By: Ege Akin
There is a lot to absorb from the ideologies conveyed in the musical “Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda. Having studied Hamilton and his life thoroughly for and during class, I now have started to implement Hamilton and Burr’s ideologies in my life. For my first blog post I had reflected on the importance of repetition and what it meant for the main characters’ visions. I would like to bring these lines back, since they have helped me a lot in my perspective of life. The repetition used to mainly reflect Hamilton’s ideology is: “I am not throwing away my shot” from the song “My Shot”. On the other hand, Hamilton’s rival Aaron Burr uses the repetition of the lyric “wait for it” many times, in the song “Wait for It” to convey the exact opposite opinion about reaching success. However, I have come to the conclusions via my own experiences that we can take both of these recommendations, since different conditions need unique solutions.
In order to give a right decision, every aspect of the situation must be analyzed, and all decisions cannot be made upon just a certain claim. For example, just a couple of days ago, I was a part of the team that won the American Underwater Hockey National Championship. If I hadn’t “taken my shot” when I had my shot we wouldn’t have won. In moments like these one must push himself/herself to the limit and waste no time, or else the shot will be wasted. On the other hand, due to the current political instability in Turkey, living in America instead of Turkey seems much more secure, after graduating from college. However, the years 2020 and 2023 are very important for Turkey’s economic and political freedom. Thus, this time I have to “wait for it” in order to be able to give the best decision for myself. In my opinion, there are two ways of approaching problems which one can learn from the musical “Hamilton”, however he/she must use these approaches according to the certain situation and conditions presented.
“Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda reflects its audience that neither of the two main ideologies are wrong, because they both aid their followers very much in the pursue of success. However, after the analysis of the problem and requirements, if one chooses the wrong one of these two ideologies, the end is devastating. This is clearly conveyed by the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. In the duel Hamilton holds his shot, thereby violating his own ideology, whereas Burr takes the show, also violating his ideology
of “waiting for it”. Therefore, due to these mistakes, Alexander Hamilton dies and Aaron Burr has to carry the weight of murdering a friend for the rest of his life. In conclusion, whatever your problem is and however inextricable it may seem, if you just implement the ideologies of Hamilton and Burr you will see it clearer and surpass it to be stronger than you were before.