Dear Ishani, Ishani, stranger, I don’t know you nor do I know your story, nor that of your struggle, the pain you felt and, perhaps, feeling now. But perhaps we have one thing in common: the struggle. Remember, the human struggle is perhaps one of the very few things that are shared among all men, and as I typed out your paragraph, I just have one thing in mind I felt that you must know. I care. Although the experience is probably incomparable, I was in a very similar position as you are now. I had friends that constantly abandons me, who left me disappointed, not at them, but myself. For a long time, I consistently concluded that I was the problem of my loneliness. And it is in those trying times, friend, that we have to remind ourselves that those issues cannot be solved in solitude. You said life is about being happy and achievements. But then, what is achievements without failure? What is happiness without sadness? What I discover, after the dark months, is that this sadness of yours, as all men feel, can only make you stronger tomorrow. And the day after, and the next. This darkness around you will only make the light of your soul shines brighter. And as long as there is a tomorrow, the possibility is still infinite. But you first have to believe that by saying this aloud to yourself, yes, aloud. Now. “I care about myself.” Stranger. Friend. I would like to tell you my little secret of I have beaten that darkness. Within my abyss, a writer had lent me his strength, his words, and wisdom to me. His name is Albert Camus, and it is his words I’d like to share with you about the myth of Sisyphus. “The Myth of Sisyphus: The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion of life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one seems the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments towards that lower world whence he will have to push it up again towards the summit. He goes back down to the plain. If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is not fate that can not be surmounted by scorn. I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. The universe henceforth without a master seem to him neither sterile or futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” This tale is a mirror illusion of the lives that most of us live. The rock is the representation of the futility of life itself as we are pushing against forces unknown, such as time and space, in dealing with fates for which we have very little control over. In fact, such is life. But yet, Camus asserts that such life is not completely pointless, but rather, it is absurd. And it is within our struggle in that absurdity that fulfills our hearts, our souls. Friend, I hope you find my words helpful. And I hope you can find my words among the thousands of typing practices. You WERE alone for friendship day tomorrow. But NO MORE. I hope you realize that, and I’m confident to say, we in this entire community is here for you. Yes, all we do is type, but we all are capable far more than that. I will be awaiting your reply tomorrow on friendship day. And I sincerely hope our friendship can help you surpass all the obstacles ahead of you, no matter how dim the light is. Yours truly, Wing PS: To all fellow typist, please rate in hope to be visible for Ishani. Thank you for your time.