On my way to school today, I noticed something other then the same buildings and parked cars that are always there, I saw a middle age man wearing a thin t-shirt riding a rusty old bike. At first nothing about this man caught my attention but just as I was about to disregard him as another object I see out the window, he looked up at the brilliant blue morning sky and smiled. A smile that looked so genuine, so simple, so real. That image stuck with me for the rest of the day. It reminded me of Topaz's happiness. She was such a simple person that was always happy. She had no burdens, no worries, and during the rare times that she did they seemed to have evaporated almost instantaneously. To live a life in complete ignorance is something that a lot of us long to have. However, when we were discussing the book in tutorial I didn't agree with the"ignorance is bliss" statement because in my opinion she hasn't really lived and experienced if there weren't any ups and downs in her life. How would she know what true happiness is if she never experienced or allowed herself to experience the sorrows of life? But the instant I saw that man smile, I realized that there is nothing wrong with being genuinely happy and that you don't always need that contrast of being happy and being sad to be able to fully experience it. We live for the moments in life and whatever we experience at that moment is what we create our memories with. It just so happens that Topaz's moments were all filled with happiness. That was why her life seemed so surreal when these moments were pieced together in the Innocent Traveller. In a way, no matter how we disapprove of Topaz and her ways, I think we still wished we were a little bit like her.
-Cindy Chu
