Well, from the title, you’ve probably guessed that my next entry is about John Green’s magnificent ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, which I have read an astonishing three consecutive times this week. As Time Magazine said, it’s “Damn near genius.”.
Many talk about Augustus Waters as the man they always wanted, the fictional and emotional representation of what every man should aspire to be. Yet, for me, Augustus is more like the anti-depressant, the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ to employ the overused idiom, the character in the narrative whose speeches emit pure and heartening inspiration.
With his inspiration, Augustus was not only a saviour for Hazel, but a saviour for me as well.
Recently, times, most prominently emotionally, have been hard. I’ve been very ill for months and I am not recovering, only getting worse every day. Although I am not ill to the extent of Hazel or Isaac, I am unwell, and like any other illness, it gets me down. This, in conjunction with emotional battles has been incredibly painful, and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself any longer.
Thankfully, I read ‘The Fault In Our Stars’ before depression hit me harder than ever before.
I cried within the first chapter, hope springing from all directions, Augustus’s words bringing light to my ever darkened world.
“Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence”
-Augustus Waters, The Fault In Our Stars
The shocking simplicity of this statement hit me hard, and should hit many hard. He is practically claiming that however much shit the world throws at you at one time, there will always be the simple beauties and pleasures of existence to grant you hope. Daisies. A warm, sunlit day. The uplifting rock music of the 60s to 80s. The odd book with a magnificent and true message. A moving film. A wonderful teacher. A poignant poem. The list could go on and on until the inevitability of oblivion.
It’s true; oblivion is inevitable. Even if oblivion is approaching faster than it should, one day it will hit you with so much force that you will not be able to resist. One day, everything we have done will be for nothing. Our sun will be engulfed in its own problems, and it will take our Earth, our world so full of wonderful, simple, extraordinary things, down with it. All we will have invented, written, sung, painted, sculpted, calculated, created, marvelled at, will be reduced to nothing, and we will be a mere blot on the ever growing papyrus of existence.
So, basking in this true and eye-opening statement, I take life by the waist, and let it take me on a motorbike ride that will be worth fading into oblivion for.
And so should you.
Fictional Inspiration 