Faith

For me, this isn’t about a “story that will make you believe in God.” It is a matter of having faith. Maybe it’s faith in some greater force or just simply faith in the will to live. For some, you could say that belief in God is what helped Pi continue each and every day. The belief that someone greater up there is watching out for you. I like the idea of having someone watching out for me, personally, and if I clung to that little fact then I would have a much greater confidence in my life—maybe because it’s out of my hands and in someone else’s. So, if I die, is it my fault? "We are all going to die" (Anthology 26), but we definitely all have a different perception as to how/why we die. Sometimes I feel like believing in something greater is just someone’s attempt at blaming others for what happens to them. They can’t take their own lives into their hands, so they leave it up to this greater being to decide for them. Sure, it is comforting to believe that someone’s out there for us, but maybe it isn’t who you think. There are people out there each and every day looking out for us, but it doesn’t have to be God. It can be your friends, family, teachers, random strangers. In the end, I really think that this is a story that will make you believe in the will to live and survive. But also in love and companionship.

(Me surrounded by people, as usual)

I am a firm believer in having people around. I hate being alone more than anything else. I love having fun with people, working with people, exercising with people, watching movies with people, I could go on and on. For me, the will to survive would depend upon having someone else there with me. Life alone, for me, isn’t a life at all. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe I define my life by how others react to me. Which is a sad thought, but as accurate as anything else I can think of. I like seeing the reactions of other people and reading other people. I like interacting and having discussions and seeing different points of view. But it’s more than that. It’s just the presence of another person. So, for me, that is the will to live. To meet people and to make relationships with people. Not even people—it can be animals as well, like for Pi. Without companionship, I do not believe that Pi could have survived with Richard Parker. So, what is it that keeps us alive? Why do we want to continue living? That is up to you to decide. We all have our different reasons for wanting to live—our passions you might say. It’s as if all those tiny little things in life make up the will to live—for me, people, music, nature, among other things. Why would this story make me believe in God any more than these beautiful aspects of life? If I believed in God (and I’m not saying I don’t), I would believe in the beauty of life that he/she creates. I would thank God for the people around me, the music created by myself and others, and the peace and happiness that nature brings to me. I feel like something like surviving out in the wilderness is not something you can judge your faith by. Faith is just something that is there—a little presence in your mind of a divine being. And sure, small miracles can make you even more certain of this feeling, but those who do not believe in any sort of God can easily contradict God’s intervention in these matters. These people could say that Pi survived because he was a willful, strong person. They could say that he was resourceful and intelligent. They could say he was lucky.


They could also say that Pi’s sentimentality saved him. He has a "refined and elevated feeling" for others and a strong appreciation for life—for his own life, Richard’s life, the lives of the animals he had to eat to survive. This appreciation for life might have been what made him so intent on remaining alive. He kills to stay alive, so if he were to die, he would have killed in vain. He would have “blood on [his] hands” for no reason (183). Also, his appreciation for Richard’s life would die along with him and then Richard would perish as well without someone to care for him.

“Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer” (297). It’s true. Life is hard to believe, especially when it is so hard to live as Pi did. But what makes something so hard to believe? Is it because it isn’t what we perceive as “normal”? Because if that is true, then we are not on our way to a very open-minded world. God or no God, you can believe in something based on other things. The people interviewing Pi do not believe him because his story is indeed a crazy one. But this sort of scorn is upsetting. There can be miracles in life just because miracles can happen sometimes. It’s true that “very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger,” (319) but just because the story is “unparalleled” (319) doesn’t have to mean it’s fake. It all comes down to what you believe how much you are willing to have faith. What you have faith in is entirely up to you.