What Harry Potter is for me

After watching the Harry Potter movies for a tons of times, I finally picked up its book two weeks ago. While reading the books, I am also reviewing the movies two more times. 

Although I found that the story is still incredibly warm and exciting, I am viewing it from a brand new perspective. As a child, I always thought that Harry Potter is a story about magic and adventure. However now, I perceive it as a story all about love and bravery. 

Lily Potter loved her son so much that this love was strong enough to destroy Lord Voldemort. How astounding is it? The power of love, an non-material creature, could defeat the strongest magic that is visible and petrifying. Love is a magic, but it is not a magic we could see, touch, or hear. It is a magic out of human reach even though it is created by humans; it is a gift. The ability of love and being loved is not one that everyone could own because each person will need a special individual to activate this ability for her or him. This individual could be mom, dad, brother, sister, teacher, friend, and so on. It is certainly lucky if we could meet this special one in an early age. For Harry, I think this person is Ron, the first friend who cares for him unconditionally. The Weasleys is a crucial group on Harry's journey to love and being brave. Then, he met all the great beings, Hermione, Hagrid, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Sirius Black, and so many who loved him and whom he loved. 

Luckily I met my special individual at 16, but the whole activation process took 2 years. This individual really taught me how the feeling of love and being loved is like. Before I met this person, I had a long, hard time of feeling love; I had no idea what it was, and I still don't, but I understand that love is some magic that we do not have to rationalize. I now know I love a person just by feeling it and know I am being loved merely by experiencing it. How did this individual teach me about love? I have no idea, but I could feel it worked. I later found the root of this theory from Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment: there are two kinds of knowledge, one is rational justification and one is feeling/sensing. We need both of them in the world; no one is superior than the other. Clearly love belongs to the second category. 

Love makes a man or woman brave for a reason that I have not yet figured out or maybe it is a "reason" that we can only feel. I know it not only through Harry Potter (in which the essence of this statement can be easily observed) but also through my own growth. After accepting love, I feel that I have owned all the power to achieve my dream. I live through everyday happily, sometimes maybe restlessly or sadly, but I deeply know in my heart that I am not afraid of any obstacle partially because none of them could be more difficult than understanding love and partially because of the power of love. I truly embraced who I am; I never thought that I was hiding something from families, friends, or myself Here, but only after my rebirth (raining in the background ...) I realized that I have been not showing a big chunk of my personality to people surrounding me or even myself. I have never been able to envision my future so well that I am living in it most of the days. I deeply appreciate the person who activated my ability about love.

Maybe we are all so familiar with Harry Potter's story that we take what he and his friends could do as rather normal things in magic world. However, if we try to forget what we knew about the story and just focused how Harry adventured through then ask ourselves if we would be able to do what he did in the same situation, we would know how brave a person has to become to survive in Harry's world. 

​Love is indeed what transforms everyone.