"To Live"

Veronika was a young talented and beautiful girl in Slovenia. Despite leading a peaceful life, she felt that her life was meaningless. At the tender age of 24, she committed suicide and was admitted to the mental hospital – Villete. She did not pass away immediately but was told that she only had a week to live because the suicide attempt had left irreparable damage to her heart.

From the initial resistance to her continual survival to the final regret of her suicide attempt, she was moved and had moved several inmates of Villete, from Zedka who suffered depression because of a heartless lover and a loving husband, to schizophrenic Eduard who could not live up to the expectations of his ambassador parents and to Mari whose suffering from panic attacks cost her her marriage and her lawyer career. Each of them thought they had finally found their haven in Villete where they could do whatever they want in their own reality without worrying about others. When they faced with the dying Veronika and her fighting for survival, they were shaken out of their make-believe serenity. Her will-power provided them the courage to face the real world again and to pursue their dreams.

Talking to Zedka, Mari and Eduard allowed Veronika to seek understanding of her feelings – such as the oppression from her parents’ love and her self-protection mechanism. With little time left and in a mental hospital, she was suddenly freed of all inhibitions to feel what she should be feeling and do what she always wanted to do. She lived for the day as she was unsure when it would be her last breathing minute or even second.

It was yet another philosophical view on life, dreams and madness where Paulo Coelho explored the paradoxical life and death, love and hatred and madness and sanity. Many often did not face up to life until they were faced with death. Only when one allowed the overflowing of hate could love fill up the void left behind. The public often distinguished the mad as those who failed to conform to the protocols. Those non-conformers, on the other hand, viewed those who betray their needs and abandoned their dreams as mad. No one could tell who was mad and who was sane.

It was indeed a heavy topic for those who wished to understand more about life from the eyes of a philosopher. The fundamental of philosophy was not the pursuit of right or wrong and fact or myth but generally the seeking of a better understanding of our environment and our experiences. This will start you thinking of our forgotten dreams, the meaning of our mundane lives and a general understanding of “To Live”. To live is not just to breathe and carry on life, but to generally live out the meaning of life and embark on your dreams without worrying about others' expectations.

Before Veronika died, she came to love herself, her dreams (of becoming a pianist) and Eduard. She escaped Villete with Eduard when she thought she had only 24 hours to live so that when she died she would die at the places where she had never visited and in the company of her lover. She escaped before the doctor who treated her had a chance to tell her that there was actually no problem with her heart and she would in fact live for a very long time. Although the doctor felt guilty about lying to her, he was glad that it had cured Veronika of her bitterness. As Veronika would think she would die any moment, every day would be a miracle to her.