‘The Overcoat’ by Nikolai Gogol: I see you

After reading this book, I realised the greatest tragedy may be to go through life unnoticed and unacknowledged, spending your time on this beautiful earth yet remaining invisible.

Imagine living detached from your surroundings, so unnoticed that you begin to fade from the world and from yourself. Perhaps this is what happens when no one acknowledges you for long enough.

Gogol's The Overcoat introduces us to a man named Akaky. Unable to settle on one of the names presented from the church calendar, his mother simply gives him his father's name. And so he becomes Akaky Akakyevich.

I think children know what awaits them when they hear their names for the first time. It is said that children are angels, after all. If that is true, maybe they know more than we think.