To Love Or Not To Love

Life and Death are one; as are Love and the Sea.

"Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love".
-Dean Koontz

Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” dilemma has gone down in history as not just Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy, but probably the most famous soliloquy of all time. And to the credit of words, there always has been certain magic to melancholy and defiance to despair. I think I could coin this ‘proverbial continuity’. For, considering that the subject of my last blog post centered on dilemmas, it seems as though we pick up right where we left off (albeit a few steps off-track).
Or do we?
Yes, life is riddled with dilemmas. And so was Hamlet’s. If not his struggle between life and death, morality and sin, that provided context to the play, it was his struggle to love or not to love Ophelia. If Oblivion was all that there was at the end of the tunnel, then why love?

“Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the sun doth move; Doubt truth be a liar; But never doubt I love.”
I like to believe that Hamlet meant these words. And I like to believe that there really is a point to this dilemma- because love, in an instant, gives us the hope in the existence of something beyond the oblivion.
And so, I decided to pen down my own version/tribute to Not-Just-Hamlet's-Dilemma.

To Love Or Not To Love-
To love or not to love, that is the question:
Whether 'tis stronger in the heart to suffer
The Bullets and Arrows of Cupid's adjudication
Or to wear an Armour on this battlefield of Amoré,
And by defending, end it: to love, to grieve
No more; and by love, to say we love
Half of our heart, and a thousand beautiful memories
Our minds are captive of? 'Tis an emotion
Devoutly to be prayed for. To live, to love;
To love: maybe to succeed, Ay, there's only one reason;
When we may lose ourselves in their embrace,
A momentous pause, there, time stands still
And makes worthy of so long life;
Alas, none can bear the sweet vicissitudes of time,
The ticking crocodile's wrong, the melancholic lover's anguish,
Desolate unrequited love, a confession's delay,
The tolerance of the wait, and the hurdles
That patiently they must overcome,
With the possibility that they themselves might quietly make
A glorious future, a love to die for,
To love for life, to breathe for love,
And that the archaic awe of a fairytale,
Would no longer be undiscovered reality from which
No lover returns, that strengthens thy will,
And makes us survive this fire that burns within
Eternally; the flame mightily rages on,
The quest does make brave-hearts of us all;
And thus the red hue of a blush,
Becomes a darker rouge with thought and time,
Arcane memories of great secrecy and love,
For love's regard, are forever,
In the hope that one day, they are meant to be.