Bookmarks of Life 708 characters

My eyesight has worsened with age, and I have stopped reading books entirely.

Right now, I am reading a thick novel. I have decided to read only one short chapter at a time, whenever I feel like it.

Real life has become more interesting than reading books. However, I do occasionally feel the urge to read printed text, so I am reading a book for the first time in a while.

If one were to compare life to a book, I think there would be many overlaps.
Some people might have a good ending, while others might unfortunately have an unhappy one. Or perhaps there are those who stop reading the book halfway through, or close it right after they begin.

In life, inserting a bookmark has become 'time to read a book' for me. I would like to think that the act of living my daily life and reading books in the gaps between is itself like inserting a bookmark into life.

I don't think the bookmark itself has any meaning. It doesn't remember my life up to that point for me, but it acts like a pin marking a brief pause in time at a certain point—a very unreliable pin, perhaps—but it might just be something that makes me feel as though I have temporarily held onto a moment in my life.

However, the bookmark itself may have truly existed. The desire to believe that I have held onto something—even if it is a lie—like time, which cannot be grasped by these hands, might perhaps have been playing the role of bringing its significance to the surface of my own life.

How will my life end? As long as I am able to use a bookmark, I will be living alongside it. When I die, the bookmark will also finish its role. Thinking about it this way, I cannot help but feel that the act of reading a book—in other words, the bookmark of life—is something important.

#noteDeNoelLetter