Our Conscience Makes Cowards of us All: What Hamlet Tells us About Inaction

It is one of the most famous quotes in the English language. It might bring you back to the classroom; “To be or not to be, that is the question”. Nearly every native English speaker knows it. But, beneath the labyrinth of Shakespearean English, what does it mean? 

Now, a slight disclaimer is in order. I am not a scholar of Shakespeare, and there are more qualified analyses of the play's meaning. But this is not an exploration of the play's meaning per se. While I cover that, I explore the lines, quotes, and themes that caught my attention. More importantly, I’ll highlight how they capture the need for pragmatic resilience in forging the life you want.

The story is that Hamlet’s Father (the King of Denmark) dies suddenly. Claudius (Hamlet’s Uncle) marries Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, so Claudius becomes the King of Denmark. Hamlet’s Father then appears as a ghost to tell Hamlet that Claudius murdered him. Hamlet, somehow, has to process the fact his Uncle murdered his Father. Then, to top it off, his Father’s ghost appears to him and calls to avenge his death. 

Amidst his mental whirlwind, Hamlet then says the famous quote:

“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.” 

Hamlet kicks it off by contemplating his life, and potentially suicide. He weighs up existence (to be) vs non-existence (not to be). But it’s what follows the famous words that are particularly interesting. 

“Whether it’s nobler…to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. 

Amid his mental abyss, Hamlet still acknowledges life for what it is: outrageous fortune. That’s put mildly. Statistically, our existence is miraculous. Within the last 150 years, you’d be lucky to make it out of childhood alive. In 1800, the child mortality rate (Children dying before their fifth birthday) was 329 per 1000 births. Approximately 1 in 3 would die before children turning 5, compared to 4 in 1000 in 2020. Our ancestors faced Plagues, Warring Tribes, Famine, and Natural Disasters for thousands of years. There is an unbounded list of reasons for you not to be here. Yet, here you are reading this. Regardless of how you interpret your life circumstances, that’s fortuitous. 

However, Hamlet isn’t championing his life here. He’s doing quite the opposite. He laments its suffering. It’s statistically improbable, miraculous, but it’s suffering nonetheless. But Hamlet isn’t the only person who thinks that. Buddhism is a major world religion with over 520 million followers, and one of its core teachings is that life is suffering. Dukkha, which roughly translates as Suffering, Uneasiness, or Pain is the first of the Four Noble Truths in Buddhism. All Four Noble Truths mention suffering, the cause of it, and how to absolve yourself from it to reach enlightenment (Nirvana).

Central to the Christian teaching is that one must overcome worldly suffering through Christ to achieve eternal life. 

(That could be a whole exploration in and of itself, so at the risk of going off-piste, we’ll get back to the original point of suffering being an inevitable part of life)Hamlet echoes an age-old notion that to live is to suffer. In other words, suffering is an inherent part of our lives. So, the price to pay for living is suffering. And one must be courageous in facing and overcoming the suffering,

In life, there are inevitable moments of misfortune. The sudden death or illness of a loved one. Tragic accidents. A lockdown that costs you your business. These are what Hamlet refers to when he says the slings and arrows. An inherent feature of life is hardship and suffering. 

That said, this isn’t to trivialise or wave away genuine hardships in your life with a lazy “that’s life”. We are human. We feel these terrible experiences embedded in our existence. Some are awful and even insurmountable. But, accepting trials and tribulations as a necessary part of life invites us to have a broader perspective of our current challenges. It's easy to mistake temporary dips for inescapable graves. 

Now, returning to the quote. 

Hamlet then goes on to say: 

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 pith and moment

With this regard, their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.”

I read this repeatedly to try and translate it from Shakespearian complexity to more tangible modern English. As I slowly cast away the layers, I began to unearth the profundity of it. 

Hamlet grapples with whether to act on the ghostly call to arms or to yield to his self-defeating mind. He is stuck. He struggles to execute his vision due to the constraints he places on himself with his thoughts. 

Hue means the colour or character of something, and resolution in this context means resolve or determination. So, it describes an intrinsic determination that resides in you. Similarly, Pith is the essence of something, and Enterprise in this context means a project or undertaking, particularly a bold one.

With the menial mapping of antiquated English out of the way, a poignant message emerged. In short, he says his thinking deterred him from achieving something of deep personal significance. Therefore, he loses the name of action and risks not achieving what would be a monumental personal achievement. And, linking it back to his reference to courage, the decision not to act in response to an overzealous conscience is the definition of cowardice. 

Hamlet's predicament isn’t exclusive to him. It’s everywhere. In particular, the symbiosis between procrastination and perfectionism. I am sure you're all too familiar with having an idea about something but not knowing where to start. So, the easiest thing to do is to do nothing. 

Something that transcends the rationality of thought and resonates emotionally. It could be anything. You might want to take up acting, and someone else might want to volunteer in a humanitarian crisis overseas. Each person might understand why the other would want to do it, but it will not resonate the same with them.

It means different things to different people. 

But, often, people do not do the things they want to do.

The human brain is crafted for survival, to keep us safe. So, the fear of the unknown is deeply rooted in our psyche and governs our actions enormously. So, if someone wants to act, not professionally, just going to an acting class, it introduces many challenges for the rational mind to overcome. The fear of change, the fear of judgement, perfectionism. Manifesting as “What if they don’t like me” “What if I’m not any good” “This was a stupid idea” and “I ought to focus on something more serious, this is a waste of time”. 

Consequently, a deeply held determination about something very personal is extinguished by thinking. Rationality dowses a personal flame and stifles a desire that begets thought. It can convince you not to do things rightly or wrongly. Hence, we lose action. Our “Conscience makes cowards of us all”. 

It does not exclusively apply to pursuing achievement or a hobby. A bitterly common one is people staying in relationships that effectively died a long time ago. Both people are unhappy enough to know they are unfilled but content enough to stay together because it’s too risky to break up. Better the devil you know, after all. 

“Thus, the native hue of resolution,

Is sicklied O’er with the pale cast of thought.”

This quote is even more relevant today. The opportunities we have today would have been unfathomable in Shakespeare’s time. For most people, life was set in stone. If you were born in an impoverished village, it's where you would likely live, work and die. Social mobility was not possible in the way it is today. Today, in the digital age, opportunities are endless (in the West at least), and that's a good and a bad thing. It’s great that we’re not resigned to the life of a 16th-century peasant when where you are born is where you will stay both geographically and socially. But too much choice can often be a bad thing. Freedom of choice can readily metastasize into being overwhelmed by choices and scared to pick the wrong one. A 2000 study by psychologists Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper found that the higher the amount of jam choices the customer had, the fewer sales. In his 2004 book The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less Barry Schwarz argues that having too many choices leads to decision fatigue and ultimately dissatisfaction. 

This abundance of choice is one of the key reasons why more young people have no idea what to do with their lives, which we’ve discussed previously.

So, it’s easier than ever to overthink and rationalise yourself out of doing something. We neglect our ideas: The business idea, the book we wanted to write, and so on. I am sure everybody has a project they’d like to do or wish they had done. Personally meaningful goals stifled by reason; “The pale cast of thought." Colourless thought that roots us into misdirection or, worse yet, inaction. Being stuck. 

However, our natural aptitude for something, and our tendency to be vigorously passionate about something, helps steer us. Friedrich Nietzche famously said, “The man who has a why can bear almost any how." Unearthing this why can only come about through the arduous and ongoing process of self-inquiry and self-discovery, as Hamlet underwent. Again, we have discussed this previously. Discovering that provides a powerful shield of resistance in these challenging times discussed above, the slings and arrows, the thousand natural shocks, and a powerful engine in our lives generally to move us forward.

As we have discussed, adversity is a necessary part of life, and challenging times will inevitably fall upon us. Devastating events or circumstances will occur that we cannot control. Being aware of the inherent difficulties in life fortifies us to navigate ourselves out of these inevitable troughs. Taking responsibility for the direction of our lives gives us the steering wheel rather than being at the mercy of our circumstances. 

Our rational mind is an essential part of our existence and survival. If you stood on the edge of a cliff and believed you could fly, your rational mind would rightly point out the absurdity of the idea and dissuade you from doing it. That healthy conscience is why we’ve survived as a species for as long as we have. 

The example above may be an exaggeration, but picture the rationalisation needed to invest in a business. An investor calculates how they can get a return on their investment by studying various metrics like the company's valuation, growth, revenue, etc. After all, it's an entire profession. If an investor didn't rationalise or deliberate on these decisions and didn't do a thorough study of the numbers, you could assume they would lose their fortune very quickly. They arrive at a level of calculated risk before deciding to invest. 

But any significant undertaking, any achievement involves confronting an area of yourself that tells you don’t want to or can’t do it. 

Acting on the thing that burns within us, despite the reasoning of the conscious mind often pulling the reins. Acting despite the rationalisation is courage. The rationalisation isn’t a trivial fleeting thing. Its voice is loud, persistent, and above all, persuasive. That’s why acting despite it is the noble act that Hamlet describes. Noble because you not only act against your reasoning mind, which is wired for survival and comfort, designed to keep you safe. You open yourself up to the slings and arrows of life willingly and to suffering. But, in doing so, you live. You allow yourself to live. 

Hamlet’s contemplation offers no easy answers, but it asks a crucial question: Will you choose to be or not to be? Will you let fear hold you back? Or will you embrace the suffering and opportunities that lie ahead?