Murakami defies the over-generalized popular view of the "outsider" artist. He is connected to his running community, he is tenacious, ambitious, grounded in reality (for all of the surreal scenes in his novels), and treats his body as well as he can. He feels the connection of mind/body is important, and even says that he feels like it is the body that fuels the mind; it is the body, in fact, that makes writing possible.
Early in his memoir, he states that most people would find his personality and disposition repugnant, and at first I mistrusted this humble statement. At the end of the novel, though at a base level I think I really love him, I would agree that most people (and even myself) would probably avoid having him over for a long dinner. But it’s absolutely clear that this personality is exactly what allows him to author his novels. What does this mean for other artists? He steadfastly refuses to extrapolate his own life to make more general recommendations, so I’ve had to come to my own:
Take-aways (the corporate lingo just sometimes works, ok?):
- Whatever your talents, when you’ve figured yourself out, be uncompromising. This right here could be a game changer for most of us.
- Within this theme: make the time and make the space for your craft. There can be no output otherwise.
- Take the long view. What if a distance runner constantly thought about every detail of the mile he was on? What if, as a yogi, I encountered a difficult pose early in my practice and didn’t remind myself that shoulderstand and savasana lay ahead? I would undoubtedly run from the classroom, throwing my mat in the nearest dumpster. As much as this point borders on the trite, I think it’s important to make it real, to live it. Then it’s not so trite. “That's how I started running. Thirty-three - that's how old I was then. Still young enough, though no longer a young man. The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. That was the age when I began my life as a runner, and my starting point as a novelist (p. 47)”. Without a long view, 33 is too late. Every point is a starting point, though I know this quote with undoubtedly have me comparing myself to him when I reach 33, which is the exact opposite of his thrust but inevitable. Which leads me to my last take-away:
- Much of our lives are based on habit. Another way of saying this is that our thinking and actions are in large part based on how we’ve trained ourselves. Training can be passive. Training can be purposeful. But it happens either way. On this afternoon's “Talk of the Nation” on NPR, Neal Conan had a psychologist on who has recently worked with middle school children and the military (what that says about the lives of 6-8th graders I can only guess) on “mental resiliency”. He passionately discussed coping themes based on taking yourself out of the moment, imagining the worst-case scenario (as habitually we do first), imagining the best-case scenario (which takes training), and then settling on the most probable explanation for what’s happening (this also takes much training). With consistent practice, he says, it has been found that soldiers and kids are less catastrophic in their thinking and less prone to depression and bad decision-making. What he was trying to say in essence is the same as Murakami’s theme: just as we train our muscles, we can have success in training our minds. It’s just that it’s such damn hard work, and many of us end up walking our marathons or never even lining up on the starting line.
Go here for an excerpt of the memoir, but I recommend going out and buying the damned thing. Preferably at your local bookstore. My thanks to the guy at Pendragon in Oakland who, when I balked at the paperback price, sternly put his hand on mine and said, "It's worth it."
Consider this my equally stern equivalent.
