Finding Happiness

So I just recently read 1Q84 by Murakami. Interesting book though not one of his best.  It is a 1000+ book based on his short story “On Meeting my 100% Woman One Fine April Morning. ” In that story a man passes his “100% woman.” He doesn’t understand why she is, just that she is.  He tells his friend about it and thinks about what he should have said to her. 

Was a long book haha

He wanted to tell her a story of two children who were 100% man and women for each other, but doubted life could be that easy, so as a test they went their separate ways to see if they would meet each other later.  Each get a freaky cold that makes them lose their memories, and when they pass each other on the street again they recognize each other as their 100% man and women but do not respond on that feeling and keep walking. 

After reading 1Q84, one line in the short story still bugs me.  When the two children doubt that life can be easy, the story says, “However, a tiny, really tiny, doubt drifted across their hearts; could it really be all right for a dream to come completely true this simply?” As a reader I felt that if they knew, then why do they have this doubt, but now it makes more sense.

I always question if a feeling I have is my own or something that all humans feel, but usually I don’t know.  Maybe doubting happiness is something all of us feel.  People always say life is hard but you can get great joy from it, but what if we reject that joy?  That self-doubt destroys any hope for happiness if you don’t believe you deserve it.

I’m not going to be up here saying “everybody deserves happiness” because I have not really given much thought into the philosophy of happiness.  If anybody has any good ideas about it please tell me.  Something I do understand is how easy it is to reject happiness and to fill that space with negative thoughts and doubts.  Their situation in the story was so clear cut, yet they still rejected happiness.  Hopefully there is something is us that can prevent that and find happiness.  

Here is a link to the short story if anybody wants to read it.  6 pages you can handle it. 

On Meeting my 100% Woman One Fine April Morning

Standing Still

First post of break. I expected I would have more motivation to write but then life gets in the way so no feeling to write.  Been keeping myself busy by reading, programming, doing internship work and learning Japanese.  I have to say, I’m pretty content with doing this for 3 months..and I hate that.

I hate that I can be content with sitting in my room and just doing things to amuse me.  I guess people will think I’m weird, one that I can amuse myself well enough to not really care about things and two that I dislike that.  To the first, if you know me, I am easily amused and whatever keeps my mind moving is enough to distract me.  To the second, well that may require more words.

I’ve always been pretty solitary and have survived like that, but I also lack a lot of drive to do things.  Maybe that is just a human thing of staying in our comfort zone.  I’m pretty passive, going along with cool things as they come along, but never able to instigate them myself.  The bad thing is my mind is ok with that, and I let life slip away from me.  I could walk into UVA in 3 months and not feel my whole summer was used unwisely, even when it was. 

Maybe it is just something of this generation that always needs to do things and feels relaxing is wasting time, but I guess I’m swept up in that to.  I need to say concretely “I did this during the summer.” That also may be a wrong way to think; I don’t even know what to think. Something just tells me what I’m doing right now is wrong, and that is it wrong that I can so easily accept it.