I have never enjoyed running. When I was younger, I ran only because I was forced to by the school for Physical Education. However, I still run for the obvious physical and health benefits, albeit the process being excruciating. In fact, running is the only sport I do nowadays because it works up a good sweat in a short period of time. Also, it is a good distraction from my thoughts - this works only because of the fact that I find running torturous, and I cannot fathom anything other than the pain with each step taken. 

Thus, as someone who doesn't like running, I am dumbfounded when I meet running enthusiasts. As hard as it is for me to wrap my head around the idea, there are people who actually love the activity, and my favourite author, Haruki Murakami, is one of them. 

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running is almost like Haruki Murakami's personal memoir.  It is the most profound book of his that I've read so far, and I love how intimately personal it is. It is the chance to take a peek into the life of this reclusive author.

Someone's hobby reveals a lot about the person. From his running, we learn about his growth as a writer, his sleeping habits, previous career, and even about his wife who has a sweet tooth; As for Murakami himself, he believes that “most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day.”

Likewise, I've experienced numerous epiphanies through baking - pieces of myself I've never known, things that brings me joy, and some revelations that are too embarrassing to be posted on this space. It has also reaffirmed several things I already knew about myself. Maybe one day I would publish a book titled, What I Talk About When I Talk About Baking. Haha.

Ramblings aside, I have even deeper and greater admiration for marathoners and triathletes. The pain they experience and their sheer determination make them feel more alive than ever. And I think that's what we all need, something that reminds ourselves of our existence. It is up to us to find something that evokes such raw emotion. 

"People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they'll go to any length to live longer. But don't think that's the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you're going to while away the years, it's far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive then in a fog, and I believe running helps you to do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life — and for me, for writing as whole. I believe many runners would agree."

Favourite Quotes from the book:

1. For now all I can do is put off making any detailed judgments and accept things as they are. Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river. And there’s also something kind of comical about it all, something you don’t want to discard completely.

2. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.

3. The most important thing we ever learn at school is the fact that the most important things can’t be learned at school.

4. Sometimes the world baffles me. I can’t believe that people would really do things like that.

5. Where did their thoughts, their hopes and dreams, disappear to? When people pass away, do their thoughts just vanish?

6. You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have. That’s one of the few good points of growing older.

7. So from the start, artistic activity contains elements that are unhealthy and antisocial. I’ll admit this. This is why among writers and other artists there are quite a few whose real lives are decadent or who pretend to be antisocial.

8. Beside, the road cows are lazily chewing grass. They show zero interest in the runners. They’re too busy eating grass to care about all these whimsical people and their nonsensical activities.

9. It’s a strange way of thinking and definitely a very strange feeling—consciousness trying to deny consciousness. You have to force yourself into an inorganic place. Instinctively I realized that this was the only way to survive.

10. Just because there’s an end doesn’t mean existence has meaning. An end point is simply set up as a temporary marker, or perhaps as an indirect metaphor for the fleeting nature of existence.

11. In this instance, relief outweighed happiness. It was like a tight knot inside me was gradually loosening, a knot I’d never even realized, until then, was there.

12. I don’t care about the time I run. I can try all I want, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to run the way I used to. I’m ready to accept that. It’s not one of your happier realities, but that’s what happens when you get older. Just as I have my own role to play, so does time. And time does its job much more faithfully, much more accurately, than I ever do.

13. Ever since time began (when was that, I wonder?), it’s been moving ever forward without a moment’s rest. And one of the privileges given to those who’ve avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. The honor of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality.

14. On the body of the bike is written “18 Til I Die,” the name of a Bryan Adams hit. It’s a joke, of course. Being eighteen until you die means you die when you’re eighteen.

15. But in real life things don’t go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. It isn’t always the case, but from experience I’d say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn’t the messenger’s fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality.

16. I’ve always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I’m wrong, but I won’t change.

17. It doesn’t matter how old I get, but as long as I continue to live I’ll always discover something new about myself. No matter how long you stand there examining yourself naked before a mirror, you’ll never see reflected what’s inside.

18. Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren’t involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It’s precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive—or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself. If things go well, that is.

19. Whether it’s good for anything or not, cool or totally uncool, in the final analysis what’s most important is what you can’t see but can feel in your heart. To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts.

20. I’ll age one more year, and probably finish another novel. One by one, I’ll face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can.

21. From out of the failures and joys I always try to come away having grasped a concrete lesson. (It’s got to be concrete, no matter how small it is.)

22. In other words, let's face it: Life is basically unfair. But even in a situation that's unfair, I think it's possible to seek out a kind of fairness. Of course, that might take time and effort. And maybe it won't seem to be worth all that. It's up to each individual to decide whether or not it is.

2. It seemed unreasonable, unfair, that a woman so young and beautiful should be so exhausted. Of course, it was neither unreasonable nor unfair. Exhaustion pays no mind to age or beauty.

3. It left me wondering how the ancient Egyptians filled their days, what little pleasures they enjoyed as they whiled their weary way to death. Learning to swim, wrapping mummies. And the sum accomplishment of that you call a civilization.

4. How I managed to support myself. Yet never managed to go anywhere. Never went anywhere, but aged all the same. How nothing touched me. And I touched nothing. How I'd lost track of what mattered. How I worked like a fool for things that didn't. How it didn't make a difference either way. How I was losing form. The tissues hardening, stiffening from within. Terrifying me.

5. Tendencies. You got tendencies. So even if you did everything over again, your whole life, you got tendencies to do just what you did, all over again.

6. You gotta dance. As long as the music plays. You gotta dance. Don't even think why. Start to think, your feet stop. Your feet stop, we get stuck. We get stuck, you're stuck. So don't pay any mind, no matter how dumb. You gotta keep the step. You gotta limber up. You gotta loosen what you bolted down. You gotta use all you got. We know you're tired, tired and scared. Happens to everyone, okay? Just don't let you feet stop.

7. The things kids can memorize. Always the most meaningless, idiotic lines.

8. Some people say that's escapism. But that's fine by me. I live my life, you live yours. If you're clear about what you want, then you can live any way you please

9. I'd never eaten with a movie star before. What was one supposed to wear anyway?

10. Maybe because as you get older, things fall apart, so something needs to help hold things together.

11. “You're not such a bad cook," Yuki said.
"No, not true. I just put my heart into it. That's the difference. It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something, you can do it, up to a point. If you really work at being happy, you can do it, up to a point."

12. You really know how to depress people, don't you? Is that what you call being adult?

13. The world was doing very well without me.

14. Could pigs distinguish between a Maserati and Subaru?

15. "And I'm not a burden on you?" "Maybe you are and maybe you aren't. Don't worry your pretty little head about it. I want to be with you because I like you.

16. Sometimes when I'm with you, I remember things I lost when I was your age. Like I remember the sound of the rain and the smell of the wind. And it's really a gift, getting these things back. 

17. As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.

18. People die all the time. Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely. It's too easy not to make the effort, then weep and wring your hands after the person dies. 

19. When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on "What would happen to the world if there was no friction?" Answer: "Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution." That was my mood.

20. I guess it was a dream. Either that or some act akin to dreaming. What, you may ask, is an "act akin to dreaming"? I don't know either. But it seems it does exist. Like so many other things we have no name for, existing in that limbo beyond the fringes of consciousness.

21. I don't want to be alone anymore. Without you I'll be flung out to the far corners of the universe. Show your face, please, tie me down somewhere. Tie me to this world. I don't want to join the ghosts. I'm just an ordinary guy. I need you.

22. “You still want me, now that it's morning?" she asked.
"I still want you," I said. "I want you more than I wanted you yesterday."
"I've never had anyone want me so much before."
"No one's ever wanted you?"
"Not the way you do," she said. "It's like being in a nice, warm room. Nice and cozy."
"Well, stay put. There's no reason ever to leave."
"Are you going to stay put?"
"Yes, I'm going to stay put.”

23. If you listen carefully, you can hear these things. If you look carefully, you'll see what you're after.

24. And someone was crying for me. Crying for me because I couldn't cry.

25. I cried inside. I cried for all that I'd lost and all that I'd lose.

I find myself staring at a blank screen with the insert cursor blinking away furiously like a flashing traffic light. It urges me to form a coherent sentence, to write a short phrase, or to simply type a word. Each blink is a second gone!

Five minutes pass, and still a white screen. It starts to lose its patience and the taunting commences.

"Type something, you fool!"

In a frenzy, I search the depths of my mind for a note-worthy topic, only to discover that my thoughts are as messy as the veins on a leaf. They branch out from the stem onto the blade of the leaf, each vein seemingly appears as if they have an important story. But each vein branches into even finer veins, and they eventually get stopped short by one another.

The truth of the matter is that my thoughts are fragmented and they get in each other's way. One thought triggers another and it's easy to lose myself in them.

Here I am, incapable of writing eloquent paragraphs about my life or emotions. So please excuse me while I borrow the words of an author to convey my thoughts (or at least segments of it).

Presenting to you, quotes from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. 

Norwegian Wood Book Cover

1. I straightened up and looked out of the window (...), thinking of all I had lost in the course of my life: times gone for ever, friends who had died or disappeared, feelings I would never know again.

On another note, here's a painting I did for my mum. She loves coffee and birds. Maybe I shall call this painting, Latte Bath. I think it's a quirky and apt name.