The Leap of Faith
Every year of the life you live, you come another step closer to your final leap. That moment in which the decision that will affect the rest of your lives and the lives that it lingers in is weighed on your shoulders. Faith. A word so simplistic, yet has an abundance of meaning, but without the decision to have faith and take a leap life is without meaning. The purpose of life is all based on your leap of faith.
The treacherous 450 pound Bengal tiger that embarked in a life boat with Pi was a Zen Buddhist symbol of how contrary forces are interconnected in the natural world. The Hindu symbol is three components that interact with a greater whole. A creator, a destroyer, and a preserver are all necessary parts of survival. Richard Parker being the untamed destroy is subdued by Pi's faith. Pi originated as the creator by nourishing Richard Parker until he felt he was strong enough to live on his own thus becoming both the creator and the preserver.
If Pi did not hold on to his faith he would have lost his will to live. The bible is not fact it's a series of stories that you must put your faith in to believe in it. Life is what we believe it to be, and a leap of faith in some direction. Everything is faith whether you put your belief towards a religion where you believe in God as a creator and a heave to look forward to a very accepting story. If you’re atheistic you firmly believe that that there is no higher power, and that your body will disintegrate after your death. Although an agnostic is undecided on any belief that the reason why Pi shows no respect for them. He can't grasp the idea of not having faith; because if you don't put your faith towards anything are you even living?
Agnostics delude themselves because they don't want to deal with reality. In the third section of Life of Pi, the Japanese reporters ask Pi to explain the Tsim Tsum sinking. This story is the one that we had been throughout the previous pages of the book where the characters are animals that survive off of each other. The reporters were not accepting of this story, because it seemed unbelievable. They were unwilling to put faith in the idea. Then Pi told another version of the same story only this time it included people instead of animals. Pi had created a version of reality in his mind to deal with the revenge he had taken on the murder of his mother. His way of dealing with the pain was to imagine a tiger doing the killing instead of himself. The only difference between the stories is that one was made more palatable for himself. This story was more attainable to the reporters, but when asked which story they enjoyed more they said the one with animals. The following quote was said by Pi in chapter 22:
"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: 'White, white! L-L-Love! My God!'-and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeast less factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, 'Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain,' and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."
When he says they " miss the better story", Pi is trying to say that since agnostics do not have faith, and will never get to experience that leap of faith, or the battle against supporting your theory of what life is. Pi’s response was, “and so it goes with god” meaning that it can be fulfilling to take a leap of faith and believe the farfetched story.
Life is what we believe it to be, and what we put our faith towards. The leap of faith determines the fate of your life, and without it you haven’t even began to live. Experience your beliefs and manipulate them to see the world to your own true eyes, and create the birth of your very own faith.
When you catch yourself caring for others more than yourself what do you do? Most people get in that predicament where they find themselves putting others first. Selfishness should never be a practice of living, but there are moments in life when you do need to put your self first.
Routinely, at sunrise Pi prepared breakfast for Richard Parker, and at the evening he made dinner for Richard Parker as well. He seemed to have been caring for a child, and somewhere along the line Pi had given up on himself. This sense of establishment may have been for control, but to much control of a situation is never a good thing.
The control he had made him feel more comfortable with his situation of being stranded. Pi has lost himself, and has no direction in life. The only thing that keeps him feeling the need to live for is that Richard Parker would not survive with out him; he is his lifeboat, but this lifeboat is lost at sea. Pi has lost himself, becoming more focused on Richard Parker. If You make equal time for yourself this situation wont occur.
No two people see the world the same
You’re opening the door to enter a local supermarket as a three men birth from the entrance and abandon your view. You managed to catch that they were all dressed head-to-toe in black except for the last man who was wearing a red shirt. An officer on the corner of the street catches sight of the crime taking place and chases after the men. He only manages to capture the man dressed in red who is then presided to a trial. Because of the officers’ testimony, the suspect is proven guilty. In actuality the man wearing red was a clerk at the counter who had just been robbed. He darted after the perpetrators in hopes to catch them before they could abandon the scene. A testimony is only one perspective of a story, and the most unreliable piece of evidence; because an eye witness is vulnerable to making errors.
Life is your perspective of how to take in the world; no two parallel stories.
An optical illusion can trick the human eye, but yet we leave are faith in what we see. Reality exists inside the brain operating under the circumstances of the vision we want in life. We believe what we want to believe, and somewhere along the line take the pieces to form an individual human experience. In Yann Martel's novel, Life of Pi two different stories were told that belonged to the same incident.
Each story had a different perspective but corresponding parts. The treacherous 450 pound Bengal tiger that embarked in a life boat with Pi was a Zen Buddhist symbol of how contrary forces are interconnected in the natural world. Their dualities prevail are manifestations of the yin and yang.
Yin Yang is subordinate converses interacting with a greater whole. Richard Parker and Pi are part of that dynamic system. Pi created a version of reality in his mind deal with the revenge he took on his mother’s murder. He invented a vision of himself, because Pi finds it easier to imagine the tiger doing the killing instead of him. The telling of this world is an invention of itself similar to the two stories that were told. The only difference is that one was made more palatable for himself.
When you take the world and giving it a new aspect to fit personal needs you create your own story. A story no one else will ever experience, because it is your distinct vision on reality. Life is a story; it's imagination seen through your eyes. Their can be two sides of a story that are both true in separate functions, but viewed through different perspectives.
The encounter Pi had with Mr. Kumar at the zoo was a bringing up of respect for a different look on beliefs. The characteristics of a triangle given to Mr. Kumar describing the way they balanced on top of parallel line symbolize the circular argument of birth, contemplation, and death. We strive for balance in life as does Mr. Kumar.
Pi is a strong religious believer n god. Although Mr. Kumar is an atheist which is someone who strongly believes in no god, is in somewhat a religion of its own. Far from a god believing religion but a scientific belief for the explanation of the universe which is respected by Pi. Agnostic is not committed to any belief, and Pi condemned this practice of living.
