Are you ever just bored of your life, you feel like you’re not doing the right thing, or maybe that you could be doing something better? I get that feeling a lot, sometimes you just want to be doing something else. I tried to pretend what if you could go to a different “side,” a perfect world with no crimes, no violence, never having to experience hunger. Would you choose that side? Or would you stay where you’re at, in your “boring” life?
In the book Utopia there was two separate areas, one being Utopia, and the other being “The Outside.” The difference between the two is Utopia is this ideal world for the rich, where everything is said to be perfect, no violence, no worries. Whereas the outside is for the poor, and starving. You didn’t have a choice in which side you grew up in, rather just born into it. Although you could try to find a way to the opposite side but most of the time it never lead to anything good. For example those from Utopia could find a way to the outside, but would have to pretend to look like an outsider, whereas the outsiders were instantly killed trying to make their way in through the gate.”In Utopia, where death retreats behind barbed wires and becomes nothing but a game that adolescents dream of…”(6) It wasn’t hard telling the difference between the two, mostly because their appearance. With an exception of working, a few outsiders were allowed in, but strictly for working purposes only. If you were from the outside you either wanted to be apart of Utopia, or wanted nothing to do with it. But is Utopia really this perfect world that everyone would rather be in?
In Utopia, “the better life,” you are rich and happy, theres no violence, danger, all your needs are meant, AND you have anything you could possibly want. But does that really make them happy? To just have everything handed to them? Everyone believes that happiness will come with Utopia, but it doesn’t. You wonder though, why not all happiness? How could you not be happy when you have everything? It’s the same reason why we get bored and tired of our lives. It’s just the same thing, nothing changes, we get bored. You think maybe living in this other world could be better.
In Alaa’s case living in Utopia was boring to him, there was nothing to look forward to and nothing to excite him. He would read as an escape, he would do whatever he had to in order to find excitement. “I told him that reading, as far as I’m concerned, is a cheap drug. I use it only to withdraw from my conscious self.”(6) I think he felt like he was in a stimulation, like there was no reality, no risks, you could do anything and you would still survive, because that was Utopia. But is living in a “stimulation” how you want to spend your life? Even if this stimulation is perfect and harmless. A lot of people would die to live or even spend a day in the perfect Utopia life, yet for Alaa it was a hell to even be there. So what would you choose the rich, boring, “perfect” life? Or the poor, hungry, free life? Change can be good, so is it for the better? I know I would prefer to live in “The Outside” rather than having this perfect life turn into boredom and misery.
Literary Genres in Translation 