People cannot possess youth and the feeling of youth at the same time. That year I was twenty-one, in the prime of my life, and I had many extravagant hopes. I wanted to love, to eat, and to suddenly become a cloud half bright and half dark in the sky. Later I realized that life is a slow process of being hammered down; as a person ages day by day, hopes also fade away day by day, eventually becoming like a cow that has been hammered.