I recently read Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel ‘Klara and the Sun’ and it got me thinking…
(I’ll be talking about the ending of this novel, please skip or come back after you’ve read the ending because there’s spoilers ahead, you’ve been warned!)
This novel is about a robot that’s designed to be a companion to children, they’re referred to as AFs (Artificial Friend) and Klara is that AF for a girl called Josie. In the end, there’s a time jump and we see that Josie grows older and becomes less dependent on Klara, which means that Klara has served her purpose. It’s revealed that Klara starts to “fade” (die, essentially) and lives the rest of her days in a junkyard. Despite Klara’s tragic ending, she’s content because she has served her purpose which was to help Josie heal and become less lonely. And it got me thinking… sometimes I feel like Klara in the junkyard when I think about the relationships I’ve outgrown. I replay memories of us in my head, and then I wonder if the other person does this too. Maybe they also reminisce the way I do, or maybe they’ve completely moved on, but I’ll always cherish the best parts even if it’s over.
Are people that disposable in this day and age? How has it been possible for us to just enter a relationship, take what we can, then move on to the next thing we pursue almost as if that relationship meant nothing? And what do we really owe each other in the bonds that we build? I’ll confess, I’ve been the hurter as well as the hurtee from time to time. I’m guilty of discarding relationships that I thought at the time drained me, and I’m guilty of miscommunication which led to me and the other person parting ways. Cutting people off nowadays is not only a convenient thing to do but is also something praised for to some extent, and yet I look around me and find that meaningful relationships still exist, despite, despite, despite…
People do come together for silly little rituals like sitting in a cafe on a Sunday morning. People do support one another, to the extent that if they could move mountains for the other person, they would. People do care and love and nurture, not to be morally right but to be human. I know it’s possible because I’ve seen it happen to me, despite having my fair share of breakups of all sorts from romantic to platonic. And it’s through weathering the storm that we eventually feel the sun’s warm beams on our skin, like a comfy hug from someone we love and who loves us.
Maybe some relationships were meant to be momentary, and some relationships can last lifetimes. Nonetheless, I thank every one of them for teaching me valuable life lessons, all of which I wouldn’t have learnt on my own. It was through coming together that we both grew wiser and bloomed brighter, and I’ll always be thankful for the gift of human relationships.