"And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is for certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person you walked in. That's what this storm is all about."—Crow, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (Murakami, 2005)
This quote from the prologue of Kafka on the Shore, for some reason, evokes a profound enlightenment for my case. It illuminates a hurdle, a trial, or a challenge that we always face in life. Sometimes I tend to ignore it, and even though it weighs me down, I still don't understand its essence.
Unmistakably, I was used to challenges, but it varied in how I reacted to them. Is it my first time? Is it really that hard? Why does it need to be me? These questions loomed over me once I knew that I couldn't just escape from it. If I wanted to grow, I needed to face it head-on, just like the sandstorm Kafka imagined. Inside the sandstorm are full of challenges, and when I go through it, I'll change—and I won't even notice that the sandstorm has stopped or even realize that it really did. Clearly, the sandstorm is my fate, and it's inevitable. However, the way I receive and react to it is the game changer—the reason why there's always a message after a failure, a rainbow after the rain, a lesson after a war, a whole new identity after a breakup, and a new person after facing reality. There is always an aftermath after I face certain challenges. Whether good or bad, I come out as different people.
In light of this concept, I'd like to share a personal story of mine when I heard two gunshots inside our home coming from the outside. Obviously, it was traumatizing. Once I heard it, I didn’t know how to react because a gunshot means threat, fatality, and death. So by instinct, I quickly dropped and lay down on the floor, trembling, waiting for what would happen next. The first shot—drop—and then the second shot. It was quiet after a while, but then suddenly, people's voices were everywhere. When people are noisy in our area, that means it's time to get some information. That factor in my book tells me that it's safe to stand. After all that confusion, a dead body was found, shot dead by a policeman. My jaw dropped as I witnessed a dead man’s body being dragged by the justice system. That bullet was never meant to hit anywhere near me; I heard it, which means it was never meant for me.
It reminded me of the film I watched on Netflix named Birdshot (Red, 2016), where a young girl named Maya unknowingly pulls the trigger on something far bigger than herself: an endangered species of eagle only seen in the archipelago of the Philippines. This brought her a sequence of continuous violence she didn't fully understand. Like her, I was thrown into a moment that revealed the harshness of the world around me. And just like Maya, I came out of it not untouched, but undeniably changed. That's when I learned to understand and acknowledge my situation—because if I don't, it might perhaps kill me sooner.
Reverting to what the Crow says, my story is synonymous with what it’s trying to inflict upon its readers—every circumstance you may be in has its respective aftermath and lesson. It always changes us, whether for bad or good. In my case, it developed my awareness and boldness to face my area. Ultimately, it highlights that fate is already within us, and we have the power to change its direction.
Yet, storms don’t always come with thunder and fear, a gunshot or a threat; sometimes, they arrive quietly, in front of a mirror, asking questions we often avoid. You just can't escape from the big, emerging hands of fate. You can't fight it, but you can sail through it and change your direction. In light of that, another insight I got from The Boy Named Crow is the same quote: "And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through… you won't be the same person you walked in. That’s what this storm is all about" (Murakami, 2005). The storm that we are currently facing right now is our own destiny, and we can change its path. By saying "path," I mean how we experience it and how we enjoy it—not repel it, because that will only cause trouble. Destiny is already laid down in our lives; it's a premeditated phenomenon. However, its process is for us to decide.
One similar experience that can be profoundly compared to this concept is having a reflection between me and the face I see in the mirror. A communication that brings insights and awareness to what my current situation is: "Are you ignoring something? Are you procrastinating too much? Do you even value time? How much time have you wasted throughout your life? You're useless? What if you achieve heights? You, yourself, don't even know where you will be after 10 years." I'm undefined. In fact, my grades don't define me because they are not me; they are only made by my external expectation of what I really want to become in the eyes of others. These are the complaints of the one speaking in the mirror. Does reflecting mean I'm changing? Or does it make me aware that what I'm doing is passively accepting my fate?
This leans me toward the same way I look at myself in the mirror and start asking those difficult questions about the life of Lucia in a short story by Scott P. Salcedo, The Edge of the Fields, who also faces her own quiet moment of reflection. She was surrounded by endless rain that could possibly destroy the hard work she put into the farm fields, but she didn't panic or try to escape from it. Instead, she takes in her surroundings and thinks deeply about what’s happening. It's as if she knows she can't control the rain, so she just sits with it, watches it, and accepts it. That silence is powerful. She’s not giving up, but she’s choosing to observe and endure. Going back to mine, it aligns subtly—I'm not “fixing” anything in that moment either; I'm just starting to recognize what’s really happening in my life. And sometimes, that kind of quiet honesty is the first step before any real change can happen. The story really is a simple but powerful moment that reminds me how sometimes, just being honest with ourselves can help us understand what we’re going through (Salcedo, 2020).
This is the reason I can conclude that my fate is inevitable, but wasting my life just because I know that I'll end up somewhere unrecognizable is not a reasonable argument to waste my potential to enjoy it at its fullest. Life is short; destiny is its expiration. The process of using it is in my own hands.
