【早安英文】To be or not to be

To be or not to be Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famous in all theliterature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when hewas thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words inShakespeare because Hamlet was speaking not only for himselfbut also for every thinking man and woman. To be or not to be,to live or not to live, to live richly and abundantly and eagerly,or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. A philosopher oncewanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a goodquestion for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: "I think, therefore Iam." But the best definition of existence I ever saw was one given by another philosophy who said: ” Tobe is to be in relations." If this true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. Tolive abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our relations. Unfortunatelywe are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regular occupation howmuch are we alive? If you are interest-ed only in your regular occupation, you are alive only tothat extent. So far as other things are concerned--poetry and prose, music, pictures, sports,unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs--you are dead. Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest--even more, a newaccomplishment--you increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in a large varietyof subjects can remain unhappy; the real pessimist is the person who has lost interest. Bacon said that a man dies as often as he loses a friend. But we gain new life by contacts, newfriends. What is supremely true of living objects is only less true of ideas, which are also alive.Where your thoughts are, there will your live be also. If your thoughts are confined only to yourbusiness, only to your physical welfare, only to the narrow circle of the town in which you live,then you live in a narrow cir-conscribed life. But if you are interested in what is going on in China,then you are living in China~ if you’re interested in the characters of a good novel, then you areliving with those highly interesting people, if you listen intently to fine music, you are away fromyour immediate surroundings and living in a world of passion and imagination. To be or not to be--to live intensely and richly, merely to exist, that depends on ourselves. Letwiden and intensify our relations. While we live, let us live!