From Hamlet to 霍元甲(Fearless)

Hamlet is perhaps the best written work by Shakespeare and one of the best in western culture. The success of Hamlet comes from the character Hamlet's indecision and a classic tragedy plot. In Hamlet, the prince Hamlet seeks revenge for his father's murder by his uncle Claudius. However, a part of his superego told him not to kill Claudius when he was repenting his sins. This indecision led to a tragedy that killed the whole family and handed the country to a foreign power. Hamlet's justification of not killing Claudius when he is praying is that killing Claudius while he is praying will send him to heaven. However, it needs serious repenting to go to heaven, and Claudius was not serious. Other reasons for Hamlet's halt might be he doesn't want to kill Claudius without being seen by others, out of pride; or he realized that the death of two kings within a short time would weaken the power of Denmark. Whatever the reason is, the events that lead to the final assassination of Claudius is the accidental murder of Polonius and the challenge from Laertes.

The story of Huo Yuanjia(Fearless) is actually somewhat similar to Hamlet despite most of the events are real. Both Yuanjia and Hamlet are from a well-known family and likes to practice martial arts. Since martial arts in China consists of challenging other big families, feuds are common. And in the one challenge to become the best in Tianjin, Yuanjia killed his opponent. This caused enmity and the son of the opposing family killed Yuanjia's mother and daughter. Without a kin, Yuanjia drowned to a little village in the country, where he finally realized that the zenith of martial arts is not beating everyone else, but conquering oneself after seven years. The ending is strikingly similar too, with a Japanese exchanged Yuanjia's tea cup with a poisoned cup after the first round of fight. Unfortunately, there is no Gertrude to drink the tea for Yuanjia, and he died after winning the fight.

The tragedies in both works are caused by failure to listen to others. For example, if Yuanjia listened to his mother and realized that martial arts is not for competition and killing, then the tragedy would not have happened to his family. Instead, it took him 7 years and the bloody lesson to learn what his mother had told him earlier.

(The blogger lost what I wrote afterwards and I lost my train of thought, so here is only partially what I thought before.)

So why do people not listen to others? A young child always listen to others. However, soon he will get conflicting comments from different people. For exmaple, what the child's parent told him might be different than what the teacher told him. Therefore, the child must discredit one of the comment and mistrust builds. Mistrust also builds when the child listens to someone else then unfavorable results happened. Afterall, he only believes in himself.

Statistically, people receive way more good suggestions from others than bad ones. I'm sure everyone can remember suggestions that lead to favorable results from friends and family members. Even strangers help others most of the time. A nice reminder "You dropped your wallet," "watch out for the car," or even "fore" on a golf course benefits you. But people remember negative experiences longer than positive ones. Although scams rarely happen, one experience can give you headaches for months. This is why people think driving is safter than air travel although million more people die from auto-related accidents than flying.

Therefore, most of the time people give good advice to others. One should "weigh and consider" the advice along with his own action plan.