WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN
Sometimes when I think of life, I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up on shore
Probably the main reason, though, was that at a certain point I’d simply grown tired of it. I started running in the fall of 1982 and have been running since then for nearly twenty-three years. Over this period I’ve jogged almost every day, run in at least one marathon every year—twenty-three up till now—and participated in more long-distance races all around the world than I care to count. Long- distance running suits my personality, though, and of all the habits I’ve acquired over my lifetime I’d have to say this one has been the most helpful, the most meaningful. Running without a break for more than two decades has also made me stronger, both physically and emotionally.
The thing is, I’m not much for team sports. That’s just the way I am. Whenever I play soccer or baseball—actually, since becoming an adult this is hardly ever—I never feel comfortable. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any brothers, but I could never get into the kind of games you play with others. I’m also not very good at one-on-one sports like tennis. I enjoy squash, but generally when it comes to a game against someone, the competitive aspect makes me uncomfortable. And when it comes to martial arts, too, you can count me out.
Don’t misunderstand me—I’m not totally uncompetitive. It’s just that for some reason I never cared all that much whether I beat others or lost to them. This sentiment remained pretty much unchanged after I grew up. It doesn’t matter what field you’re talking about—beating somebody else just doesn’t do it for me. I’m much more interested in whether I reach the goals that I set for myself, so in this sense long-distance running is the perfect fit for a mindset like mine. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, anddoesn’t seek validation in the outwardly visible.
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.
Since my forties, though, this system of self-assessment has gradually changed. Simply put, I am nolonger able to improve my time. I guess it’s inevitable, considering my age. At a certain ageeverybody reaches their physical peak. There are individual differences, but for the most partswimmers hit that watershed in their early twenties, boxers in their late twenties, and baseball playersin their mid-thirties. It’s something everyone has to go through. Once I asked an ophthalmologist ifanyone’s ever avoided getting farsighted when they got older. He laughed and said, “I’ve never metone yet.” It’s the same thing. (Fortunately, the peak for artists varies considerably. Dostoyevsky, forinstance, wrote two of his most profound novels, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov, in the last few years of his life before his death at age sixty. Domenico Scarlatti wrote 555 piano sonatasduring his lifetime, most of them when he was between the ages of fifty-seven and sixty-two.)
Things continued at that stable plateau for awhile, but before long they started to change. I’d train as much as before but found it increasingly hardto break three hours and forty minutes. It was taking me five and a half minutes to run one kilometer,and I was inching closer to the four-hour mark to finish a marathon. Frankly, this was a bit of a shock.
What was going on here? I didn’t think it was because I was aging. In everyday life I never felt like Iwas getting physically weaker. But no matter how much I might deny it or try to ignore it, the numbers were retreating, step by step.
When I saw the Charles River again, a desire to run swept over me. Generally, unless some great change takes place, rivers always look about the same, and the Charles River in particular looked totally unchanged. Time had passed, students had come and gone, I’d aged ten years, and there’d literally been a lot of water under the bridge. But the river has remained unaltered. The water still flows swiftly, and silently, toward Boston Harbor.
I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I’ve had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself.
People’s minds can’t be acomplete blank. Human beings’ emotions are not strong or consistent enough to sustain a vacuum
The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all differentsizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky as always. The clouds are mereguests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky. The sky both exists and doesn’texist. It has substance and at the same time doesn’t. And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.
I’m in my late fifties now. When I was young, I never imagined the twenty-first century wouldactually come and that, all joking aside, I’d turn fifty. In theory, of course, it was self-evident thatsomeday, if nothing else happened, the twenty-first century would roll around and I’d turn fifty. WhenI was young, being asked to imagine myself at fifty was as difficult as being asked to imagine,concretely, the world after death. Mick Jagger once boasted that “I’d rather be dead than still singingSatisfaction’ when I’m forty-five.” But now he’s over sixty and still singing “Satisfaction.” Somepeople might find this funny, but not me. When he was young, Mick Jagger couldn’t imagine himselfat forty-five. When I was young, I was the same. Can I laugh at Mick Jagger? No way. I just happennot to be a young rock singer. Nobody remembers what stupid things I might have said back then, sothey’re not about to quote them back at me. That’s the only difference.
As I mentioned before, competing against other people, whether in daily life or in my field of work, isjust not the sort of lifestyle I’m after. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up ofall kinds of people. Other people have their own values to live by, and the same holds true with me.These differences give rise to disagreements, and the combination of these disagreements can give rise to even greater misunderstandings. As a result, sometimes people are unfairly criticized. Thisgoes without saying. It’s not much fun to be misunderstood or criticized, but rather a painfulexperience that hurts people deeply.
As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve gradually come to the realization that this kind of pain and hurt is a necessary part of life. If you think about it, it’s precisely because people are different from others that they’re able to create their own independent selves. Take me as an example. It’s precisely my ability to detect some aspects of a scene that other people can’t, to feel differently than others and choose words that differ from theirs, that’s allowed me to write stories that are mine alone. And because of this we have the extraordinary situation in which quite a few people read what I’ve written. So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.
When I’m criticized unjustly (from my viewpoint, at least), or when someone I’m sure willunderstand me doesn’t, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer it’s like I canphysically exhaust that portion of my discontent. It also makes me realize again how weak I am, howlimited my abilities are. I become aware, physically, of these low points. And one of the results ofrunning a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger. If I’m angry, I direct that angertoward myself. If I have a frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself. That’s the way I’vealways lived. I quietly absorb the things I’m able to, releasing them later, and in as changed a form aspossible, as part of the story line in a novel.
As I was running I was struck by a thought: Even if my time in races doesn’t improve, there’s notmuch I can do about it. I’ve gotten older, and time has taken its toll. It’s nobody’s fault. Those are therules of the game. Just as a river flows to the sea, growing older and slowing down are just part of thenatural scenery, and I’ve got to accept it. It might not be a very enjoyable process, and what I discoveras a result might not be all that pleasant. But what choice do I have, anyway? In my own way, I’veenjoyed my life so far, even if I can’t say I’ve fully enjoyed it.
If you’ll allow me to take a slight detour from running, I think I can say the same thing about meand studying. From elementary school up to college I was never interested in things I was forced tostudy. I told myself it was something that had to be done, so I wasn’t a total slacker and was able to go on to college, but never once did I find studying exciting. As a result, though my grades weren’t the kind you have to hide from people, I don’t have any memory of being praised for getting a good grade or being the best in anything. I only began to enjoy studying after I got through the educational system and became a so-called member of society. If something interested me, and I could study it at my own pace and approach it the way I liked, I was pretty efficient at acquiring knowledge and skills. The art of translation is a good example. I learned it on my own, the pay-as-you-go method. It takes a lot of time to acquire a skill this way, and you go through a lot of trial and error, but what you learn sticks with you.
I’m struck by how, except when you’re young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don’t get that sort of system set by a certain age, you’ll lack focus and your life will be out of balance.
Some people can work their butts off and never get what they’re aiming for, while others can get it without any effort at all
The most important thing we ever learn at school is the fact that the most important things can’t be learned at school.
Without knowing it, I’d developed a sort of arrogant attitude, convinced that just a fair-to-middling amount of training was enough for me to do a good job. It’s pretty thin, the wall separating healthy confidence and unhealthy pride.
Sadly, though, I’mno longer young. I’m getting to the age where you really do get only what you pay for.
I sit at a café in the village and gulp down coldAmstel beer. It tastes fantastic, but not nearly as great as the beer I’d been imagining as I ran. Nothingin the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.
Rereading the article I wrote at the time of this run in Greece, I’ve discovered that after twenty-some years, and as many marathons later, the feelings I have when I run twenty-six miles are the same as back then. Even now, whenever I run a marathon my mind goes through the same exact process. Up to nineteen miles I’m sure I can run a good time, but past twenty-two miles I run out of fuel and start to get upset at everything. And at the end I feel like a car that’s run out of gas. But after I finish and some time has passed, I forget all the pain and misery and am already planning how I can run an even better time in the next race. The funny thing is, no matter how much experience I have under my belt, no matter how old I get, it’s all just a repeat of what came before
Naturally it’s important to take a break sometimes, but in a critical time like this,when I’m training for a race, I have to show my muscles who’s boss. I have to make it clear to themwhat’s expected. I have to maintain a certain tension by being unsparing, but not to the point where Iburn out.
If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I’d never run again. I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished.
Talent has a mind of its own and wells up when it wants to, and once it dries up, that’s it. Of course certain poets and rock singers whose genius went out in a blaze of glory—people like Schubert and Mozart, whose dramatic early deaths turned them into legends
Just as with my face, even if I don’t like it it’s the only one I get, so I’ve got to make do. As I’ve grown older, I’ve naturally come to terms with this. You open the fridge and can make a nice—actually even a pretty smart—meal with the leftovers. All that’s left is an apple, an onion, cheese, and eggs, but you don’t complain. 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.
Not to brag, but these girls probably don’t know as much as I do about pain. And, quite naturally, there might not be a need for them to know it.
Sometimes when I’m practicing a speech in my head, I catch myself making allkinds of gestures and facial expressions, and the people passing me from the opposite direction giveme a weird look.
My own individual, stubborn, uncooperative, often self-centered nature that still doubts itself—that, when troubles occur, tries to find something funny, or something nearly funny, about the situation. I’ve carried this character around like an old suitcase, down a long, dusty path. I’m not carrying it because I like it. The contents are too heavy, and it looks crummy, fraying in spots. I’ve carried it with me because there was nothing else I was supposed to carry. Still, I guess I have grown attached to it. As you might expect.
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.
Haruki Murakami
1949–20**
Writer (and Runner)
At Least He Never Walked
