Not to be, you see, is the only way to be! Meditation and the acceptance of being a 'nobody', versus the desire for social recognition and becoming 'somebody'. The difference in personal journeys to fulfilment couldn't be starker between the East and the West. Using Shakespeare as an example of Western attitudes, Subhuti Anand Waight invites the reader to wonder how the Bard could have produced so many pieces of English wordplay while thinking and being, and never not thinking and not being. Posing a clever analogy to the well-known line of Hamlet, to be or not to be, the author exposes the superficiality of Western culture and points to the deeper dimension of Eastern meditation. To be is to strive, to achieve, and to not be is to give it all up in favour of personal liberation. When Shakespeare Lost to the Plot is the tale of a witty play about the birth of the tragedy - no, a comedy, a behind-the-scenes account of presenting the play that will ask the audience the ultimate question...to be or not to be?