breathing #13 [one road only]

My dear dreamers,

♥ via Haruki Murakami

[this was supposed to be published at 8 a.m. today. but it seems blogger has a problem with following rules.]

In The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami, more precisely in his short-story Sleep, I read the following words:

The author maintained that human beings, by their very nature, are incapable of escaping from certain fixed idiosyncratic tendencies, both in their thought processes and in their physical movements.

I had to transcribe that to my Moleskine and add some notes beside it. I thought about the way I am and why I am like that. Who or what made me with these characteristics. Why am I shy and clumsy? Why do I like to read so much? Why am I never satisfied? Why do I have an interest about strategies but don’t seem to understand them? Why am I always seeking for perfection?

And can't I be other than myself? Am I stocked to the way I am until I die? Can't I do anything about it? It's scary, don't you think?

Both Murakami and Times of India talks about tendencies. We gather the world with our five senses and a part of it stays with us and shape us in ways we aren't aware of.

How you became the way you are is just a tendency that you developed because of the information you gathered. Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

It's a cycle, isn't it? You process the information this way because of your personality. And that information will change you, conscious and unconsciously, and the next piece of information you'll get will be perceived differently. What if we relived our whole life again? How will that change us?

How you became the way you are is just a tendency that you developed because of the information you gathered. The Times of India

This is the same thing in another words, black in white without the beauty of literary composition. A tendency. "So can we blame others by the way they look to the world? Can we blame ourselves for not being as cultural beings as we'd like or dumber than we wished it to be?", you might ask. Of course we can!

 It doesn't matter what impressions you have gathered, what you make of it is in your hands. Times of India

We are critical beings. We can always rethink our actions and shape them. We have goals and we can work towards them. We can read more, travel more and communicate more.

I do believe that our core will never change, that we can change little things like be kinder or deal better with stress. In a sort of way, enhancing our qualities and hiding our peculiarities. Not that I think that we should conceal them (when we're not hurting anybody, if you were wondering). It’s what makes us unique.

I’ll make an experience. It may sound stupid, but it’s me finding myself so what do I care what others think about it? I’ll record myself doing the things I do every day. The ones I don’t even have to think about. Whom are (almost) automatic. The ones I could even do with my eyes closed. And then do everything over, exactly like that: with eyes wide shut.

Clumsy as I am, maybe I’ll screw everything up and my analysis will go straight up to the can. (Well, at least I’ll try. Good excuse, ah?) But… maybe if someone joined me at this experiment… will you give it a try?

This is my inspiration of the week. No cute photographs, no amazing art works, no relaxation. It's Monday, the weekend is over and we better be prepared for the rest of the week. Your energy is now restores so you better do something useful today. Because tomorrow it will all be drained. Inspirations should lead to action. I'm doing the tough part. You better do yours! ;)