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“I love listening to the Lovin’ Spoonful. Their music is sort of laid-back and never pretentious. Listening to this soothing music brings back a lot of memories of the 1960s. Nothing really special, though. If they were to make a movie about my life (just the thought of which scares me), these would be the scenes they’d leave on the cutting-room floor. “We can leave this episode out,” the editor would explain. “It’s not bad, but it’s sort of ordinary and doesn’t amount to much.” Those kinds of memories - unpretentious, commonplace. But for me, they’re all meaningful and valuable. As each of these memories flits across my mind, I’m sure I unconsciously smile, or give a slight frown. Commonplace they might be, but the accumulation of these memories has led to one result: me. Me here and now, on the north shore of Kauai. Sometimes when I think of life, I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up on shore.“ 

Yukaridaki satirlari Haruki Murakami‘nin daha once de alintiladigim What I Talk About When I Talk About Running kitabindan aldim. Su hayatta gercekten de baskalarina siradan gelebilecek ama bizi biz yapan kucuk mutluluklar ve uzuntuler yasayip duruyoruz. Murakami guzel yakalamis her zamanki gibi..

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“I’m often asked what I think about as I run. Usually, the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I’m running? I don’t have a clue.

On cold days I guess I think a little about how cold it is. And about the heat on hot days. When I’m sad I think a little about sadness. When I’m happy I think a little about happiness. As I mentioned before, random memories come to me too. And occasionally, hardly ever, really, I get an idea to use in a novel. But really as I run, I don’t think much of anything worth mentioning. 

I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void. But as you might expect, an occasional thought will slip into this void. People’s minds can’t be a complete blank. Human beings’ emotions are not strong or consistent enough to sustain a vacuum. What I mean is, the kinds of thoughts and ideas that invade my emotions as I run remain subordinate to that void. Lacking content, they are just random thoughts that gather around that central void.

The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky as always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky. The sky both exists and doesn’t exist. It has substance and at the same time doesn’t. And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.”

from What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

painting by Ben Goss

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Guardian, Haruki Murakami‘nin yeni yayinlanacak What I Talk About When I Talk About Running adli kitabinda bizleri nelerin bekledigini ozetleyen uzunca bir yaziyi sayfalarina tasimis: The thing is, I’m not much for team sports. Don’t misunderstand me - I’m not totally uncompetitive. It’s just that for some reason I’ve never cared all that much whether I beat others or lose to them. So in this sense long-distance running is the perfect fit for a mindset like mine. Most ordinary runners are motivated by an individual goal: namely, a time they want to beat. As long as he can beat that time, a runner will feel he’s accomplished what he set out to do.The same can be said about my profession. In the novelist’s profession, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won and critics’ praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matters. What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. I’m at an ordinary - or perhaps more like mediocre - level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be. Yazinin tamami

Guardian, Haruki Murakami‘nin yeni yayinlanacak What I Talk About When I Talk About Running adli kitabinda bizleri nelerin bekledigini ozetleyen uzunca bir yaziyi sayfalarina tasimis:

The thing is, I’m not much for team sports. Don’t misunderstand me - I’m not totally uncompetitive. It’s just that for some reason I’ve never cared all that much whether I beat others or lose to them. So in this sense long-distance running is the perfect fit for a mindset like mine. Most ordinary runners are motivated by an individual goal: namely, a time they want to beat. As long as he can beat that time, a runner will feel he’s accomplished what he set out to do.

The same can be said about my profession. In the novelist’s profession, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won and critics’ praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matters. What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. I’m at an ordinary - or perhaps more like mediocre - level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.

Yazinin tamami


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“I sometimes think that people’s hearts are like deep wells. Nobody knows what’s at the bottom. All you can do is guess from what comes floating to the surface every once in a while.”
— Haruki Murakami (Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman)

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