Komi and Dostoevsky 🥙

Taken from a conversation with my very close friends. A very weak link between Komi-san wa, Komyushō Desu and Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, but I liked it enough to want to ship it raw. 🚢

(me, Sandy)
I get nostalgic every time I read high school or just school based stories. I always think to myself how worried I was and if my mind were transported to a school’s body or time, I would do so well by not giving a fuck about anything . Do you ever miss school?

(Ethan)
Definitely do not miss middle school. Never will. I guess there were some things in high school that I no longer have but Im ultimately happier now so I dont miss them too hard.

(Back to me)
Based take. I’ve been out of school for almost a year, though as you said, and I agree to myself, I’m ultimately happier and more fulfilled. Yet I miss it. Not to the point of wanting to go back in any way or reliving it, it’s that sensation of when the memories are sweeter than the reality.

One of the ultimate reason why I love Komi so much, not the Komi the character necessarily but the series and atmosphere is because it gives me closure to my own days in school. Maybe it allows me to live through and experience what I missed or couldn’t have in my life, so having them coming from a book helps to reach fulfillment in unrealized moments.

(Ethan)
Living vicariously through manga instead of your children.

(Sandy)
In a way, yes. I mean, there is always the saying that children achieve their parents’ unrealized potential and dreams. I don’t know, maybe I’m being naive or egoistic, but I would want muh children to have their own lives and aspirations. Even if they’re the same as mine, it has to be their decision. I wouldn’t want to unload my life regrets onto them to achieve, because it’s not their cross to bear.

(Ethan)
Cold take, people living vicariously through their children is commonly viewed as bad parenting.

(Sandy)
Yet it’s a universal experience. Show me an objectively good parent, it’s too messy for one to handle cleanly. So there always will be selfish pressure of parents onto their kids. Subconsciously or consciously, so we can at least control the conscious part .

(Ethan)
The reason its pretty common is likely because people used to have kids when they were 19, before they were actually ready to have kids.

(Sandy)
Every parent should ask their kids and themselves whether they deserve to call themselves a parent. “What have I done to you or for you to call myself your father?” Or a mother. Sure, you have the biological connection, but mothers that dump their kids after they’re born dont deserve shit or called mother in any way, maybe only “technically” but no custody nor sympathy.

It’s an exercise that my parents and I do somewhat regularly. What have I done to call myself your mother? I would say, what have I done to call myself your son?

(Ethan)
That would sound way too forced in my family. Ours is a very sakuta-esque way of thinking. They’re my parents because they’re my parents, I’m their son because I’m their son (Sandy loved this). We do our best for eachother based on that (Sandy loved this). No need to verbalize the details.

(Back to me)
That’s totally okay and expected, every family has their own unique way of managing itself! My family is similar, ofc, we add this verbalization on top just because of how we think.

It reminds me of the opening line from Anna Karenina,