Currently finished reading John Green's 'Looking for Alaska' and I thought, why not answer his 'intentionally vague and broad discussion questions' to kill some evening time? You may find my answers irrelevant, inappropriate or just too personal, hey, I'm just citing my views as a free Internet user. So yeah, here we go:
1. Is forgiveness universal? I mean, is forgiveness really available to all people, no matter the circumstances? Is it, for instance, possible for the dead to forgive the living, and for the living to forgive the dead?
Forgiveness is given when someone offended shows mercy to the offender and puts the offense in an even state and forgets about the damage done. It can be universal and available to people, but I don't think all people forgive and just forget inflicted pain, shame and whatever negative impact a deed done to a person. I mean, would after a revenge cause forgiveness to even the offense? Sometimes it won't and would just result to a never-ending retribution of each party. And I think circumstances play special parts on prior to giving forgiveness as sometimes it can manipulate a person's decisions. Though it is tightly instilled in the Catholic faith (or any other faith for that matter) to ease the burden in our hearts and let go of these things hindering us from loving our enemies, find it very hard to grant forgiveness, especially if that person does not deserve it. As for the forgiveness in the living and dead context, no one can ever know if a dead person is capable of forgiveness nor if a dead person still exists - even just in the soul form - as I think that no one can justify of what ever happens to us when we die. The living can forgive the dead, that is for sure, if time - and other circumstances - are given.
2. I would argue that both in fiction and in real life, teenage smoking is a symbolic action. What do you think it's intended to symbolize, and what does it actually end up symbolizing? To phrase this question differently: Why would anyone ever pay money in exchange for the opportunity to acquire lung cancer and/or emphysema?
Symbolism in fiction writing depends on the author and the reader, if the author intended to have teenage smoking as a symbolic action, all we readers could do is fathom the author's imagination and understand it in his own context while if the reader imposes a symbolic representation towards teenage smoking - regardless of the author's intention - then the author cannot do anything otherwise as we individuals are entitled to our own free intellectual right.
My lungs have never experienced first-hand smoking - nor will I ever permit that - yet I've had friends who do - and contributed a fair share of nicotine in my lungs due to second-hand smoking - and shared their personal reasons to me why they smoke and can't take it from their habit. For them, it was just a passing fancy in the past, a curiosity of the teenage mind and how teenagers are easily lured by their peers, which ultimately turned into a habit that their body needed - in time it became a physiological need. Some lose their energy if they can't puff even just a stick, others lose appetite, etc. According to Abraham Maslow, in order to move a level to attain self-actualization, one must fulfill their needs in a stair-like manner. Can you connect what I'm trying to say? To these cigarette-dependent teenagers, smoking is needed by their bodily system thus fulfilling their physiological needs to attain self-actualization. Above all the things I defended for smokers, I still think they should quit smoking as it is common knowledge that it causes them more harm than good and moreover, I don't think people would pay just to die slowly and painfully, do they? Most suicidal attempts I know were fast and didn't need decades to be accomplished when you end it there and then (how morbid, I'm stopping here). But to the differently phrased question, it all depends on the smoker and his objectives why he smokes, if he smokes just to die, why not - refer to the previous sentences as I've said, it's too morbid.
3. Do you like Alaska? Do you think it's important to like people you read about?
No, I don't like Alaska. To give you a reason, I dislike impulsive and unreasonable people which was perfectly embodied by her.
Many fictional characters have toyed with my emotions and that what kept me rooting for the progress of a book, TV show, etc. It doesn't mean that if I disliked Alaska, the book appealed to me as boring or something that is not worth reading at all. I base my judgment as to how characters manipulate my emotions, if they succeed in getting the best out of my emotions i.e., dislike, infatuation, etc., I usually rate it as a good read. For me, it is important to establish a relationship with the characters of the literary piece - not just 'he's an ok character' - to really get into the zone and be one of them. So to answer, no, I don't think it's important to like people I read about.
4. By the end of this novel, Pudge has a lot to say about immortality and what the point of being alive is (if there is a point). To what extent do your thoughts on mortality shape your understanding of life's meaning?
This question has totally racked my neurons as it is the epitome of what John Green calls an 'intentionally vague' question. I've drafted a few answers and later found them irrelevant. Pudge has concatenated science with religion in his view of immortality and the point of being alive in his explanation that our bodies will eventually decay thus resulting to fossil fuels after a few millenia, will be used for industrial purposes but will contribute to the devastating effects of greenhouse gases - this being our immortality, comprising our solid phase out of carbon atoms and others in gaseous form.
Life is too short to waste; it is too precious to be unwisely used, and sometimes having experienced a loved-one die in front of you wakes us up to the sad reality of life being fragile and once lost can never be retrieved. Insofar that I have read, my understanding of life's meaning is to cultivate it, make it colorful and healthy just like a vegetable patch. (Now I think my answer went too irrelevant to the question)
5. How will you answer the old man's final question for his students? What would your version of Pudge's essay look like? (The old man's question is this: "How will - you personally - ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?")
I'd answer him through the mind of Pudge: based from how he experienced it from Alaska.
Probably, it'd look like this:
Student No.: XX-XX-XXXX
Date: MM/DD/YYYY
"Insert title here"
There are many ways of getting out this labyrinth of suffering, you can have it the 'straight and fast' way, or you can build your own world within the labyrinth and conform with the suffering, or you can just choose it. And I quote: "Pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice". We choose whether to make our lives miserable, or to make it comfortable; we choose whether to inflict ourselves with the burden we are not supposed to bring or just to accept our mistakes and go on with our lives. Life is a labyrinth of suffering if we choose the wrong decisions; Adam and Eve chose suffering by disobeying God and so we too have the freedom to choose suffering - as it may have been one of the plagues brought out when Pandora opened the box given to her by Zeus - yet another sign of disobedience.
To end my irrelevant essay, I'd like to quote a Buddhist belief; "When you stopped wishing things wouldn't fall apart, you'd stop suffering when they did."
(My last question was done at around 1 A.M. in the morning - explains my lack of interest to expound the subject matter and I'll give my book review after I get a good night's rest)
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