Just dance, gonna be okay. Da da doo doo.
Humans achieve their peak in different ways. But whoever you are, once you're over the summit, it's downhill all the way. Nothing anyone can do about it. And the worst of it is, you never know where that peak is. You think you're still going strong, when suddenly you've crossed the great divide. No one can tell. Some people peak at twelve, then lead rather uneventful lives from then on. Some carry on until they die; some die at their peak. Poets and composers have lived like furies, pushing themselves to such a pitch they're gone by thirty. Then there are those like Picasso, who kept breaking ground well past eighty.
And what about me?
My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. Some rises and falls. But that's it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I'd loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.
No promises you're gonna be happy, the Sheep Man had said. So you gotta dance. Dance so it all keeps spinning.
- from Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
Just a passage I really liked, so I wanted to copy it down. At twenty-two, I've been surrounded by all types of people, some much greater, some lesser. But I still feel really boring at this age, so the passage resonated with me. I've travelled a bit, studied a lot, gotten a diploma, but what has it gotten me so far? Nothing I can get my name written down in history for - hell, not even a job or a real relationship. Nothing really that productive. Which is why I love this passage: it's kind of existentialist, and the moral is what I do when things get awkward: dance.
And what about me?
My peak? Would I even have one? I hardly had had anything you could call a life. A few ripples. Some rises and falls. But that's it. Almost nothing. Nothing born of nothing. I'd loved and been loved, but I had nothing to show. It was a singularly plain, featureless landscape. I felt like I was in a video game. A surrogate Pacman, crunching blindly through a labyrinth of dotted lines. The only certainty was my death.
No promises you're gonna be happy, the Sheep Man had said. So you gotta dance. Dance so it all keeps spinning.
- from Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami
Just a passage I really liked, so I wanted to copy it down. At twenty-two, I've been surrounded by all types of people, some much greater, some lesser. But I still feel really boring at this age, so the passage resonated with me. I've travelled a bit, studied a lot, gotten a diploma, but what has it gotten me so far? Nothing I can get my name written down in history for - hell, not even a job or a real relationship. Nothing really that productive. Which is why I love this passage: it's kind of existentialist, and the moral is what I do when things get awkward: dance.