Chapter 16: Tags: Isekai
DISCLAIMER: I am veing particular with regards to english translated online novels.
I would not claim to be an avid reader, heck I just started my reading career, again for lack of a better word, like a few years prior. And to be honest I never liked having to go through pages and pages of what only seems to be plain letters on a page.
But, I am not sure if I have said it before, but these online novels just drew me to them like a moth to the flame. There is just a certain kind of charm in reading the stories written by people on the internet. I do not know what the reason is nor what the reason is for, but I just could not help myself.
At first most of my reading time was spent on stories about protagonists living in their world, trying to survive and succeed in that dog-eat-dog world where they and other characters inhabit. That was at the beginning.
But as I continued to dive into the community of internet storytellers and storytelling, I guess it was inevitable, I encountered stories of a different sort. The sort which had, to me, a different trajectory with how it present itself, a new flavor in storytelling per se. And might I add it was a flavor that I could never get enough of, and that until today if you somehow offered me a story with that sort of premise, you might actually have my ears to listen. From the title itself I am pretty sure you already know what it is.
I do not know why it was, what it is about, finding ones' self in another world that I find truly compelling. It usually involves, as you know, the protagonist finding his or herself in another world and having to navigate through that world and ultimately finding renewed purpose in life and by virtue of this renewed purpose, for the most part, his or her success. Not only as a character but also an individual. Whatever that success may be.
There many methods, storytelling-wise, to achieve this desired premise. Though for the most part it usually revolves around two big ones. Reincarnation and Transmigration.
As you know reincarnation is the phenomenon where you die and then you inhabit the body of another, and I mean to say another is in, it could you were human once then you become a fly. The idea itself is rooted in Hinduism and Buddhism, largely. Whose definition, in terms of online novels has been broadened to include if you were human in this world, then you die and become a fly in the next one.
Transmigration is the different sort where you do not have to undergo the process of experiencing the death of your current physical self, as is typical of reincarnation, to end up in the other world.
But I will have to put in a disclaimer here, that from what I surmise, it seems the terms could be used interchangeably. And why is that? Well, because of the nature of self in these stories. I am not going to go in deep into philosophical implications or what not but here is not the thing, remember what I said about reincarnation where you, a human die and then become a fly in your next life. Well transmigration, also, does not exempt you from ultimately having to inhabit a different body, or perhaps a transformed one, in the 'other world'. And that is not to talk about the soul, and memory, which is something I would like to talk about another time.
So what is so compelling about stories like these that drew me to it? Well I did say that I do not know, right? But perhaps I do, deep down I do, and I just did not acknowledge it. Others may do and may have had an acknowledgement, others may not.
I think that it is perhaps the reflection of a dream, a wish, a longing for perhaps a redo, a remake, a starting over, if one could put it that way. That perhaps somehow, one can truly achieve the happiness he or she desires. That in the world we live in today where the very definition of what success, purpose, and happiness should be and look like continues to become narrower and narrower, perhaps, we can have hope to strive for something more meaningful, something more worth our while. To redefine what is possible and what it means to find purpose, to be successful, and ultimately what it means to be happy.
What do you think? I would like to know your thought in the comments. Until then, peace.
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