself that his uncle truly is behind the murder. When he’s not plotting another way to prove this to be true he is struggling with his inner dialogue about whether or not revenge is the best course of action.  In the end Hamlet’s revenge plot eventually comes to light. He has his revenge and this leads to not just everyone being blind but everyone being dead. An eye for an eye was not good enough for Shakespeare instead he really had to hammer in the idea that revenge is not the best course of action. A life for a life will leave everyone dead, this is the true theme behind Shakespeare’s Hamlet, not just revenge but the idea that no one wins in when it comes to revenge.

      One of the most intriguing concepts of the play is that the theme is shown long before any action is taken. Just the mere plotting of revenge takes a serious toll on Hamlet throughout the play, he begins to distrust everyone, even those who he feels deeply for such as the beautiful Ophelia.

In the Bloomsbury Dictionary of English Literature they point out:

 “Hamlet's hostility extends not merely to Claudius, but to the whole court, in so far as they are or may be subservient to Claudius. Thus Hamlet behaves brutally to Ophelia (the girl he loves) because he suspects (although she is entirely innocent) that she is being used as a kind of decoy by Claudius and by her father, Polonius.” (Para. 4)

His distrust of Claudius eventually leads to the death of the one he loves.

      Throughout his famous speech Hamlet struggles with his inner dialogue and the question of life or death. “To be or not to be: That is the question.” (III, i, 56) One of the most famous lines in all of history and the beginning line from Hamlets soliloquy from Act 3 scene one. He first struggles with what seems to be the idea of his own suicide, but he never actually mentions this in the first person so it comes off more like the general question of whether or not it is better to live for revenge or die and be done with everything.  During this speech he struggles to decided which path to choose, should he continue suffering from the loss of his father or should he just let things go? “Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.” (III,i,83)  He says later in the speech showing that he also struggles with the moral consequences of his plan. Hamlet realizes that revenge is not morally correct but he at the same time he feels as if he owes it to his father to avenge his death. To avenge his father and accept the consequences of his actions or abandon the quest for vengeance and fail his father, that is the real question.

      The first case of this eye for an eye is a bit peculiar though, the first person Hamlet kills isn’t anyone really tied to the revenge plot, instead it’s Ophelia’s father Polonius. In act 3, scene 4, line 25 unknowingly Hamlet kills Polonius because he was hiding out in the arras while Hamlet confronted his mother the queen. “Is it the King?”(III, iv,28) Hamlet asks after he stabs through the curtain and his mother questions what he’s done, but it was not the king it was Polonius. This was merely an accidental kill, Hamlet even says after that he thought better of him, but takes no blame for his death instead blames it on Polonius saying “Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!” (III,iv,32) What Hamlet does not realize though, is the avalanche this has started, not long after this kill Hamlet is sent off to England by the king. While Hamlet leaves for England Laertes discovers his father has been killed by Hamlet and decides to follow down that same road of revenge which ultimately results in the death of just about everyone including a few innocent characters.

      Shortly after he leaves Ophelia, the woman Hamlet loves, kills herself due to grief from her father being killed by the man she loves. It doesn’t help that the man she loves has also recently left the country to go to England. Hamlet does not know of this at first though because he was on his way to England. Instead he is merely on his marry way back to the castle thinking of nothing but his plot for revenge. But when he arrives back he runs into a grave digger and after some poetic exchanges between himself and the digger he finds out who the grave is for as the funeral procession arrives. “What the fair Ophelia!”(V, i, 210) he exclaims upon finding out that his love has passed away, this reveals another revenge plot. Now our clever Hamlet isn’t the only one with a dead father and a plot for revenge, Laertes has joined this group with the intent of killing Hamlet to avenge his father and his sister. So now one death, the death of Hamlets father has led to two more deaths and one more plot for revenge. Laertes in all actuality has more to avenge than Hamlet, he is out to avenge his father and his sister, not just an eye for an eye in this instance but two lives for one. So with three already dead how many more must die before people realize that maybe death is not the answer but the consequence.

      Death is a common theme throughout the entirety of this play and although it is jested with during the graveyard scene towards the end of the play it is never shown as happy and never has a good outcome for anyone. The reader could argue that the King benefits from Hamlets fathers death but with the way the play ends this is proven wrong.  In the scene in the graveyard when the gravedigger jokes with death Hamlet almost immediately brings the play back down to earth when he takes the former jesters skull and speaks about how he knew him and inevitably misses the man he played with when he was a child. Although it is taken lightly death is not seen as okay or as rewarding in this case. It is hinted to throughout this entire scene that when it comes to death for whatever reason, revenge or not, no one wins when someone loses someone.

      Another good point is made by Indira Ghose in Jesting with Death: Hamlet in the Graveyard “Hamlet is obsessed with his own identity, with plucking out the heart of his own mystery, with uncovering the truth, both about the past and about himself. Who or what is Hamlet is one of the infinite questions that resonates through the play.” Is he a coward who cannot avenge his own father, is he morally right in not taking vengeance, or is he a good son and going to take vengeance whether right or wrong. “Revenge, however, makes action problematic, for, though it would insist on the singularity of the villainy it would punish inevitably it duplicates the crime, dissolving all difference that could effectively motivate action in its inescapable imitative nature.” (112, para 3)  Is a point made by David Scott Kastad. Not only is there an eye for an eye problem but there is also the moral issue. Hamlet fears that by taking revenge he will become no better that the man who murdered his father. Also for the majority of the play Hamlet hasn’t even proven to himself that the king is a murderer.

       All of this leading up to the point mentioned earlier where he reveals himself at the graveyard too Laertes who has now decided that he too needs to avenge his father’s death vows to kill Hamlet for the death of his father and now Ophelia as well. It is now time for Hamlet to discover who he truly is, with no choice in the matter he is forced to dual Laertes. So now they face off, the two to dual to the death, one for vengeance and the other to continue his quest for vengeance.

      In the end all are dead, with the exception of the innocent Horatio who is instead left grieving for the loss of his best friend. But Horatio isn’t the only innocent character who was forced to suffer for Hamlets quest for vengeance. The Queen, Hamlets own mother, is left dead as a casualty of this quest along with Ophelia who died earlier on in the play. The reader wouldn’t necessarily be wrong in including Laertes and Polonius in the count of innocent people whose lives were given for this quest for vengeance. Would either of them be dead if not for Hamlets quest for vengeance? Now the reader can’t leave all the blame on Hamlet since the King did kill his father, but it is without a doubt Hamlets actions which lead to all of this bloodshed. Does Hamlet now have the answer to his question, To be or not to be? Was his quest for vengeance truly as required as he made it out to be? Was it worth the lives of everyone?

            In the end Hamlet has indeed finished his quest for vengeance, but at what cost? Was this truly a noble cause? The cause was noble but the act was not, it would have been much nobler to prove the king had killed his father and bring him to justice. Hamlet spends half the play proving it to himself anyway. By the end of the play it is obvious that an eye for an eye leaves everyone very blind. A play that begins with the question of whether a death was accidental or murder ends with a complete body count of seven, all because of one man’s quest for vengeance. In the end it is proven that vengeance is a selfish act which bears to winner but instead many losers. A life for a life will leave everyone dead, the rest is silence.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this much more than I did writing it although it wasn't as much of a nightmare as I thought it would be. Thank you for reading ++SMILE++ LOVE EVERYONE!!! I love you. The One and Only: John Holt YO!!!