“Let be”

Like Parkinson’s sufferers, Hamlet is burdened by the unveiling of the truth. In Hamlet’s case he learns who murdered his father; when I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s I learnt that my expectations of a future had been “murdered” and at the same time I knew who the “murderer” was.

It is the curse of consciousness, an awareness of the truth that unbalances and weighs down our intentions and purpose. Hamlet is propelled into revenge but he hesitates and becomes lost in an internal dialogue and remains despairingly stationary; I was propelled into mourning for myself and I disappeared into the mist of Parkinson’s, losing myself to all but my engagement with the disease.

Both Hamlet and I became kings of infinite space within a nutshell; we endlessly and obsessively examined every part of the interior of the empty nutshell we had climbed into. We only engaged with one truth and it became the sun at the centre of who we are; such focus severely burnt both of us.

In Act 5, Hamlet reaches an awareness of the nutshell itself and he changes; he no longer engages with only one nutshell: he sees millions of them scattered on the floor and recognises he can choose which one to explore. He gains a detachment and a freedom, thus dissolving the walls of the revenge nutshell and becoming king of infinite space. Hamlet describes this as “Let be”.

I hope to gain my own “Let be” as I learn to live alongside my Parkinson’s.

“The rest is silence…”