361 Chapters
December 8, 2023
Writer: Deepa Ramesh
Editor: Hannah Ostfield
When I first learned about gravity in elementary school, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t utterly underwhelmed. After all, the thought of bouncing against walls without being stopped by an adult and floating freely in outer space enraptured the young girl who viewed the world through rose-tinted glasses. To me, gravity appeared as nothing more than a way of diluting the fun and spontaneity life has to offer.
Of course, as I got older, my misgivings about gravity soon faded away. Without gravity, there would be no new steps to take, no sun-drenched sky to admire, and the Earth we know and love would cease to exist. Ultimately, it is for the greater good of humanity that we have two feet anchoring us to solid ground. Although we can always rely on the constancy of gravity, the events of any given day remain capricious. In some ways, it’s almost like we are pinwheels — forever influenced by changing currents. After all, the passage of time can be slow or rapid at any given moment, but life itself is fragile. It is so easy to have a good day that blesses us with an infectious smile and an extra spring in our steps. However, it’s almost equally likely that our smooth-sailing joy shatters, and we fall utterly apart.
Simply put, there is no way of telling when we will have a good or bad day, and this unpredictability always places us in a constant guessing game. Many people turn to horoscopes and palm-reading, while others simply ignore the world’s rumblings. And, of course, some continuously ruminate over their luck and misfortunes.
But if life truly is such a rollercoaster, what makes the ride so riveting and unforgettable that we always find a reason to smile and let loose? I discovered that it comes from new beginnings when simple and ordinary tasks become reliable and extraordinary sources of accomplishment.
Over the summer, I came across a group of people on Reddit who came up with an audacious plan to conquer the 361 chapters of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace by reading a single chapter daily for an entire year. When I first heard people were doing this, I was somewhat bewildered because all I knew about War and Peace were the comments my father would make during family dinners about the book being famous for torturing people with boredom and the one “Peanuts” episode where Charlie Brown’s Christmas holidays were ruined because he had to read the book for school. But despite my preconceptions, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by how thoroughly people of different ages and walks of life engaged with the story and stuck to the reading schedule without any deviations. I decided that I also wanted to give it a try.
I began the challenge this past July with fresh eyes, for I knew nothing about the storyline and its characters. As I continued reading, I realized that this long and ancient story about the Napoleonic Wars reads surprisingly modern in certain parts. It is interesting to see how Tolstoy’s characters, who are constrained by societal expectations, behave in the same way we do. In many ways, the events of War and Peace have given me anecdotes to describe feelings I don’t have simple words for.
But above all else, I realized why I am still motivated to sift through the pages every night without fail is because sticking to a regular schedule has brought a sense of gravity to my life, as the completion of simple tasks never fails to fill my heart with purpose and accomplishment. Whether you enjoy feeding the squirrels on the Diag after a long day of classes, journaling your thoughts before you forget them, or even making origami, we all have little habits that bring us peace and fulfillment.
In many ways, these little actions that we rarely take time to acknowledge as worthwhile embody one of the bravest aspects of the human spirit — that no matter how successful or horrendous our day might be, we always find the will to do something. Whether I have a good or bad day, I still read War and Peace. It is an act of resistance, a way of celebrating inner happiness in the midst of adversity.
As I continue on my quest to finish these 361 Chapters, I encourage you to embrace your hobbies or the little acts of constancy that anchor your days.
Perhaps we don’t always need to rely on the wind’s turbulence to shape our lives. Maybe the meaning of life is nestled in our palms like a ball of clay, and we have the power to shape the peace of mind we covet.
