Time itself is a never-ending cycle, however; our time as humans on Earth is finite. Both “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse and “If God Existed, He’d Be A Solid Midfielder” by Aleksandar Hemon portray the importance of time, showing how patience and contentment is acquired over time. Although each reading incorporates characters that experience moments of unease, losing a touch of their passion and goals, their interpretation of time differs; Hesse portrays time linearly while Hemon views time circularly. Siddhartha seeks Enlightenment by taking the road less traveled, a Western belief ironically chosen by Siddhartha despite his residence in the Eastern hemisphere. Similarly, Hermon displays pursuits of the Eastern belief of time within the Western …show more content…
Failure to capitalize and make efficient use of one's time can be a major obstacle in achieving your primary goals or seeking what you’re most passionate about. Both characters are ineffective of their time or distracted at a point in their lives. In Siddhartha, his journey for Enlightenment becomes cursed once his path converges with Kamala by the river. She introduces Siddhartha to exotic temptations, providing him guidance to learn the art form of seduction and allowing him access to her temple to practice them. However, Kamala set a few conditions that Siddhartha had to overcome prior to being taught the art of sexual healing. Everything he accomplished during his time as a Samana collapsed in a matter of years, his Samana characteristics began to fade away as he starts to value object more than people. Eventually realizing his body was in a state of unease, Siddhartha knew his goal of reaching Enlightenment was further than ever. Similarly, Hemon experienced his state of instability shortly after migrating from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Chicago. In that short story, he describes himself as an athletic person while he resided in Bosnia while he enjoyed many alcoholic drinks and smoking two packs a day. However, his situation was different after his arrival in Chicago. His health began to deteriorate due …show more content…
Hemon’s belief that time is circular is an Eastern concept. The reader of the story can interrupt that his “backwards” thinking was his only real connection to home in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which is located in Eastern Europe. He looked to makes his experience in Chicago feel like home, by recreating moments that he had in Bosnia. The only possible way the author could recreate these repetitive moments in his life was through soccer. Moment of transcendence highlights how Heman looks for these moments in life that constantly reoccur. His moment of transcendence are when he’s on the soccer field, every time his team put a ball into the back of the net, he feels the universe converged together to make the goal happen. Soccer was his outlet to make new connections and friends while feeling like he was back home in Bosnia. Eventually finding a venue where he could play pick up soccer games every Saturday and Sunday, he became accustomed to that routine for years until the games stopped occurring. Hemon perceived time on a weekly base, looking forward to his fixated schedule; slight deviation of schedule gave him anxiety. Even in his absence, time will continue on, pick up soccer games will continue to happen and those willing to attend will be present there. The notion that time is circular can also be seen in the story as well, after immigrating to Chicago he went years without playing
Every teenager and young adult wants, at least to some degree, to go out and discover themselves. For some people, that means going on extreme adventures of self-discovery. Two such men that go on these types of adventures are Siddhartha and Chris McCandless (aka Alexander Supertramp). While one is fictional and one entirely real, their stories are both very eye opening when it comes to the topic of really living and finding yourself, and the way that these two men did so was both very different, yet very much alike. They are very similar in the way that nature had a very, very important role in both of their lives, as well as in the way that both of their emotional/mental states were not always one hundred percent stable. However, the fact that McCandless had a very inadequate upbringing and had a negative reaction to social life compared to urban life, while Siddhartha had a very commendable upbringing and did not hate society with a burning passion, really shows how different these two men really were.
“What could I say to you that would be of value except that perhaps you seek too much, that as a result of your seeking you cannot find.” (113) Siddhartha, a book written by Hermann Hesse, is about this young boy who throughout the book grows to an old man who, throughout his journey, seeks to attain enlightenment. He comes from a Brahmin family and later decides to become a samana and lives in the woods with his “shadow”,Govinda. Siddhartha is distracted with obstacles throughout his life and ultimately finds a way to conquer them.
Through writing on more than one level, Hesse has created a literary masterpiece that is
There have been many teachers in one’s lifetime, some more important than others. These teachers and instructors affect different people in different ways, and lessons are learned that are important to prepare for real life situations. In the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, a young Brahmin named Siddhartha is not content with his current spiritual self. Siddhartha is directed to spiritual enlightenment and Nirvana because of his guidance and teaching from Kamala, Kamaswami, and Vasudeva.
New ideas derived from self-reflection enable us to develop in ways that are spiritually linked to the future. The inexorable passage of adulthood is established by the motif of time, indicating that life is continuously moving forward. The personification of time “guiltless minute hand” suggest that time is not responsible for our future, but we are. Additionally, the dysphemistic personification of “time was killed” foreshadows the cessation of childhood. Eventually, the
The fragmentation of the novel is used to illustrate the Tralfamdorian's perception of time. "There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects”
You go outside on a beautiful sunny day, it's gorgeous outside in the daylight you’re enjoying yourself often playing on your own wandering around and you are completely aware of your surroundings. Suddenly it turns pitch black, it's nighttime. You’re lost and frightened, completely alone you stumble not completely sure what you are doing. Without the help of a few travelers and your own “gut” decisions, you're able to make your way back into the light. Like a weight has lifted off of your shoulders and you are freed. Similarly with the story of Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse, which tells the tale of a young man, Siddhartha, a respected son of a Brahmin who breaks away from traditional way of Ancient India on a journey to find inner peace
In Siddhartha's quest for enlightenment, Herman Hesse makes the river the final focal point of the novel. Siddhartha is set on his journey to the river by listening to his inner voice and questioning authority. The river comes to represent the ideas through which Siddhartha reaches enlightenment. The essential concepts of time and how it relates to life are discovered by Siddhartha through listening to the river. He comes to realize that his previous conclusion is correct, wisdom cannot be taught. When he reaches nirvana, he also sees how spiritualism and materialism both have a place in the cycle of life. Acting as Siddhartha's inspiration to his ultimate goal, the river
In the departure phase of his journey, Siddhartha completely shuns both internal and external desires and lives a more than humble life. During Siddhartha’s conversation with his father about leaving home, Siddhartha’s father, “returned again after an hour and again after two hours, looked through the window and saw Siddhartha standing there in the moonlight, in the starlight, in the dark” (11). Hermann Hesse’s use of dark and light imagery, emphasizes Siddhartha’s stubbornness for his desire to go with the Samanas, whose religious ideals are severe self discipline and restraint of all indulgence; he is adamant about leaving home, as his father checked on him countlessly and Siddhartha stood there unwavering despite the many hours and change of daylight so he could earn his father’s blessing to live the lifestyle of an ascetic. Furthermore, Siddhartha travels to the Samanas with Govinda to destroy Self and the multitudinous amount of desire by quelling each desire and all together Self even though he knows it is a difficult goal to achieve, “Although Siddhartha fled from Self a thousand times, dwelt in nothing, dwelt in animal and stone, the return was inevitable” (16). The effect of Siddhartha’s multiple attempted destructions of Self as a consequence of living as a Samana are failure in his attempt to discover Nirvana. Moreover, Siddhartha travels with Govinda to the Buddha after leaving the
Unlike many people he treated business as a game and did not stress over his failures and did not praise his success. As a result, Siddhartha was able to go from “rags to riches.” Over time however, Hesse writes, “Gradually, along with his growing riches, Siddhartha himself acquired some of the characteristics of the ordinary people, some of their childishness and some of their anxiety” (77). Though Siddhartha envied them for the one thing he lacked, the sense of importance with which they lived their lives.
Time is of the essence, yet time is always passing. Time can be taken or given, saved or spent, but is not always the same for “time only existed when a measurement was being made” (19). Stephen Kern’s The Nature of Time introduces ideas and concepts of how time is seen, represented, and spent. Two key ways of looking at time are through the perspective of Public Time, and Private Time. Public Time, is the universally understood time; the time that we experience collectively and are kept to by a clock or calendar. The calendar “expresses the rhythm of the collective activities, while at the same time its function is to assure their regularity” into what we know as the collective Public Time (20). In order to understand Public Time, however, it first had to become universal. “While the year, month, and day have a basis in nature, the week and the hour are entirely artificial;” therefore, for Public Time to become understood by all, the artificial constructs of time had to become universally joined (14). Although the world was slow to accept a universal time, which would be altered by one hour between twenty-four zones, it soon became accepted and understood. The simple measurement of time introduces issues within time itself, however. Time does not stop and is not divided into bits as it is represented by its measurement. The idea of any measurement which does not continuously flow, contradicts the very concept of Private Time.
time,” is a statement which this book The Daughter of Time demonstrated very well. It showed how
It could argued that our common-sense notion of endurance through time is incorrect. That this mistaken self-conception lead us to experience the passage of time. If so, this would be illusory no? And if this enduring ‘me’ is an illusion then so is the passage of time.
It is paradoxical to have a course, which revolves round the corrosiveness of faulted Western notions of time and its depiction through abstraction, identify itself with an abstract title but argue for the concreteness and tangibility of the portrayal of time and space. A Place Beyond Time does just that. Containing a vastly abstract title, A Place Beyond Time may at first glance appear to properly relate time as a tangent notion with space. Upon further contemplation, however, it becomes patent that A Place Beyond Time possesses a conspicuous absence present in its philosophy of aloofness from intangibility. And although the name of the course attempts to tackle and manifest the complications of abstract and concrete time, it is through its lack of definition and precision, lack of possession, and lack of sensation of repetition that A Place Beyond Time fails to properly capitalize on this dilemma.
The passage of time is intrinsically connected to every aspect of life, as it is the construct through which we understand human experiences and the framework through which we comprehend our existence. The essence and effects of temporality reverberate through narratives; acting as a catalyst for action, or becoming an impediment to the future. Through the response that characters in The Wanderer and The Tempest have towards the transience of time, it becomes clear how these effects echo throughout the narrative, prompting these events into movement, and how they seep throughout every aspect of these texts.