On Eren Jaeger, born unhappy, fixation and spending days crying over non-existent people

May us begin with this: I do not think I would be able to describe anything eloquent about the little guy ever.

[Please do not read this tiny thing if you already know who I will talk about, but little guy - Eren Jaeger - is the protagonist of the anime series Attack on Titan, who was born and raised and lived a tragedy, of whom there are no words to describe rather than 'the one who loved and hated the world more than anyone else'. This person raged harder than anyone has ever raged, and swore to get rid of anything that had ever entrapped him. And, in a sense, he did. In a sense.]

It does not take much for a character to stay with me well after I have finished anything. But little guy, he did not just stand inside my consciousness, he existed, as he always had with everything and everywhere in his life.

It truly takes the worst kind of people that make us love life even more than life itself. It truly takes the most horrifying of a tragedy to enlighten one on how easily good it would have been had-it-not-for. Had it not been for what, actually, would this individual have been happy? I wondered and wondered and wondered: What kind of mindset one has to be in to throw away every single nice thing that has ever happened to them, to accept the unacceptable and to get consumed by what you hate the most, to drown and drown and drown in desire yet still filled with unfelt frustration? Had it not been for him being born unhappy, I suppose.

I had never thought one could be born unhappy. It did not make sense: Newborns’ cry is supposed to be the sign of their first success in trying to be alive, the first sign that they have been exposed to the wide, scary, wonderful thing that is the world, that they are trying to adapt to it, this air, these colors, these sounds. They would grow up to get used to it all, unconsciously adoring it from the backstage of the play that is their own life.

Maybe there is no such thing as being born-unhappy. People – scientists – said that there are only people who are born to be unhappy. What surrounds them: the sky that drapes upon their land, the clouds that adorn it, their skin, their vision, their eardrums. Burning children and crushed hearts. However, if for one, the past and present and future exist at the same time, is it fair to say that they have always been unhappy because they are just unhappy at one point in time?

I thought back to Billy Pilgrim, who, like Eren, got stuck in time. Who hopped between dimensions and timelines, who saw everything before, during, and after it had happened. He saw everything, yet again and again and again lived and lives and will live, watched every inevitable details, dusts and all, played out before his eyes. Abnormal and powerful, he did everything and anything at the same time. Farewell, hello, farewell, hello. When he dies, he announced,

'It is time for you to go home to your wives and children, and it is time for me to be dead for a little while-and then live again.' At that moment, Billy's high forehead is in the cross hairs of a high-powered laser gun. It is aimed at him from the darkened press box. In the next moment, Billy Pilgrim is dead. So it goes. So Billy experiences death for a while. [ Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut ]

So it goes.

If there is one thing about Kurt Vonnegut’s books that make me fall completely in love with them, is that I do not think I would ever be able to fully understand it, at least not in the way it was intended to be. That way, when I read it, I get what I get for myself and attempt to get what I can. It is thievery, in the sense that I did not think of anything of what I remember before reading the books, and not, in the sense that I do not think I got it right. Still, I adore reading them more than anything in the world, as I keep thinking of what would be of myself the next time I finish this word, this sentence, this book. I like to think the same thing happened with Eren Jaeger. I do not think, nor do I really care, if I got him right. There are many of my fixations inside his fascinating existence, yet I kept asking myself if I can see more of this person. This person who did not even exist.

To be very honest, it can very well be true that no one had ever existed, and no one would have batted an eye.

At least to me, little guy exists. The little guy who had the weirdest ardor for freedom. As in, he wants freedom for others and for himself so terribly and urgently that he sacrificed both of them for the other, only to receive what he wanted, which is also what he did not. He is acting oddly. He is only a child after all. Maybe a bare-footed early morning and wet laundry is the best way for little guy to have lived his life. Once these were gone, all he was left with was diluted alcohol and rubbing alcohol. As in, he loved the world as much as he hated it, as in he would give away everything in order to get back with his bare-footed early mornings and wet soles. Maybe he had. Maybe that was all that he could ever do, all he could ever be. Futures and pasts, arrogance, love and anger, stupidity, impulse, and a tendency to never stop running, running, running. Such a great price, for such a meager prize.

More than anything, he exists because it is easy to feel like he is hiding in plain sight, on the very streets we pass everyday. He seemed true, seemed truthful enough for me to believe that there is somewhere here one of him that we do not know about. A person who rejects life for it is not as pretty as he thinks it should be, as he thinks it is. One who was born with mines under his feet, grenade scraps in his head and heart bright red which blossoms when bleeds.

I once heard a saying that you can love absolutely anyone if you know everything about them. That is true.

I thought back to Dorian Gray, that cursed, poor doll, the one who got all that is pretty of the world to paint his features, then let himself be dragged along and scratched to death. I think of the fact that had it not been for Lord Henry opening his eyes to the beauty of his life, he would have lived a harmless, benign, beautiful albeit boring life. No one would have had to be disposed in favor of his ugly, riveting youth; and he, himself, could have found rest and serenity amongst fading away. Maybe. But that is not what happened, of course. It is the love of living that ultimately ravages him, for extremes are always alluring to us who live on flesh, not bones. The beginning and end of Dorian Gray is ultimately for the same one thing, and more or less the same: one consistent shifting line of thoughts, save for the fact that while one is always wonderfully recognized, the other couldn't be identified by anything save for the jewelry on its blood-stained hands.

It seems easy, too easy, even, that one slight modification can fix everything.

How extraordinary dramatic life is! [ 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' - Oscar Wilde ]

Perhaps the worst sabotage you could do with a person’s character is to make them realize, for once, that the land we lived upon is the most heavenly thing we are able to imagine. That every heaven, at the end of the day, is based on what is good of Earth. For, from then on, everyone would try to stay, unconcerned of the cost. We can't have that, can't we? For, people become horrible when they try surviving. Horrible people dragged people down with them when they are consumed, by love, life, or whatever, whoever. A horrible existence is worst than not existing at all, as one would then hope– believe that they or someone else would eventually become good. And it is true: You can become better. That is just sad.

If there is one thing and only one thing that I could take away from days wondering why what happened needs to have happened - to every single one of them - is that I should learn and love the world a little bit more. Had it been for what, actually, would I have loved this world with all of my heart? In fact, will the world be able to hold itself together once everyone in it starts loving it like that?

…No, I do not think so. Feelings are dangerous, volatile and unstable. Feelings are human-like, in the sense that they can't ever make sense. I don't think I can really know for sure. Is it wise to feel feelings bigger than your physical body? Is it wise to try so hard at life? Is it wise to try and seek for life? Maybe that, above all, is little guy’s mistake…

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