Siddhartha Paper

"To obey no other external command, only the voice to be prepared that was good, that was necessary. Nothing else was necessary" (Hesse 48)

Throughout Siddhartha there are many connections, which any person can apply to their life. Siddhartha goes through many trials and tribulations to attain Enlightenment. One can relate his own life to many of Siddhartha's experience. There are many themes throughout the book with which one cold relate to their life. Siddhartha's contemplation leads him to realize that he is the only person that can control himself; no one else can sway him.

My experience connects with Siddhartha's not literally but emotionally and metaphorically. When I contracted pneumonia my freshmen year of high school, I felt like dying. My conscious kept telling me to give up, that it was too much to handle. I had another voice telling me to be brave and tough it out. After reading a passage for Siddhartha my senior year in high school, I did some thinking. There was a class assignment that called for u to take a quote from Siddhartha and relate it to a personal experience. After coming up with some suggestions I found that my pneumonia experience was best. I thought of one passage that really stuck out to me and after reading it over and over again it finally hit me, I was alone and could either fall further into a slump, possibly getting sicker, or I could muster up some confidence and faith and pull myself out of this and be happy.

During this time, it was also exams week at school. I have been out of school for about a week and a half at this point. I had been receiving homework form teachers via e-mail, but I needed to meet with them face to face to ask some questions to attain full understanding of the material. One of the days I returned to school, we went to Sacramento because Convent of the Sacred Heart High School's basketball team was playing in the state championships. However, little did I know that this would occur on the day I returned to school or else I would have come back when classes were in session. I really wanted and need to talk with my teacher since I had missed so much and felt like I had been away for a year. After all of the excitement of that day, I went home a slept for 24 hours straight, give or take a few hours. I returned to school and was able to meet with most of my teachers. This, however, did not alleviate me feeling as if I was missing something.

As I was struggling with my illness and a choice, I found that I needed to in fact found myself. Find what made me the way I am. Why do I feel these emotions and go through all this heartache? I wanted to capture the essence of my existence in a network of opinion. With this I would be able to not only be my true self and contemplate on myself, but analyze it. I would finally