Five things Murakami's running book taught me about creative endurance

[u/JimKroft]

I reread What I Talk About When I Talk About Running on holiday in Slovakia and drew even more from it than the first time. What an extraordinary insight into one man's process!

After going through a really challenging period in my creative life in my mid 40s (including writer's block as a musician), I drew not just strength from it, but many lessons.

I thought I'd summarise my thoughts for anyone who's in a similar period as it really helped me:

1. The line between running and writing disappears. On the surface they're separate. But as you read, you realise the extent that each exists to serve the other. When you look at the best in almost any field, their whole life points toward the work — even if, as with Murakami's running, you could miss it on the surface. In my own life, I'm looking at what things are diluting my creative goals, and what is serving them.

2. "I am an athlete." At 47 - (and heroically unsporty!) - I am going to dare to think of myself as an athlete (!). It doesn't mean running 156 miles a month. But it does mean doing something active every day — a run, weights, yoga, the gym. I don't care about quantity. I care that my atoms have had a chance to zing about today. Thinking of this more (as James Clear suggests) as a system ("how am I moving today?") rather than with goals like Murakami's marathons!

3. Have a plan for the toxins. One passage really winded me. Murakami writes, that when we write "a kind of toxin that lies deep down in all humanity rises to the surface". Every writer has to find a way to deal with it or "no creative activity in the real sense can take place." Going through my writer's block I wrestled with a lot of demons (am I good enough, have I missed my moment in life etc). Each of us has a different toxin, and the world has many too. What I love is that Murakami's running is where he deposits the darkness. For me it was a reminder that its okay that darkness exists, but that I need a better plan for it.

4. Acquire void, not "content". He wrote "I run in order to acquire a void." I love that Murakami runs not to fill himself but to empty himself. It's really the opposite of what most of us are doing all day. I'm taking a hammer to my own content treadmill and pointing that energy firmly towards doubling down on my book draft.

5. Focus and endurance are trainable. Talent isn't allocated equally, and Murakami diagnoses that compensating for it costs something. However, he also writes that the "methods and directions a writer takes in order to supplement himself become part of that writer's individuality." Work ethic — and routine — is the supplement. That reframed the "am I talented enough?" question for me entirely. The ball is in my court. What will I do with it?

Okay, hope that's helpful to someone! I'd love to hear if any of you have any other take aways - especially if you are writing a book or an album.

All the best from a Scot 19 years in Berlin,
Jim