when I start reading the story and until about it middle, I felt frustrated . I had thought kind of ” So what? “. ” what will happen next“. “why is this happening?” ” what is that place?“.” why the girl had sent the invitation?“.” who is the old man?” . ” what was that message from the loudspeacker?” . “ why was the author talk about salvation ?” .” what the author want to say anyways?”
All those questions and much more, make me feel angry , I actually hate non answered questions.
But In one way or in an other I have to say that #Haruki, was able to intrigate my curiosity and to stimulate my mind. this is why I continued to read.
And I didn’t regret it, by arriving to the end I find that #Haruki wanted to teach us two ideas at least:
1- No matter who you are or what to do , you can’t contrôle the feeling of other toward you, they could feel angry, decived or whatever. you just have to think , that this is not about you it’s about them how they see the world.
And I like the way he express this in the following lines:
Maybe I had done something that had caused her to form a personal grudge against me. Or maybe, for no special reason, she found me so unpleasant she couldn’t stand it. And she’d sent me an invitation to a nonexistent recital and was now gloating—laughing her head off—seeing (or, rather, imagining) how she’d fooled me and how pathetic and ridiculous I must look.
O.K., but would a person really go to all the trouble of coming up with such a complicated plot in order to harass someone, just out of spite? Even printing up the postcard must have taken some effort. Could someone really be that mean? I couldn’t remember a thing I’d ever done to make her hate me that much. But sometimes, without even realizing it, we trample on people’s feelings, hurt their pride, make them feel bad. I speculated on the possibility of this not unthinkable hatred, the misunderstandings that might have taken place, but found nothing convincing. And as I wandered fruitlessly through this maze of emotions I felt my mind losing its way. #haruki_murakami_cream
2-those are things that doesn’t have to be explained, because they doesn’t matter at all.
we have to distinguish between what’s really matter , what’s really important to us, and between other things that could take a lot of our effort and attention while they are just ephemeral
And I like the way he express this in the following lines:
“But I get the feeling,” I said, “that principle or intention wasn’t really the issue.”
My friend looked confused. “Are you telling me that there’s no need to know what it was all about?”
I nodded.
“But if it were me,” he said, “I’d be bothered no end. I’d want to know the truth, why something like that happened. If I’d been in your shoes, that is.”
“Yeah, of course. Back then, it bothered me, too. A lot. It hurt me, too. But thinking about it later, from a distance, after time had passed, it came to feel insignificant, not worth getting upset about. I felt as though it had nothing at all to do with the cream of life.”
“The cream of life,” he repeated.
“Things like this happen sometimes,” I told him. “Inexplicable, illogical events that nevertheless are deeply disturbing. I guess we need to not think about them, just close our eyes and get through them. As if we were passing under a huge wave.”
My younger friend was quiet for a time, considering that huge wave. He was an experienced surfer, and there were lots of things, serious things, that he had to consider when it came to waves. Finally, he spoke. “But not thinking about anything might also be pretty hard.”
“You’re right. It might be hard indeed.”
There’s nothing worth getting in this world that you can get easily, the old man had said, with unshakable conviction, like Pythagoras explaining his theorem.
“About that circle with many centers but no circumference,” my friend asked. “Did you ever find an answer?”
“Good question,” I said. I slowly shook my head. Had I? […]
Sometimes I feel that I can sort of grasp what that circle is, but a deeper understanding eludes me. This circle is, most likely, not a circle with a concrete, actual form but, rather, one that exists only within our minds. When we truly love somebody, or feel deep compassion, or have an idealistic sense of how the world should be, or when we discover faith (or something close to faith)—that’s when we understand the circle as a given and accept it in our hearts. Admittedly, though, this is nothing more than my own vague attempt to reason it out.
Your brain is made to think about difficult things. To help you get to a point where you understand something that you didn’t understand at first. And that becomes the cream of your life. The rest is boring and worthless. #Haruki_murakami_cream
