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All of the main characters in this book are teenagers, so it's no surprise that a major theme is their purpose in life. Teenagers are at a point in their life where they are asked the questions: "What college do you want to go to?", "What do you want to study?", "What job do you want?", and the major question of "What do you want to do with your life?". Colin, Hassan,and Lindsey just graduated from high school and they are in the gap between high school and college where they decide what they want to do in life, which is no easy task.
Hassan, Colin's best friend, seems to have it all figured out what he wants to do in life, and that is just " sitting around, watching TV, ang getting fatter" (Green 32). Colin does pester him about going to college in the beginning of the book, but he finally snaps and says, "Lay off about me going to school. Let me be happy: I'll let you be happy" (Green 71). This foreshadows how Hassan realizes that not doing anything is not really a way to live.
By the end of the book Hassan has a "blinding light spiritual awakening" (Green 195) which starts when he sees Hollis, Lindsey's mom, doing something to help the people of her community. He realizes that he is a "non-doer" (Green 196) and he's happy being like that but after doing things in Gutshot and seeing people around him do things to help other people he wants to accomplish things and so he makes this pledge of, "I'm going to start doing" (Green 195), which means that he'll go to college, start actually doing something with his life, and try to figure out his purpose in life.
Lindsey Lee Wells has spent her entire life in Gutshot, Tennessee and she intends on spending the rest of it there. She doesn't want to do anything that matters because she thinks, "when you start to make yourself into a big deal, that's when you get shot down" (Green 94). She thinks this way because when she was younger she tried to be different from everyone else and by her words" they hated all of me for an entire year" (Green 67) because she dressed and acted differently than what anyone else had ever seen. She hated them too, but then she decided to "make them like me. I just decided. It was so easy" (Green 67). She did this so that she would not have this negativity from these people who were against her being different.
When she did this, she realized how it was easier to conform with everyone and not have people against you. So when she is with different groups of people she acts a certain way so that they would like her, almost like a chameleon blending in with its background. This relates back to the theme of purpose in life because Lindsey is stuck in this rut of, " I. Never. Do. Anything. For Anybody. Except retards I don't give a shit about" (Green 200). She thought her purpose in life was to just to stay in Gutshot and go along with the norm that was set by people she doesn't even care about. When she sees how her small town is dying and she breaks it off with the friends she doesn't really care about, she goes along with Colin and Hassan saying, " We could just keep going" (215) realizing that she does love her hometown, but that there is more out there and that she should try and make something of herself and that her purpose is most likely outside of Gutshot.
Colin questions his purpose in life periodically throughout the book. He wants to have an Eureka Moment, he wants to try and figure out why all these Katherines dumped him, and he doesn't want to be a washed up child prodigy. When he was a child and absorbed information easily and quickly, people repeatedly told him about all the potential he had and that he was a genius. As he grew up he realized that he could take in information but he couldn't make his own information, which lead him to believe that he wasn't actually a genius because, " Prodigies learn, geniuses do" (10). This is why he wanted to have an Eureka Moment because that would officially make him a genius.
Colin's Eureka moment comes when he is visiting Gutshot and comes up with this theorem of predicting relationships by, " Tak[ing] any two people, and even if they've never met each other, the formula will show who's going to break up with whom if they ever date, and approximately how long the relationship will last" (43). This formula was to mainly explain why all these Katherines broke up with him and he struggles periodically throughout the book to make this theorem work.
He does end up figuring out the theorem and how it works with all 19 Katherines but when he plugs Lindsey and himself into the equation, it proves to be wrong by her not dumping him in the four days that she should have. He thinks of his theorem as a failure and rushes to fix it. As he's trying to fix it, Lindsey and Hassan are playing Hold 'Em poker, which makes him come to the understanding how " you can make a Theorem that explains why you won or lost past poker hands, but you can never make one to predict future poker hands" (212) which is the same concept that should be applied to his theorem. This is his second Eureka moment in which he realizes that the future is unpredictable and it will make no sense to waste your time trying predicting it.
This all relates back to his purpose in life because he spent most of his life worrying about being remembered and doing something great, but with this theorem he realized that "if the future is forever, then eventually it will swallow us all up" (213). Even with this bleak statement he goes on to say how the stories that people tell to " make us matter to each other" (213) will live on. He comes to this realization that he shouldn't worry about being remembered because he will be forgotten in a thousand years but living in the now and telling these stories will affect these people around him and the future in a ripple effect.
No one really knows what their purpose in life is until their life is almost over. Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey are trying to figure out what their purpose is and reach the wrong conclusion about their purpose. Hassan thinks it's spending all his time doing nothing. Lindsey thinks that it's blending in with the people around her and staying in Gutshot. Colin thinks that it is to do something memorable and have an Eureka moment. In the end they realize that their guesses on their purpose in life is incorrect and that they will not know what it will be because the future is unpredictable. Even though they will never know their purpose, they come to the conclusion that they should try and push themselves to do things outside of their comfort zone and to help people.
Hassan, Colin's best friend, seems to have it all figured out what he wants to do in life, and that is just " sitting around, watching TV, ang getting fatter" (Green 32). Colin does pester him about going to college in the beginning of the book, but he finally snaps and says, "Lay off about me going to school. Let me be happy: I'll let you be happy" (Green 71). This foreshadows how Hassan realizes that not doing anything is not really a way to live.
By the end of the book Hassan has a "blinding light spiritual awakening" (Green 195) which starts when he sees Hollis, Lindsey's mom, doing something to help the people of her community. He realizes that he is a "non-doer" (Green 196) and he's happy being like that but after doing things in Gutshot and seeing people around him do things to help other people he wants to accomplish things and so he makes this pledge of, "I'm going to start doing" (Green 195), which means that he'll go to college, start actually doing something with his life, and try to figure out his purpose in life.
Lindsey Lee Wells has spent her entire life in Gutshot, Tennessee and she intends on spending the rest of it there. She doesn't want to do anything that matters because she thinks, "when you start to make yourself into a big deal, that's when you get shot down" (Green 94). She thinks this way because when she was younger she tried to be different from everyone else and by her words" they hated all of me for an entire year" (Green 67) because she dressed and acted differently than what anyone else had ever seen. She hated them too, but then she decided to "make them like me. I just decided. It was so easy" (Green 67). She did this so that she would not have this negativity from these people who were against her being different.
When she did this, she realized how it was easier to conform with everyone and not have people against you. So when she is with different groups of people she acts a certain way so that they would like her, almost like a chameleon blending in with its background. This relates back to the theme of purpose in life because Lindsey is stuck in this rut of, " I. Never. Do. Anything. For Anybody. Except retards I don't give a shit about" (Green 200). She thought her purpose in life was to just to stay in Gutshot and go along with the norm that was set by people she doesn't even care about. When she sees how her small town is dying and she breaks it off with the friends she doesn't really care about, she goes along with Colin and Hassan saying, " We could just keep going" (215) realizing that she does love her hometown, but that there is more out there and that she should try and make something of herself and that her purpose is most likely outside of Gutshot.
Colin questions his purpose in life periodically throughout the book. He wants to have an Eureka Moment, he wants to try and figure out why all these Katherines dumped him, and he doesn't want to be a washed up child prodigy. When he was a child and absorbed information easily and quickly, people repeatedly told him about all the potential he had and that he was a genius. As he grew up he realized that he could take in information but he couldn't make his own information, which lead him to believe that he wasn't actually a genius because, " Prodigies learn, geniuses do" (10). This is why he wanted to have an Eureka Moment because that would officially make him a genius.
Colin's Eureka moment comes when he is visiting Gutshot and comes up with this theorem of predicting relationships by, " Tak[ing] any two people, and even if they've never met each other, the formula will show who's going to break up with whom if they ever date, and approximately how long the relationship will last" (43). This formula was to mainly explain why all these Katherines broke up with him and he struggles periodically throughout the book to make this theorem work.
He does end up figuring out the theorem and how it works with all 19 Katherines but when he plugs Lindsey and himself into the equation, it proves to be wrong by her not dumping him in the four days that she should have. He thinks of his theorem as a failure and rushes to fix it. As he's trying to fix it, Lindsey and Hassan are playing Hold 'Em poker, which makes him come to the understanding how " you can make a Theorem that explains why you won or lost past poker hands, but you can never make one to predict future poker hands" (212) which is the same concept that should be applied to his theorem. This is his second Eureka moment in which he realizes that the future is unpredictable and it will make no sense to waste your time trying predicting it.
This all relates back to his purpose in life because he spent most of his life worrying about being remembered and doing something great, but with this theorem he realized that "if the future is forever, then eventually it will swallow us all up" (213). Even with this bleak statement he goes on to say how the stories that people tell to " make us matter to each other" (213) will live on. He comes to this realization that he shouldn't worry about being remembered because he will be forgotten in a thousand years but living in the now and telling these stories will affect these people around him and the future in a ripple effect.
No one really knows what their purpose in life is until their life is almost over. Colin, Hassan, and Lindsey are trying to figure out what their purpose is and reach the wrong conclusion about their purpose. Hassan thinks it's spending all his time doing nothing. Lindsey thinks that it's blending in with the people around her and staying in Gutshot. Colin thinks that it is to do something memorable and have an Eureka moment. In the end they realize that their guesses on their purpose in life is incorrect and that they will not know what it will be because the future is unpredictable. Even though they will never know their purpose, they come to the conclusion that they should try and push themselves to do things outside of their comfort zone and to help people.