Murakami On My Mind

Every time I finish a Haruki Murakami book I learn something new, and the world around me is different--I am different. The funny thing is the differentness I feel, and the changes in my view of the world has always been inside me, waiting to be awaken. Essentially I am different, but the same. In other words, I am in a sense enlightened. Murakami's books and stories always illuminate my world(s) and helps me understand my inner world and the world around me. His books in a sense are like religion or philosophy; he reaches into my consciousness with his books and teaches me. Like an addict the more books I read from him the more I want. His books are like air and water to me. I need to breathe them in, and am thirsty for them.

I just finished "South Of The Border, West Of The Sun," and it has become one of my favorite Murakami books. Here's a sample of why, Murakami writes:

"Because memory and sensations are so uncertain, so biased, we always rely on a certain reality--call it an alternate reality--to prove the reality of events. To what extent facts we recognize as such really are as they seem, and to what extent these are facts merely because we label them as such, is an impossible distinction to draw. Therefore, in order to pin down reality as reality, we need another reality to relativize the first. Yet that other reality requires a third reality to serve as its grounding. An endless chain is created within our consciousness, and it is the very maintenance of this chain that produces the sensation that we are actually here, that we ourselves exist. But something can happen to sever that chain, and we are at a loss. What is real? Is reality on this side of the break in the chain? Or over there, on the other side?"

I was drawn to that passage because I'm tired of a reality where the status quo rules. Where one idea, one set of rules, one race, one gender, one sexuality, one economy, one religion, one politic controls and dominates my reality and the world. There is more than one reality out there, more than one story to be told. My reality and beliefs exist even if it doesn't conform to the status quo, I exist even if I don't function within it. At the same time I have a great understanding and appreciation for the universal truths and emotions that connect all of us. They are: happiness, loneliness, sadness, joy, pain, pleasure, lost, and love. These are some of the things Murakami writes about. Different realities exists, but we are all human in the end. We may believe in different things, but we all at some point feel the same emotions.