week one.
Someone has finally decided to write about running from inside a runners mind... about the thoughts that come to us while running, about goals and expectations and about discovering what so often is overseen.
I enjoyed this book in part because it felt like going for a run... familiar in tone. In part because in the process, the writer tough me some valuable lessons.
... getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed.
How important, yet how simple and beautiful is this insightful analogy. It made me think of all the times we start doing something new; a new job, move into a new apartment, being a parent of 4... our expectations are always to hit the ground running. Yet, things are as they are, and they come with their speed already set. We jump inside this "flywheels" (neighborhoods, cities, customs and personalities) and intent to fit right in.
This line made me think about setting the right expectations but it made me think hard about getting in synch with the speed of things around me.
It doesn't matter if I can run fast, if I can go long, or how long I can run for... what really matters is that the flywheel and my legs run at the same speed. Being in synched with the earth, your kids, you love ones and your interests makes a big difference.
... water under the bridge...
I've always heard this common expression, I juts don't think that I had ever taken a second to think about the implications. When we pictured a bridge, we think of the traditional, majestic, needful pieces of architecture. We also think about the water running under the bridge, as passing, always renewing itself. Therefore, water under the bridge comes to mean that whatever happened, its long gone, forgotten, no longer relevant.
and for all its rightfulness, this saying took a new meaning for me. I thought for the first time about the bridge. Constant, resilient and observant. We are supposed to be the bridges... our life's happening as a flowing stream of events, right under our solid rocks and structure.
Those events happen fast, but we know one thing for sure, they pass. A life never stops its flow... and you never know what the current will bring.
thoughts are like clouds in the sky.
I love this analogy. Our thoughts come and go, adjust to the influences of weather. Some belong in a beautiful spring day, some create storms. ll these thoughts don't define who me are, the same way, the clouds don't change the sky above them. We should remain at a higher level, separate from our thoughts.
pain is the emotional price we need to pay to be independent.
I love when I am made to look at a common principle with totally new eyes.
I love the concept of embracing the idea of pain. This is a concept that already called my attention in "Little Miss Sunshine" Suffering builds the fiber of our character, its unique and individual.
And by suffering this pain in only the way we can experience it, we become our own person.
appreciate red for being easy to see.
so simple, so hard.
one in ten.
Again Mr. Murakami's talks about setting the right expectations, running and in life. He shares that when he opened a night bar in Japan in his early 20's, he set his expectations to that if one in ten customers liked his place, his business should be alright. He later on applied this principle to his writing, which also seemed to serve him well.
I love the idea of one in ten. Maybe beacuse I start this blog today, but 1 in 10 sounds like a good idea to me.
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