fascinated

Sometimes it just happens. Flipping across the pages of a book, listening to a well-prepared but barely heard talk - pang! Suddenly it hits you. It isn't as if you discovered gravity or invented the wheel, but it certainly comes close. It's the feeling that you, for the first time ever, understand what something means. You didn't even know you were seeking answers, but now that you've found them, you can't get those questions out of your mind. Your view on life changes. Sometimes it's even as if you've grasped the answer to the meaning of this world, the purpose of your life. 42. And all of that in a split of a second.

Okay, maybe 'seeing the meaning of life' is a bit generously put, but I hope you recognize these moments in which you get touched so deeply that you know it will somehow influence your life forever. It could be the discovery of a talent you didn't know you possessed. You might have a vision of your future so clear that it seems to be happening already. You get the same things pointed out again and again by different people. How would they know? Can they read my thoughts?

As I think about my future plans, this happens to me all the time. I may praise myself lucky, I guess. Two years ago: no clue whatsoever about anything I would do after the summer holidays. Nowadays: study chosen, piles of dreams and desires to pursue, not a thing in my way.

Yesterday, however, while I was reading a book that I had been eyeing for a while but never actually planned to read, I got fascinated by things I didn't even know would interest me. America. Second World War. Two fifteen-year-old boys. And, above all, focused on Jewry.

I don't know what happened, but I was drawn into this story from the first page and it hasn't left my mind ever since. It's hard to explain, but it feels like more than just an ordinary book. It feels like the beginning of an enchantment.