Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha attempts to tell the story of one man's journey to enlightenment. Siddhartha, a young Brahmin, leaves his comfortable home and family to learn more about himself. During his journey, he overcomes many obstacles, meets many people, and has many experiences that help shape him into the individual he wants to be. In the end Siddhartha thinks he has found himself, but in reality he has lost many parts of himself during this process. Despite the many unrealistic things that Siddhartha does, his commitment to finding himself and improving himself, in his opinion, is commendable. He repeatedly finds himself in situations where he feels like giving up because he hasn't achieved his goal yet, but then he never does. Unfortunately, the ways in which Siddhartha attempts to find himself are unreasonable and cause him to lose the beneficial qualities he possessed before the journey. If this is a story about finding oneself, it is in many ways problematic. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay To find himself, Siddhartha set himself the goal of eliminating all contact with reality and eliminating all desire for people, things, and even basic needs such as food, shelter, and sleep. He learned of a group, the Samana, who had similar beliefs and goals to his, so he decided to join them. To join the samanas, Siddhartha had to give away all his clothes, fast for extremely long periods, and, when not fasting, eat only once a day. Siddhartha deprived himself of everything "through pain, through voluntary suffering and overcoming pain, hunger, thirst, fatigue" (15) in the hope of feeling enlightened. By depriving himself of all the essentials, Siddhartha aims to empty himself of all human qualities; in his mind, doing so will allow him to find his true self. During his journey to achieve enlightenment, Siddhartha loses many human relationships that were very important to him before he left, such as his bonds with family and friends. Human relationships help shape you as a person, and the people you have relationships with influence how you live. To achieve enlightenment one should not give up loving and caring for others. Enlightenment, as a higher form of consciousness and humanism, should not require anyone to abandon everything and everyone who is an integral part of their life. Siddhartha was fully aware that by leaving the Brahmins he was also leaving his family and friends. These relationships are a key aspect of who a person is, but, ironically, Siddhartha sacrifices these parts of himself to find other parts of himself that he finds more meaningful. When Govinda and Siddhartha part ways, Govinda “hugs [one last time] the friend of his youth” (30), but Siddhartha does not seem sad nor does he have any regrets about leaving his best friend behind. In some respects, Siddhartha's lack of need for people is inhumane and rather disturbing. He believes he can achieve enlightenment on his own, without any help from family and friends. He abandons all his significant relationships to follow his own path. Ironically, Siddhartha loses his humanity as he tries to find himself. In addition to sacrificing his human relationships, Siddhartha also sacrifices emotional experiences to find enlightenment. Emotional experiences influence and shape people to become better, but Siddhartha leaves all that behind when he leaves the Brahmins. When Kamala dies, she does not cry, revealing her loss of emotion. Siddhartha's excuse for not crying is that he has now "become even richer and happier".