Kafka on the Shore

It has been a year since I last posted about the books I've read. This 2020, I will attempt (yet again) to read at least 35-40 books. I used to purchase a lot of books but procrastinate reading them. Maybe, this is the best time to get back to it and perhaps make this objective a priority.

There are so many things you go into when you are reading. It is the chance to learn something new and get lost in a new world. It enables you to widen your vocabulary and get a chance to know some new characters that can influence and even change you.

Photo from bookcoverarchive.com

Kafka on the Shore by one of my favorite authors, Haruki Murakami has led me to different phases of delight, sadness, confusion, and understanding. It has given me a highlight of the reality the fantasy, the combination of the two and how we can possibly intertwine them.

The adventure of the 15-year old Kafka Tamura led me to the end of the book. He's searched for his origin, the reasons behind his whys and the will to continue to live. Like him, I can also identify with the people who helped him through especially during his confusing time as a teenager.

Like always, I have highlighted in the book the lines or quotes that I can deeply relate with:

Money isn't like mushrooms in a forest--it doesn't just pop up on its own, you know. 

Basically you gotta go with what you think is right. 

This may come in handy if you are confused as to what you should do. To make it easier for you, think about what is right to do then.

No matter how far you run, distance might not solve anything.

Running away from your problems won't solve it. Learn to face your fears and confront some of your demons. If it helps, choose your battle.

When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in.

Your challenges in life can teach you and can change you. At the end of each battle, you'll never be the same person anymore. And I hope it will change you for the better - stronger, wiser, and compassionate.

In traveling, a companion, in life, compassion.

This new year, I hope you are more compassionate to people and even things.

It's easy to forget things you don't need anymore.

Sad but true.

Whether you're smart or dumb, can read or can't, whether you've got a shadow or not, once the time comes, everybody passes on.

Make your life count, because our lives end with our deaths. It could be too short. Who knows.

Silence, I discover, is something you can actually hear.

When someone is trying very hard to get something, they don't. And when they're running away from something as hard as they can, it usually catches up with them.

Indeed, perhaps we can try to reverse-psych the Universe, eh?

Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.

Kafka, in everybody's life there's a point of no return. And in a very few cases, a point where you can't go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That's how we survive.

Individual errors in judgment can usually be corrected. As long as you have the courage to admit mistakes, things can be turned around.

Courage is also admitting our mistakes. We can change the course of our lives if we can make peace with our lapses.

Intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form, and continue to thrive.

Being bright has nothing to do with it. What matters is that you see things with your own eyes.  

If you try to use your head to think about things, people don't want to have anything to do with you.  

Hello there, smart-shamers.

"The people who work hard, who earn their bread through the sweat of their brow, those are the proletariat. On the other hand, you've got your guys who sit on their duffs, not lifting a finger, giving orders to other people and getting a hundred times my salary. Those are your capitalists."

"Things change every day, Mr. Nakata. With each new dawn, it's not the same world as the day before. And you're not the same person you were either."

 Man doesn't choose fate. Fate chooses man. 

Be kind to yourself and blame it less this year.

People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues.  

Everything in life is metaphor.  

"You can't use that strength as a protective wall around you. There's always going to be something stronger that can overcome your fortress. At least in principle. "

"Strength itself becomes your morality." 

Good things never grow old. 

"The world would be a real mess if everybody was a genius. A world full of geniuses would have a significant problems." 

In case you are wondering why there are a lot of stupid people.

We all die and disappear, but that's because the mechanism of the world itself is built on destruction and loss. 

"Pointless thinking is worse than no thinking at all."

"but until things happen, they haven't happened. And often things aren't what they seem." 

The longer people live, the more they learn to distinguish what's important from what's not.

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart." 

Good things don't last forever. 

Things happen. You just got to hang in there. 

Don't worry too much.

"I want you to remember me. If you remember me, then I don't care if everybody else forgets." 

"Every one of us is losing something precious to us." "Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That's part of what it means to be alive."