Lucifer’s Question
To be or not to be? That was Hamlet’s question. When I was young, I would get a strange feeling if I looked over the railing of a balcony or bridge. In those situations, I could feel the nearness of death. It wasn’t that it felt dangerous. There was no risk of accidentally falling. But there was the potential to jump, and that scared me. Even though I didn’t want to die, I had a very small desire to see what it was like. I wondered what it would be like on the way down. What would my last thought be? I also had a very small desire to get just a little bit closer to death. I wanted to lean over the railing, and maybe even climb over and then climb back again, just to see what it felt like. Death is a great mystery, and I felt a slight attraction toward that mystery. Hamlet’s question is really just about timing. We are all going to die eventually. We don’t have the choice to live forever. But we do have the choice to end life now. So, in a sense, we are choosing to exis