Paper Paper towns
“We are just paper people in the paper town” Margo says to Quentin , while dancing with him gracefully, looking down the city of Orlando. The movie is quite an art and yes, one can read this article even though one hasn’t watched it. As for me, just cannot relate better to the statement. For someone who lives like an observer of beings and things, the Messiahic curiousity rat of subjectivity and sometimes nihilistic; paper town and paper concept is such a nice arrival of interpretation.
So basically, paper town is a place put on the map even though the place doesn’t really exist. It is done so, by the mapmakers to prevent plagiarism or to maintain an apparent originality which no one else can steal. The character Margo in the story claims that she is just a paper girl in the ‘Paper town’.
Implying that real originality of self is something that’s hidden. What’s shown outside cannot be trusted oftentimes and doesn’t necessarily have to be real. The story is quite interesting. Maybe its about finding the “un-paperness” in the paper girl in her for the long run, or maybe its just a form of expression where she hasn’t found herself, or have been self-actuated with what she wants to represent to the world. The real her. Who knows? So, who is Margo? Even she doesn’t really seem to know. And for the time being until she does, she is a paper girl.
This is the classic story about the authenticity of the difference between rationality and the mechanism that forms it. It is the solid question mark on how rationale it might even be to resort to any kind of level of “belief” in something that you come across In your life. The squid of curiosity inviting thy self into its deep-deep ocean to swim along with. As in, one may be a follower of Shiva but when one asks how would you consider yourself that, the answers may be different. Maybe someone is hardcore Hindu person, maybe someone just likes the swag of Shiva and want to adopt the same coolness, or maybe they just want a good protective mechanism when morally questioned about weed. So, what do you even believe? and what are your interpretation of it even are? What are the foundations of it and how have you been affected by it even? Different kinds of things makes sense to different people with different background for sure. But at least once in all of their lives, they must and will come across this puzzle of “knowing vs believing” because its hard to live that blindly.
So, the story is basically a poem where the writer takes up an enticing philosophical regime of whom no one really knows the objective answers to and mixed it up with the flavor of immature and new youth of desire for achievement of the so called “love”. At least that is understandable. A series of chemical happenings that take place in one’s anatomy triggering the crucial parts for pleasure inducing hormones( Aish, there you go; 15 year old me! Now, man up and think of creative things to talk about with her, already!)
And in the other hand, we don’t really know how much are we supposed to invest our “belief” potion on. May it be friends , your lover, family , society or even life for many. How much?
And as accordingly, Margo is on the same journey of finding and realizing and adding up to her experiences of new things, which will eventually help her to make an almost solid account on who she is and what kind of life she wants to lead or even the ‘eternal antidote’ to the human ignorance, suffering and the “paperness”.
But she has to be waterproof first to go beyond just paper. She has to learn to callous up. She embarks on her journey of clearing off the fog of unexplored territory, piece by piece , town by town and mystery by mystery.
On a personal note, I think the extent of how much faith and assurance and submitted we become to certain labels and experiences in our life come intuitively. This universe sure is one hell of a a vast place with infinitely random possibilities but just the fact that the way of human life has found it’s flow to the “specific in the random” is quite amazing. Subjectively is and will forever be amazing. And that’s what makes life, life.
Hence, we don’t really have to worry so much. It can be the impulse of some to choose a path that’s considered strange or even extreme, but the default is the same. The world is basically the same. So, to all the Margo’s inside each of our hearts out there, Goodluck on your journey of creating and burning of your own Paper towns. And yeah, make sure to build a real town though.