Learn from one of the most prominent novelists of all time.
After my partner and friends declared me guilty of all their ills and left me lonelier than the moon on a starless night, when I was broke, and everyone seemed to be waiting for me to crash and burn, I had the biggest revelation of my life.
I would be a writer.
There was only one problem: I didn’t know how to write.
So I started reading. One of those first reads was Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore.
Something hypnotic and therapeutic happened when I read Murakami. The guy was talking about loneliness, anguish, and realities that I was going through at the time, which was cathartic.
So, I started reading all of his work.
In one of his books, the second novel he wrote, Pinball 1973, published in 1980, I read a sentence that blew my mind.
Murakami’s most disturbing quote ever.
“Many men came to the end of their days, went mad, buried their hearts in the sand of time, consumed themselves in meaningless desires, disturbed one another.” — Haruki Murakami (Book: Pinball 1973)
Many men were reaching the end of their days. — I was in that situation; my whole life had been a farce. I was 33 years old with zero friends and less than a hundred dollars in the bank.
- They were going crazy. — I didn’t know what was happening to me, but when I hit rock bottom, the voices inside my head began. Dark, self-destructive voices that wanted me to end so much suffering.
- They buried their hearts in the sand of time. — At that time, I just wanted time to pass and for my soul to stop hurting. Because I discovered LITERALLY that the soul can hurt. I’m not talking about the body but your inner self. It was like living inside a sack full of crystals.
- They were consumed in meaningless desires. — I ended up so bad because I desired meaningless material things. Instead of investing more in my partner or friends, I spent my life looking for pleasure at the bottom of a glass of Whiskey.
- They annoyed each other. — I ended up annoying everyone because my discomfort was contagious. I was a victimized guy who rotted everything he touched.
Moral: I embodied the phrase Haruki Murakami had written in Pinball 1973.
Murakamy’s most consoling quote ever
On the same page of Pinball 1973, there was another sentence that went like this, “Everyone seemed to be in countless jams. Trouble was falling from the sky like rain, and we were busy picking it up and stuffing it in our pockets. Why we did such a thing, I still don’t know. Maybe we mistook them for something else.”
Bingo!
For starters, “Everyone seemed to be in countless jams” means everyone gets into trouble. It’s not something that happens to me. So, I’m not a failure. Just another person who has stumbled in the race of life.
And lastly, “Maybe we mistook them for something else.” That’s the key: we spend our lives busy picking up problems that don’t belong to us as if it were raining hundred-dollar bills.
And they are not hundred-dollar bills; they are problems that we carry around with us and then walk away full of weight and stinking of failure.
Application to your life
When I read those two sentences, I realized that a stage in my life had closed. And that a new one had to be born. But I couldn’t approach it in the same way as my first 33 years of life.
I had to stop going around the world, picking up problems and carrying them in my backpack. I had to walk lightly. And I did.
I let go of my old friends and my ex without resentment. I let go of my old personality. I let go of my likes and dislikes. I let go of my false wooden idols: alcohol, tobacco, gambling.
And I stood naked in front of life. And the universe had no choice but to dress me.
Magical things started to happen: I began to write my books, and one day, an editor wrote me an email. She was an editor of the Planeta group, where Haruki Murakami published his books in Spanish, and she allowed me to publish a book with them.
Now, my name is next to Murakami’s in the list of authors of the publishing house.
And it hasn’t been easy, and it still isn’t easy. I’m not rich, I don’t have a partner, I don’t even have many friends.
But… I’m a different person, and my soul doesn’t hurt anymore.
So, if you are going through what I went through, remember that, as Haruki Murakami would say, “Once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you survived. But one thing is certain: you won’t be the same person who went into it. That’s what this storm is all about.”
This storm you are going through is all about becoming someone else, a better person.
A virtual hug
AG
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