King Lear: The Cons of Living

The experiences had by the characters in Shakespeare's King Lear show what living is. Living is not always a positive experience as evidenced by King Lear’s struggle throughout the play. First, he loses his power to daughter’s that never loved him and then he loses the only daughter that did indeed love him. Living is about the good and the bad, existing doesn’t involve either of the two, it’s a numbness that allows you to survive without feeling joy or pain. Shakespeare expresses the cons of living throughout this play. Not only with loss of love, but also with loss of life, power, and sanity. Gloucester loses faith in his son under false pretenses and his paranoia drives him to the point of insanity. Though Gloucester acts nobly in showing loyalty to Lear his actions have horrible consequences which cause him to get his eyes gouged out. Lear’s loss of power over his Kingdom leaves him to go insane as well. He’s so far gone in fact, that the fool is portrayed as a wiser man.
All this loss shows how living can be a dreadful experience at times. Fortunately, without all these hardships, we wouldn’t realize the good things in life as well. Honestly, I believe we’d take the good things we’ve got for granted if we didn’t witness hard times as well. As Curtis Jackson once said “Joy wouldn’t be so good, if it weren’t for pain.” That’s why living is so much better than simply existing. You feel it all. Existing you feel nothing, you just are what you are with no sense of pleasure or anguish. To me, that’s misery. Imagine a joyless life and see if you agree.