Review 1: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

Although I have many things to say about the book I recently finished, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, I linger a bit longer on a couple sentences I found in the last few pages of the book: ‘Through experience you learn how to compensate for your physical shortcomings. To put it another way, learning from experience is what makes the triathlon so much fun' (171). ‘

I find these words foreign and familiar as I apply them to the vast majority of my past. It tastes of regret for all the days I have neglected as I worried about what doom the future had in store for me. It tastes of forgiveness for I know now that I can and I should experience each breathing day and all of its small joys and glories.

Unlike Mr. Murakami who says he learned how to compensate for his physical shortcomings through experiences, I have been compensating for my experiences through physical shortcomings. That sentence just now sounds really weird, but what I mean is that I have limited my ability to fully live by not taking care of my body. When I was young with a brain full of rapidly running thoughts, I sat for hours every day thinking how much more efficient and free I would be if I could separate my mind from the meat sack. I felt like my brain, not with my body, was entitled to my identity. How wrong teenage-me and twenty-something-me were.

This book taught me the inevitable work of balancing mind and body and how to nurture and challenge the body for the mind. It has been my great pleasure to spend the last few days of July of 2024 with his wordly gifts. I look forward to reread the book again in the future.

Thumbnail photo information:

Brought from Amazon listing of said book: https://www.amazon.com/What-Talk-About-When-Running/dp/0307389839

Brought from original cover/book design by Iris Weinstein