Kalanithi's Bento Box

Hello. I can assure you that this is going to be one of the blogposts of all time.

Today, I'm going to write about When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. After reading this book, I gained a newfound appreciation for doctors. Don't get me wrong; I already had a high level of respect for doctors to begin with. I mean, after all, they are the most educated citizens in our country. But Kalanithi's perspective on life and his search for what makes life truly worth living is something philosophical.

The (pretend like they're real) binoculars represent Kalanithi's search for the purpose of life. Throughout the novel, Paul was a meticulous planner, who carefully planned out a future for him and his wife, where he would be able to explore the worlds of both literature and neurology in order to find what made human life so special. Especially after getting diagnosed with cancer, Paul continued to make the most of his time left on the Earth by accomplishing his mission.

The baby represents Paul's daughter, who he was only able to spend 8 months with. However, at this stage in Paul's life, the baby was all he needed. Some of his final words, the message he leaves behind to his daughter, is "do not, I pray, discount that you filled a dying man's days with a sated joy, a joy unknown to me in all my years prior."

The feather, which is also present on the cover of the book, represents the "airiness" of how people perceive life. Life is compared to breathing is the title, as just like breathing, people treat life as if it's an automatic process. We never take the time to appreciate life, and instead, treat it as something for granted. It isn't until we're about to lose it that we truly appreciate just how great life is.

Finally, the mallet represents the malleability of Paul. He is an adaptable man, and he constantly has to change plans and visions based on the road bumps that come along the way. He has gone through the pressures of being both a neurosurgeon, as well as a cancer patient, but even with these challenges, he comes out of them stronger than he was before.

Comments

The Elephant in the Room

In 2018, The Washington Post stated that school shootings were "a uniquely American crisis," and they're absolutely right. An old proverb states that "fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me." But is there any proverb for a country that's been fooled more than 1,300 times? The United States is one of the only countries in the world where our leaders time and time again do not understand the benefits of gun control. In April 1996, Australia had one of its worst mass shooting events ever, in which a man killed 35 people and wounded 18 others at the popular tourist location of Port Arthur. And what happened after? The country created the National Firearms Agreement (NFA), which banned the ownership of automatic and semi-automatic and ended up destroying more than a million firearms. Just recently, in 2019, New Zealand banned semi-automatic weapons and magazines with more than ten rounds after the Christchurch mosque shootings. However, none of t...

The Cookie Cutter Model: Preying Off America's Weak

One eating environment that I grew up relatively familiar with was Burger King, the infamous "home of the Whopper." Before I continue with the rest of this piece, one thing I would like to praise Burger King for is its relative honesty. The moment you step into the front doorway, you get exactly what you are paying for. There's no sense of false pretentiousness about it. Take one look around, and you can immediately tell that you have stepped right into a microcosm of corporate America. You're greeted by the sight of workers and cashiers, many of whom are being forced to survive on the minimum wage. Take a peek into the kitchen and you can see, firsthand, the standardization of the food that will be served to you. Pop a patty on the grill and pull it out to serve the people. This process is repeated innumerable times every single day. In fact, it's repeated everywhere as well. Every Whopper made here, in Troy, Michigan, is the same as a Whopper made in Kenya or A...

Talking Tamil

In class last week, we looked at two different interpretations on what it felt like to be an outsider society. We read Firoozeh Dumas's piece on what it meant to have a foreign name in America, and David Sedaris talked about how it felt to not understand French in a French class (with a scary teacher as well). I also feel that in some ways, I can relate to these two authors. I grew up speaking Tamil, just as the rest of the members of my family had done. I never went to daycare like other children did, so my only exposure to English for the first four years of my life was the television. With this in mind, you can probably tell I never really had an American accent growing up. In fact, when watching old videos of myself, the first thing that stands out is the heavy Indian accent I had. I never really saw it as a bad thing. One thing you should know about me as a child is that I loved talking. I didn't care who I was talking to or what I was talking about, all I knew was that I...

Nothin' but Nihil

Search This Blog