Ticking Towards a Courageous Center

Hesitance works much like a pendulum does with an old grandfather clock: it swings one direction, then swings to the next, and then repeats itself. While this happens, however, it always passes a center that it never stops at. It's there for a brief, immeasurable moment, but then swings outward once more. In the same way, hesitance is a feeling deep inside that takes root in a desire for something, and yet, its root is also in the fear of it as well. It continues to closely get towards the "center," but then moves away from it. In the moments where people believe they will do something, that confidence, the center, is quickly dashed to pieces by fear of the unknown. Like the pendulum on a clock, the hesitance that moves away from the center always continues to allow time to pass, forever bound to the gears that form the flow of time.

As time wears on, however, some clocks run to the end of their ropes, where the pendulum finally stops in the center. That is because the clock has already been worn old enough to keep the pendulum from swinging. In the same way, when people finally reach closure with themselves, they stop letting hesitance become the measure of their time. Every second counted is a second wasted because people are so caught up in how time passes in their idleness when they should really be focused on what to do with their time. Even if the clock stops moving, time still progresses. The sooner people realize that, the sooner that they will finally stop focusing on how quickly or slowly time moves and focus more on what to do with their time.

Applied to Hamlet in Shakespeare's play Hamlet, there will be a time in the course of the play where he will decide when to take action and when to stop letting hesitance waste his time. Until then, the audience of the great stage can anticipate that climatic moment where the pendulum ceases to move, when Hamlet finally begins to take action against his grievances. His contempt for Claudius, his disdain for his mother's foolishness, all of them simply gears that tick closer and closer to the triumphant moment of his courage. Until then, time passes on, delaying that moment, letting everyone know that moment approaches, but never telling when it will happen.

Therefore, when do you believe the pendulum will stop swinging?