What I got from Murakami's books
I read all except one Haruki Murakami's books.
Murakami's novels and short stories have a particular effect on me: they made me feel lighter and better, especially if read when I was depressed. I don't know why, but the senses I got was the "flow", be it the flow of life that's unpretentious, or the life of protagonists who dutifully choose what to do and how to do things by themselves.
In his latest book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Murakami talked about how running has profoundly affected writing and his life. After reading one third of the book, I was impressed and belated to find that the central theme of the first one third portion of this book is about how people do things best when they really want to do it by themselves. For many of us, schools and social norms forced us to walk on the "proper" ways for the whole life. So few did have luck and courage to manage to get over this predicament and start living on their own. I myself have known this and tried to get over it, fortunately succeed most of the time. I am lucky enough to be able to live on my own way, being able to choose what to do, what to eat, when to sleep, how to work, and so on.
This is a crucial representation of "freedom". In certain part of the world like where I am right now, many people misunderstood and view freedom negatively. When talking about freedom, they tend to think about irresponsible people and anarchy (not political anarchism), whereas it actually is a fundamental right of human being - that he must be able to pursue happiness on his own course, while of course doesn't do harm and infringe upon other people's right to do so.
Second point from Murakami, is that when you got that freedom, you need to use it wisely and carefully. When you grow past teenager, you need to have a plan for youself in order to live a meaningful life. You need to exercise your freedom, choose something to serve you - the owner of the freedom. Without an application of choices to life's coursing, freedom is meaningless, as does happiness and life.
Perhaps Murakami is the easiest philosopher to understand.
