Books and Fate

I have finished the second book of the night. I intend to start a third.

The second book in question happens to be The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom. It was good, but it took warming up to. I don't know if it was too close to me, too overdone, or too much of anything.

Right now I'm not sure if this voracious reading is entertainment or escape.

The thing is, The Five People You Meet in Heaven is more or less a book about fate. About how you are always affecting others and lives are always entwined with one another.

And I think, now:

If my parents had not come to school here, I would not be writing in English. I might not even exist. Was it fate?

If we hadn't moved when I was five, I might have gone to my friend's current school and thus met her and possibly all my other friends. Was it fate?

If I hadn't known so many of the people I do, I would not be this person. I could be someone far different. Were all of my encounters fate?

Fate has played a massive role in my life, I think. Fate and chance. My life sometimes feels as if it's on an edge, or a dartboard. Something random. I don't understand it.

I don't get how some people I meet seem to be like fictional characters. I don't grasp how I can have two languages and almost two lives. I don't see how I - me! - got the chance to be this way.

Sometimes I feel like I don't deserve it.

Christopher Aiff, Augustus Waters, and the Great Wide World of Happiness

There's this channel on YouTube called SoulPancake. It's a wonderful channel really, but they have so much content all the time that I don't always watch all of it. However, I decided to go and catch up on some things.

SoulPancake has a lot of different "sub-shows." One of them is My Last Days, which seems to be about people with terminal diseases, mainly different kinds of cancer. And this is when, Ladies and Gentlemen, I present unto you all: Christopher Aiff.

Christopher has Osteosarcoma in his leg, just like Augustus from TFiOS. He doesn't (seem to) have a prosthesis, but he does have a scar. And he is one of the most inspiring people I've ever met.

You should watch the video, but basically, he was going through chemotherapy and just before the final treatment, he decided he didn't want to do it anymore. His family supported his decision, and at the time this video was filmed, he had six months and two days left to live.

What I really love about Christopher is 1. his charisma and 2. his happiness with the situation. Honestly, one of the best quotes from the video is:

"The decision to be positive is not one that disregards or belittles the sadness that exists. It is rather a conscious choice to focus on the good and to cultivate happiness...for happiness is not a limited resource."

Maybe "happiness" isn't quite the right word. He says himself that he would still be grateful for more time if the world were willing to allow it. But he does not moan or mope. In fact, he says -

"...when we devote our energy and time to trivial matters and choose to stress over things that ultimately are insignificant, from that point we perpetuate our own sadness, and we lose sight of the things that really make us happy, and rationalize our way out of doing amazing things."

The dying are often the most content with their situation, simply because they must be. I am quite sure that I don't realize how much I have. I am, when I try to see it, among the more fortunate people on this earth.

Ultimately, Christopher says:

"I want to be remembered as someone who did their best."

And who am I to want for more? I want so much. I focus on how I'm not good enough, and maybe sometimes that's a good thing. I live through my learning, yes. But I don't only live through toil. I live through music and art and writing and so many other things too. It is true that I am not dying, but then again everyone is dying. We are all dying, as Hazel took care to tell us. But that doesn't mean we're not living.

Talktalktalk

There are people who I try desperately to talk to and keep contact with. For most of them, it's because I am terrified of losing that friendship or connection. I'm scared that if I don't tell them what's going on in my life, our friendship will disappear.

Sometimes it's fine and they respond to me. But other times I just feel like I'm bothering them, and they would rather that I stay away.

Then of course I'm ashamed and I start slapping myself across the face. Sometimes I really feel like I need help.

Getting Back In

Recently my girlfriend and I broke up.

It wasn't a hurtful breakup or anything. We both felt it wasn't working, and that's that. Now she has a boyfriend and she seems happy, so that's good. (They're also a cute couple. Just saying.)

I'm just a little confused. Because I got so used to thinking about her quite literally all the time, and now I'm not really doing that, or not in the same way. So there's a certain silence to my thoughts right now.

I'm sad as well, don't get me wrong. Not as much because we broke up, because it was coming...but because when we broke up, I was in love with this idea of her. I don't think I've known the real her for a while.

You'd think, after reading and loving Paper Towns, I wouldn't have this problem. Yet it is too easy to assume that your consciousness is not merely a window (and a poor one at that) but a view of the whole world. It was far too easy for me to take this idea, one that had grown with being away from her and everyone, and take it as the truth.

It makes me wonder - what if the reason I felt like I changed in Israel was because everything became an idea? Who am I, and what am I, and am I happy? I'm not sure. I'm trying to understand.

I'm trying to get more into the community of my school and really love it. I'm trying to know everyone fully and imagine them complexly. I'm trying to understand whether what I see is really so reliable.

I'm also trying not to think too deeply into being sad about things, because I've realized I'm very good - too good, in fact - at convincing myself of my opinions or beliefs. I try not to think about spirituality, because it won't turn out well, and I'm fairly stable where I am. I try not to think about what ifs, because those have been known to be trouble for me. I try not to ponder others' opinions in places where it doesn't matter, so that I keep thinking the way I think rather than taking on others' opinions as my own. And right now especially, I'm trying not to think too much about depression. Because I climbed out of it with the help of semi-existent ideas, ideas which only now I'm realizing weren't precisely true or real. I feel as though I'm on the verge, and I need to stay on this side of it, because the other side is far too dark for me to see, and life is crazy enough as it is.

Mostly? I'm trying to realize what reality is, and to get back in.