I went back to my lodgings as soon as the ceremony was over, and stripped to the skin. I opened the window of my room, which was on the second floor, and, pretending that my diploma was a telescope, I surveyed as much of the world as I could see. Then I threw the diploma down on the desk and lay on the floor in the middle of the room. In that position, I thought back over my past and tried to imagine what my future would be. I thought about my diploma lying on the desk, and though it seemed to have some significance as a kind of symbol of the beginning of a new life I could not help feeling that it was a meaningless scrap of paper too.

Kokoro Natsume Soseki