astounding

siddhartha was one book that influenced me in a way i never thought possible. the book is not just the story of a young boy trying to find meaning in his life, but is the story of every single human being, most of whom are consumed by the chaos in the present world. Hesse, shocked by the presence of corruption in the society chose to write a book like Siddhartha in order to not only show the aspects of a deeply-set religion like Hinduism and Buddhism, but also to redirect the human society into thinking what an individual's ultimate goal must be in life. <br><br>it's human nature to think that every problem we encounter is bound to entirely change our life and that every mistake we commit might take us into a wrong path. therefore, many people, especially teenagers try to be over cautious to take just the right direction all the time. but by reading this novel as a high school student, i have realized that in order to reach an individual's ultimate purpose in life, one needs to experience every aspect of life, just like Siddhartha did as he learned from the Samanas, the courtesan(kamala) and the materialistic Kamaswami. above all, every reader would also find out that our lives are like rivers, encountering new experiences every moment, yet ourselves remaining the same (just like the river whose flow never ends