For the Time Being, pg. 1 – 108

“It made me sad when I caught myself pretending  that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit.” (Ozeki, pg. 25)

Though I am not the first to say so, life and death are certainly large themes in this book. But I think of the two, the better theme thus far would be life, and how Nao chooses to use hers. It has been stated more than once that she intends to end her life, but it’s rare that someone suicidal intends to do something before they actually kill themselves. It makes Nao’s decision seem like a labor of love, a persuing of activity, a connection to life. “I just have to do one thing” is kind of like a way of saying that you don’t necessarily want to die. Likewise, it’s a way of detailing all the small aspects that you don’t normally recognize. It’s my hope that by the time we are able to finish Nao’s story, her book, the end of her life, that hopefully she won’t have any desire to actually die anymore. Maybe in a roundabout way Marcel Proust will save her time.

When I saw the quote that I have at the start of the post (you’ll have to forgive me; it looks a bit nicer having it on the top like that), I couldn’t help but think about our actual blogs for this class. I know on Monday nights, much like I am writing currently (it’s 11:25pm as I write, this post due in about 34 minutes), many of us scramble to make sure that all of our posts are in by 11:59pm. I’m guilty of this every week myself. But it made me think of all the posts that end up lost in the clutter, never actually noticed, let alone read and replied to. It gave me a new perspective on this whole blogging thing, considering I was never much of a blogger to begin with. A bit like Nao, I never saw the point.