In our lives we all go through moments that are particularly difficult. Moments in which everything seems to be going wrong; times where an unpleasant event succeeds another. Usually unpleasant incidents attack as a group. It’s as if misfortune likes company and just waits to test ones limits as to how much he or she can handle. I am reading this novel by Haruki Murakami that is titled “The wind up bird chronicle”.The protagonist observes a series of unfortunate events happening to him and we engage in his struggle to cope and rediscover his lost happiness. When he was younger the protagonist remembers a wise elder that told him “that when you are going down find the deepest well and stay there”. Years later when everything in his life started to fall apart he remembers the elder words and he actually finds a deep and dry well and stays there day in order to think. He then distances himself from reality, even forgetting his own material existence as he stays in the dark well. He re-visits his memories and thoughts and by staying deep inside a well he attempts his first steps to recovery. It s like what many people say that sometimes you have to die in order to be reborn into someone that is more happier and healthier. I thought that this well metaphor is actually really beautiful. And only a Japanese author could turn something that is metaphoric to an act that would transform a character. Just had to share.
Really what is amazing as we are so complex individuals is that everyone has a different way of coping with the misfortunes that life throws at us.
(art by pesare)
