Where is Waldo, really? (Junior Writing)

     Lots of young kids have probably seen this young, skinny, French character with a striped shirt on. In storybooks, this character named Waldo frequently appears inside the massive crowd, making kids find where he is. This case of finding where Waldo really is, in fact, is not just for kids to have fun. Depending on what Waldo represents, we can expand it to a lifelong and philosophical question.

     We first need to examine the type of situation Waldo is in. As mentioned above, he is in such a crowded environment that it is hard to easily identify him without any careful observation. This circumstance is actually very similar with what modern people encounter within everyday life. Waking up at 6:30 am, office workers head to their workplaces go through crowded subway stations and encounter so many people. If we were able to look down at our lives from the sky, what we see would probably resemble a storybook of Waldo.

     For this open-ended question, Waldo can represent so many things, depending on how people interpret the prompt. Regarding the situation above, however, it seems likely that Waldo is someone with some values we consider precious. People are trying to find something that is valuable from a mass crowd, which, in this case, is regarded as useless background. In any case, the way of finding Waldo will strongly depend on what it represents. If, for example, Waldo is ourselves, then we don’t have to look at our inner being and try to find where we really are or what kind of person we are. It’s not saying “I’m at school” or “I’m on my way home”; rather, having retrospection means thinking about our mental state or relationship with other people.

     If Waldo, in contrast, is not ourselves, then we need to have our focus on the outer world. But do we really need to know exactly where he is? Or is it that as we constantly put our efforts towards finding ‘Waldo’, we naturally succeed in finding him? I believe in the latter. Well, for a kid reading a Waldo storybook, he can just physically match him with the people appearing in the crowd. However, in real life, things are not so simple; we have to experience, do our endeavor, and sometimes make blunders in order to really find out ‘Waldo’ that we have ardently and continuously looked for. To exemplify, for finding a lifelong partner, we cannot simply look passively but have to go through real-sometimes poignant and cruel-experiences. Rather than spending time trying to answer the question “Where is Waldo, really?” passively and abstractly, it is often better to dive in and start the journey of finding him. Life indeed does not have a specific destination. Rather, it is more of an undecided path, so we rather have to live like a floating boat and will somehow be able to reach Waldo.