To be or not to be?

Question

That is the question?

Answer 1

to be. everyone that isn't probably can't answer the question anyway, right...? :P

Answer 2

80% of humanity, the religious folks, don't need to ask the meaning of life, the church tells them....the supernatural explanation. But the rest of us can't swallow religious dogma, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that there life after death, that people are tortured or rewarded after life or that there's invisible spirits running around.

I've come to two conclusions recently:

1. Life has no meaning
2. Life has a million meanings.

First, there's a certainty that death and annihilation awaits not only you, but the Earth in general. It's an astonomical certainty that our sun will supernova and leave the earth a burnt crisp, not to mention all the other extinction level events around the corner.

Second, the million things that give us meaning are the pleasurable experiences we can conjure up during the short period we are here on the earth, in the form of the relationships we have with our kids and other people, and the 'housekeeping' types of purposes. What i mean by that are the curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, preventing war, helping other kinds of things.

So the bottom line is, we only have a temporary meaning to life, to reduce pain and increase pleasure, other than that everything is lost to oblivion.


To be or not to be? "To be" is temporary and "not to be" is inevitable.....

Answer 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambition

Maslow's primary contribution to psychology is his Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow contended that humans have a number of needs that are instinctoid, that is, innate. These needs are classified as "conative needs," "cognitive needs," and "aesthetic needs." "Neurotic needs" are included in Maslow's theory but do not exist within the hierarchy.

Maslow postulated that needs are arranged in a hierarchy in terms of their potency. Although all needs are instinctive, some are more powerful than others. The lower the need is in the pyramid, the more powerful it is. The higher the need is in the pyramid, the weaker and more distinctly human it is. The lower, or basic, needs on the pyramid are similar to those possessed by non-human animals, but only humans possess the higher needs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow

Answer 4

As I stood upon a hill to envisage the immense watery expanse of the ocean, the great wide yonder stretched in front until it merged at the horizon with the blue skies above, I wondered, and thought to myself does it ever end … and then for several moments I became an endless space myself. Then one day, I found myself in a meadow full of wild flowers and wandered for hours like wafts of fragrance aimless. I have also seen the dexterous studios artisans in the streets of the city at engrossed in their work creating masterful artefacts of great beauty and skill. Then there are the courtiers who stand observant by the kings, the shrewd men of law and implementation of justice, wise men who brood upon the nature of all things, soldiers who stay vigil through nights upon the boundaries of their country, the lovers who contemplate their love perpetually, the businessmen who work like bees, and mothers who look after their children tirelessly through the nights and days of their labour of love.

What we are to be if not what we thing, see or do? To think is to promise to be what we think, to see is to wish to be what we see, and to do is just to be what we do. Then not to be would be an impossible being without ever thinking, ever seeing or ever being able to do anything - to be is not a matter of choice, but the way to be is, and there is nothing beyond in being.

Answer 5

That is the question

Answer 6

"To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered 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 of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."

I think it deppends on what your trying to be, and what you want.

Answer 7

Yes, unfortunately that is still the question. I wonder what the question will be after people finally make up their minds about this one.

Good luck!

Answer 8

Cogito ergo sum. Unless it's just a vision dreamt up by some purple daffodil.

Answer 9

Whether to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or take arms against a sea of troubles. (I think). My Shakespeare's a bit rusty.

Answer 10

To take arms agaist a sea of troubles?
And by opposing, end them.