Its quite common to think that we don’t belong here and now. This thought of not belonging to the reality is a hurdle in realizing what we are. Murakami on his book Kafka on the Shore, in an absurd way, explains how it’s your fate which keeps chasing you till you are back here. Although faith in fate is an argumentative belief, I think Murakami made a very impressive way of saying it. Few of my interpretation of the quotes that caught my attention from the book:

“Everything is a metaphor” 

– Oshima 

When I started thinking about this, I realized that in how many different ways and degrees metaphors are making our life. We take decisions based on metaphoring with our experiences and memories and however hard we try not to, we judge people by metaphoring. Deep inside metaphors drive us. I think its not so easy to make choices on our own. Leaving aside the internal aspects, most of the interactions happen because of metaphors. We find love metaphoring with our mom or dad in most cases. We are the manifestation of our thoughts or more precisely, in this case, I feel, we are how good we are in deriving metaphors.

“For me I’m the self and you are the object. For you, of course, it’s the exact opposite” 

– Philosophy graduate prostitute 

What’s the material world? Are they only the things which don’t have life? Illusion. The absurdity in our lives consumes all our perspectives and deludes whatever is around us. I often tend to think that everything I see and feel is an illusion. To me all the emotions of people looks unreal, other than my own. Sometimes I find my own emotions absurd. Deep sorrow and tremendous cheerfulness becomes synonymous. In a world made only of perspectives I think it makes sense to believe in what I see and sense as an illusion.

”Memories are important” 

– Miss Saeki 

I think the first quote I cited relates to this more. Memories are in a way important to make metaphors which in turn takes control over you. Memories are the ones that makes us emotional. I think its a bridge between absurdity and reason. If happiness is absurd, it makes sense to create memories within you and to make yourself into the memory of others. That way you live longer.

Title courtesy: Kid A album by Radiohead

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton