“She said, 'It's not life of death, the labyrinth.'
'Um, okay. So what is it?'
'Suffering,' she said. 'Doing wrong and having wrong things happen to you. That's the problem. Bolivar was talking about the pain, not about the living or dying. How do you get out of the labyrinth of suffering?...Nothing's wrong. But there's always suffering, Pudge. Homework or malaria or having a boyfriend who lives far away when there's a good-looking boy lying next to you. Suffering is universal. It'st the one thing Buddhists, Christians, and Muslims are all worried about.”
Is it such a bad thing to live the life Alaska did or die the way she did? I may be a writer but, never have I been able to write such a character in my head that I longed to be that person. Alaska saw the world her way and lived to be her own kind of remarkable.
I want to be my own piece of remarkable- to live the way I think and die on my own terms and not the terms of others. Like the way I drink my Dr. Pepper, I want to watch as I pop and fizz.
I wonder what it would be like to be the moment of my life- where I could see how my actions led to my success and overall death- not to regret the choices I made but to relive my wonderful piece of remarkable and be completely content. I don't need to be Alaska, I can be myself- just see my world the way I want to see it. Choose to be outside the overall norm and be my own identity where Alaska is just a place and not a person to aspire to be.
