Vintage Books, August 2009. Cover design by John Gall. Cover photograph by Masao Kageyama
BOOKS READ 41: WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING
More like, “What I do, and why I do it (ps - because I want to and who cares. p.p.s - I do, but I don’t need you to.)”
I really enjoyed this book. I have been enjoying more non-fiction, memoir type things lately, maybe it’s because I am looking for some kind of advice, and this book definitely steadied a lot of thoughts in my mind by giving them more words and depth and understanding. Also memoirs are easier to read. I think at least.
The book is about Murakami’s love for running and his thoughts around it. You could easily replace running with anything and all the things said in the book would have still made sense and rang true.
He runs for many reasons. There’s the physical - he sits at a desk all day and if he wants to live a long healthy life that includes writing more books - he needs to be in good shape. And then there’s all those other reasons that aren’t physical. And these are the interesting ones. The ones that make you feel okay about whatever it is you do. And these reasons are really simple. He does it to stop thinking. He does it because it suits him. He does it as a routine and it becomes a meditative act. He just…does it. And that’s that. And I like that sort of non explanation - because that is how things are - they are and you don’t really need an explanation for any of it. You can search for one and make one - but you’ll find in the end that just accepting that it just is is more calming and allows you to carry on in a not so heavy, angst ridden way.
It makes me think why I put aside time for certain things. Like this blog for instance. To be honest, I kind of shudder each time I think about this blog. I first started this blog because I had just graduated from design school, and my first job out was working at a used bookstore. I begged for that job. I was grasping at straws, I didn’t get a design job right away and freaked out and thought I needed to make some kind of money, and for some reason thought that working at a used bookstore was a good idea.
And it was nice at first. I got to be in a nice store surrounded by books and to talk and think about them.
But oh man, it got so, so boring after awhile. It wasn’t very busy and I had been on such a high paced schedule in school that I didn’t know how to relax and just read and enjoy that. I read so much that reading got boring. But I had a lot of energy in me from just graduating and was still quite critical in that everything I came into contact with, I had so much to say. And one thing that I had finally learned by the end of school was that if you have a lot of something, that something being information, that you should do something with it - apply it. I know. Obvious. But I had all these thoughts about the books I read and had to do something with it.
So I started this blog.
And for awhile there I had a lot to say about the things I read.
But now.
I can barely get myself to finish a book. It takes me forever. I still love going to bookstores and getting piles of books - but all that really happens to them in the end is they sit pretty on a shelf and the pile just grows and grows. I like the idea of reading all these books, but when it comes time to sit down and read them - I’d rather do something else. I have so much that I want to do - and I have, haha, read a lot of books, some of them really good, that it’s like, do I really want to spend all these hours reading these books and writing about them when I can learn a new thing like how to make pottery or go swimming or something? I think too much about the amount of time I have to do things and it seems so short and I get so scattered that I should just learn to commit to the first thought that popped in my head and see it through.
And then this blog gets neglected and neglected.
I’m not the type of person to start something and not really see it through. I realize now how non existent my sense of time was when I started this blog. I never imagined that I would still be writing in it 3 years later and how that would feel.
It feels like a slog.
But that’s part of the reason why I like this blog now. The reasons why I liked and did this blog from when I first started it is totally different from now. I do like and absolutely hate that this blog is a challenge. That each entry that I start is painful to write at first, but once I write that one sentence that sets off all the other thoughts - it becomes gratifying because I have broken through a great amount of laziness in me. And that gratification brings me back again and again even though it feels like I am starting over each time - but I know in some way it is building upon and refining something within me and just needs time to manifest. Also this blog has been a nice document and indication of time.
And so that is why I do this - even though everything I write on here is so few and far between.
And that is why I read - to break the things I don’t like about myself within me - to break with what is around me - and to just be in a story and come out slightly different.
