With the deaths and burials of my grandparents these last few years, I have had more exposure to the military than I have in all the years pervious. An army does have great mass and charge and to lead them effectively does require delicacy and tenderness. I’ve been reading the West Point Alumni magazine and in it I learned about the ways that institute strives to create effective leadership.
I also read an example of a student leader who stepped in to relieve underclassmen who needed some reinforcements on some task.
Leading a group of people to a war over an eggshell or a scrap of worthless land doesn’t feel as though it’s very good leadership.
Not delicate. Not tender.

At my grandmother’s burial, we stayed after the service to watch her interment.
Her ashes were in a sealed box and they were going into the ground. Under the grassy tarp, there was a board, covering the hole and a pile of dirt. A pile of earth.
I suppose a pile of earth meant to cover someone’s earthly remains might be seen as gross – but it didn’t seem that way to me. There was, in fact, something poignant about that pile of earth. It sat. Patient. Waiting for my grandmother’s arrival. It was in no hurry. It had a delicacy, a respect somehow. And once the crew had placed her box in its box and lowered it all into the ground, a man with a shovel moved the pile back to the hole from which it had come.
In this high tech world, it is somehow moving that it can still come down to a man and a shovel. We can hide on the internet but our end is still a man and a shovel. As it ever was.

Many decades into my life, I am finally getting a sense of what it might be like to have all these things lined up – to really be able to accomplish all that I want to. For me, all that’s stopping me, is having a plan of action. Because you can have all the resources you like at your back – but until you know what step 1 is, it is very hard to proceed.

In Hamlet’s case, the thing he wants to accomplish is, essentially, a murder – so it’s not as if he’s really failing hard here –
What he’s failing to do is commit a crime and mortal sin.

Again, I think of how critics have taken Hamlet’s self talk so at his word. That because Hamlet suggests his not killing Claudius is ¾ cowardice, Hamlet must be a coward.

Which misses the ¼ wisdom. And also the point – in that Hamlet may question himself, as do we all. He may equivocate, contemplate and call himself a coward but that doesn’t make him one. If calling one’s self something made one that thing, Donald Trump would truly be a great man. And I would be a magical dragon. Because why not?

This is as good a plea for using our brains
As any.
Someone made us with this extraordinary capacity to think and learn and grow – we couldn’t be so rude as to not do those things. Even if it’s only evolution that made us it still seems silly to allow such gifts to lie dormant to fust in us, as it were.

We have a use it or lose it system. We have the great capacity to learn anything but if we don’t use what we have, our brains quickly shut down all unnecessary action. If we don’t get busy thinking, we might lose said ability to think clearly.

If we don’t use our limbs as much as we can, our limbs will lose their ability to move as much as we can.
If we don’t grow, we shrink.
That’s why I became a Feldenkrais practitioner.

The book I’m reading features a group of furry aliens that sing. They seem like beasts…like creatures that are brutal and pure instinct but then they sing. And singing may be one of the most non-beast like activities there is. I mean – maybe, like, embroidery or something would be more refined. But singing is this incredible civilizing force. It’s hard to imagine a singing creature as only a beast.

For better or for worse, I feel this question is rather deeply intertwined into my sense of self. I am a big fan of sleeping and eating, there is no doubt about that. I would never want to do without either of those things. But. I am highly attuned to having a sense of purpose. I am motivated by making something of my time on earth, to suck more marrow out of life. So while I love sleeping and eating, it feels incredibly clear that the chief good for me is in the making of art. The Chief Good is a really wonderful way to put this idea as well – it’s such an elegant way to talk about priorities.
One’s chief good does not exclude other goods – it is simply the chief one.

This makes me think of the difficulties we get into if we take a character’s view of themselves as the view on a play. For so many people, this play is about a wimpy or passive guy who fails to act decisively …but that’s just Hamlet’s opinion of himself. That’s taking his thoughts about his own experience as objective or face value. Lord knows I wouldn’t want anyone to judge me based on my self talk. We, most of us, have a much lower opinion of ourselves than others have of us. Except Donald Trump. I’m sure he does to bed at night telling himself he’s great and tremendous. But he surely doesn’t believe himself deep down in that orange tanned heart.

It’s a shame that Hamlet doesn’t just take off running from here – that he can’t somehow send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on ahead and then book it out of there, or put on a disguise and join the Norwegian army or whatever. Like – if he escaped here instead of later, during the pirate attack – maybe Rosencrantz and Guildenstern wouldn’t have gotten on the boat and they wouldn’t have had their letters switched and they wouldn’t have been executed by the King of England. I mean – I guess I mean it’s a shame for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Obviously a pirate rescue that includes a letter switch and ends with an execution is a much better story.

I would love to have this kind of authority. To be able to say to those sent to control me – “Go on ahead. I’ll catch up.” And have them do it. With my socialization, I’d be all like, “I’m sorry. I need a minute alone. I mean, if it’s okay with you. I mean, it’s fine. No never mind. I’ll come with you now.”