Kino's The Pearl

Dear, future self

The Pearl is a story that shows another perspective of life from a fisherman named Kino. The book has themes we hardly think about such as the impact of perseverance, the benefits of education, and the roles of gender. I will never know how fate has brought me on this earth, but I do know that I have choices in life. Fate gave me the choice to be: selfish, disappointed, and quite forever or the exact opposite by being: determined, persistent, and caring. The pearl makes the reader realize how fate lets Kino live a rollercoaster life which made me think of how fate impacted my own life. How fate is full of surprises. How fate watches us like it’s our shadow.

Like Kino, I was also: loved, innocent, and friendly. I didn’t

Hungry for fear. Afterwards, he went diving for pearls from his canoe, yet knew “pearls were accidents, and finding one was luck.” After he dives to find pearls, he risked his life for his family. Fate showed Kino the “Pearl of the World”. The scar dug deeper into Kino’s life because he knew that “it is not good to want a thing too much (or) it sometimes drives the luck away.” I was also an animal with little “heart”. The luxury made me entitled and selfish because my problems like not wanting to go to school were nothing compared to the kids begging on the streets to just get some money for their families. The sight made me think twice about my problems, but mostly about my actions. Why should I care about what I want now while people are dying now to get into my position? I noticed that I was too obsessed with myself that I forgot about the world around me. The life outside my thinking. My world. Fate luckily gave me the opportunity to think about the situation and do something about it. Fate made me see the light that was locked by

I moved around the world, and saw opportunities ahead of me. I learned new cultures and tasted new dishes that inspired me to explore the world. When I first came to Jakarta, Indonesia, I visualized myself experiencing a life that will be memory or a disaster I’ll never forget. One stupid experience was when my friends and I drew on a white chalk to make the chalk look like a cigarette, and put the chalk in our mouths, so that we looked like kids who smoked. I also experienced going to Bali, Indonesia, and swimming almost every day while realizing that I can choose to face a challenge now or never like a girl replacing her sister for her own life to play in the games of death. As Kino held the pearl longer, he became “every(one’s) enemy” because his pearl was “the dreams, the hungers, (and) the future” for Kino’s village. Kino’s fate didn’t go as Kino hoped for because everyone despised him including the pearl buyers who rigged a price that was below the actual price of the pearl. Fate showed me to take actions that my future self would be proud of, and not wait too long for the actions to take shape because then fate might lead you to another path in life. A path maybe better or