What We Don't See About Ourselves- Life of Pi by Yann Martel

A desolate expansion of blue, expanding in every direction as far as anyone can see. Death looming in every corner the will to survive must outlast the will to be humane as life shall go to extreme measures to stay alive. Pi is  put into a place that could be found in a nightmare as he sails the seas in his terrible state. Yann Martel created a showing of what we really are as humans through his novel Life of Pi, as Piscine experiences the worst of himself as borders are crossed, values broken and the uniform picture of humanity shattered.
 
Throughout the novel two stories are developed as Martel gives the reader a choice of what they want to believe as the truth due to the horrific scenes and occurrences described in the book. One story describes all these horrific happenings as being the acts of a tiger which is well accepted by the average person and the other has Pi taking the place of the tiger and breaks all the barriers accepted by the human population as he lives like an animal. The question pondered upon by many who read this very novel is which story to believe. Much easier to believe is the acts of the tiger Richard Parker rather than the same things being committed by Pi. However I believe that Pi stretched the limits and created the alternate story of all the animals as a cover for his shame. Even though he has a reason for each and everything that happened in the animals story it is so unlikely that a boat such as he was in could support the life of such beasts for as long as it did.
 
A pair of parallel stories such as created by Yann Martel isn't created for the fun of it, but rather to relay a message to each of it's readers. One of the messages passed on by Martel is one of the reality of human nature. We are not the perfect, clean people that we are thought to be by many. Rather we are a group of controlled killers ready to burst at the slightest inconvenience to our simply lived lives in which we are given everything we need to live our comfortable lives.  A population growing like a moss covering a wide expanse of its habitat with a dirty fungus over all the beautiful nature of the Earth. Slowly nature is falling victim to human nature as we continue to neglect it because of an installation in our minds that we are perfect. All points to the neglecting of our very own impact on everything around us.
 
Our hidden nature as humans brings an interesting topic to the novel but even more so is the question of faith. "If you stumble at mere believability,  what are you living for? Isn't love hard to believe?"(297). Here Martel is trying to express how we as people think about foreign things and happenings that we our selves have not seen or experienced are blocked out by our mind as being impossible.  It will not come easy but believability comes with trust and if you do not trust you will be left from the experience and will never find your way in life. However I am not saying to trust everyone and everything but rather to open your mind to the world around you that is being hidden by a barrier created long ago.
 
Faith and your nature as a person doesn't come simply through a few thoughts but rather values that have been instilled inside you since you were old enough to make a decision. Personal values are barriers never meant to be broken as they make up who you are as a person throughout your life. Pi was pushed to extreme deprivation and to the verge of insanity by the ocean. He broke through even the most widely recognized of taboos, cannibalism. One choice so bad can tumble into many more as now the value has been broken and the reason to stay above such a terrible broken life is gone and life will become a bottomless pit such as what happened to Pi. Values are a way of life and without them a mess is what will soon become your life.
 
Even though we live our lives by the way of value in reality, conventions come along for our moments of unreality. Constantly we look for safety, comfort of the limited world of taboo and convention. Often the things we say, the things we do are dictated by the conventions of what is right created by those before us. Conventions are carried down and passed on so that those older do not see a better life in those that are young and full of life. Still wishing to stay close, to never venture out from the safety of the rail, there is a small few that will take the leap and reap the rewards.
 
Life will challenge, death will loom, and life must go on as some will go to extreme measures to stay alive. Our conventions and values will be broken and our nature as human beings will be brought out into the light with simple challenge to life.