Final Blog of the Year

* What did you learn about yourself as a reader from creating and keeping up with your blog?

Oh god, I learned a lot this year about myself as a reader. First off, I learned that I love reading, I love the way the words seem to come together so fluidly together on the page, the way an author can spin a tale out of thin air. I love that. I knew I loved writing, I knew I liked it for all the same reasons I liked reading, but this time it was me. The one thing I don’t like is writing about reading, there are so many thoughts that can fly through your head all at once about a good book, thoughts that don’t come together easily. They are never as fluid on a page. For me at least, I’ve got a lot of ideas about books in my head, but I find that when I write about reading it just doesn’t do a book justice.

* Do you think that teenagers abuse the freedom that being online gives you on sites like Facebook?

I think that as teenagers at this age we’ve been given the freedom of most of our lives to have these online media sources that other teenagers throughout the past haven’t gotten the chance to have. In some ways we are lucky because on the internet we can be more connected to our friends and we have more sources of entertainment. However, in many ways we are unlucky. Because we feel so privileged, free, and connected on the internet sometimes it can feel like a personal place, even though it’s the World Wide Web. We end up bullying people on these social media sites and doing things we wouldn’t do in the real world because we feel like there are no consequences on these sites.

* Can you imagine yourself keeping up this blog or creating another one?  What would it be about?  What's your opinion of blogs in general and why?

I don’t know if I would be able to create a blog pertaining to anything else. Some people do blogs on their lives because they actually have things to talk about, however because I’m a teenager and haven’t had any worldly experiences mine would be uninteresting. Some do something on topics of expertise; I’m no expert in anything. Some people take pictures or post things online that they’re proud of. Maybe someday when I’ve got an interesting life, maybe someday I’ll take pictures or write, or I’ll be a world renowned expert in some amazing topic that I’ll want to blog about. If blogging is still a thing, that is. Someday I may, but that day is not today.

Life of Pi

            The book Life of Pi by Yann Martel tells the story of a young man named Pi Molitor Patel who is shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean and left on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra, and a Bengal Tiger. One by one each creature is eliminated from the boat until it is just Pi and Richard Parker, the tiger. A large chunk of Life of Pi focuses on religion and the many questions that come with belief in a higher spirit.

            Pi faces his first challenge against religion when talking to his trusted teacher, Mr. Kumar, as a young boy. For all of Pi’s life, he has been devout in his beliefs with no one to challenge him. But as Mr. Kumar talks with Pi, Pi sees for the first time that faith is not the only way to see the world. Mr. Kumar calls religion darkness, stating that there’s no reason to believe anything but our sense experience. No proof that an afterlife exists. Mr. Kumar says, “Reason is my prophet and it tells me that as a watch stops, so we die. It’s the end.” Pi leaves the conversation confused and slightly worried that in just a few sentences Mr. Kumar could have destroyed something that he loved, infected his beliefs the way a virus takes over. But Pi does not lose faith; in fact his beliefs are stronger. From this, Pi learns that it is natural to doubt life and faith, but you must move on. “To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

            The first religion he finds is Hinduism, a religion defined by the dictionary as the main religion of India which includes the worship of many gods and the belief that after you die you return to life in a different form.  The second is Christianity the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies. For Pi it is hard to wrap his mind around these two faiths. In Hinduism each incarnation of God is almighty, obviously more powerful than its people. In Christianity, there can be found a more human side of god, Christ, a man who spoke the word of God and sacrificed himself for the sins of others; something Pi has a hard time understanding. He once compares Christianity to Hinduism saying Christianity is “a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expresses itself in the instant. In a moment you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now.” Islam, the religious faith of Muslims including belief in Allah as the sole deity and in Muhammad as his prophet, came last. In an encounter with all three religious heads, a priest, an imam and a pandit, it is found out that Pi has been practicing all three religions faithfully. When criticized, Pi says, “I just want to love God.” Later, he goes on to compare the religions, “They both claim Abraham as theirs. Muslims say the God of the Hebrews and Christians is the same God of the Muslims. They recognize David, Moses and Jesus as prophets.” Pi realizes that many religions are similar, but they hold different values higher.

            Through Pi’s journey both on land and stranded we as readers get to see how religion helps Pi cope with life. Religion is a challenging issue because many are skeptical, like Mr. Kumar. To put faith into something with no proof can be very nerve wracking for some, something that I myself have struggled with. Pi never doubts his faith, and instead embraces multiple cultures.  He sees that there are many different takes on “correct” beliefs and decides to incorporate them all into his. After reading Life of Pi, I felt that my eyes were more open and were able to see connections between religions I had not noticed before. Ultimately, I believe that religion is a very personal thing. Much of what you choose to believe tends to depend upon personal values that you hold higher. When it comes to differentiating actual religious groups, a lot of it is based on the same scriptures and the same ideas, but it is how different people interpret texts and depends upon what different groups hold higher.  I’m glad I read Life of Pi, as I felt that it made me think a lot about a wide range of topics and question things that I hadn’t before.