--- title: ▍What I Talk About When I Talk About Running created: 2026-07-02 modified: 2026-07-02 authors: Haruki Murakami category: Book --- > Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. > The most important thing we learn at school is the fact that the most important things can’t be learned at school. > > 我們在學校學到最重要的事情，就是「最重要的事情是在學校學不到的」。 > I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I’ve had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself. > For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary — or perhaps more like mediocre — level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be. > Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace I shorten the amount of time I run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly. I think Ernest Hemingway did something like that. To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed-and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage. > If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life—and for me, for writing as well. [^1] > Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren’t involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It’s precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive—or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself. > I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished. > > 因為繼續跑的理由很少，停跑的理由則有一卡車那麼多，我們能做的，只有把那「很少的理由」勤快而週到地繼續磨亮。 > I’ve always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I’m wrong, but I won’t change. > > 不管別人怎麼說，我都認為自己的感受才是正確的；無論別人怎麼看，我絕不打亂自己的節奏。 > All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says. > When I’m running I don’t have to talk to anybody and don’t have to listen to anybody. This is a part of my day I can’t do without. > I just run. I run in void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void. > [Somerset Maugham](https://www.google.com/search?q=Somerset+Maugham) once wrote that in each shave lies a philosophy. I couldn’t agree more. No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes contemplative, even meditative act. > > 英國作家毛姆曾寫道：「每次刮鬍子都蘊含著一種哲學。」我深表認同。無論一個動作看起來多麼平凡、無聊，只要持續夠久，它就會變成一種深沉的、近乎冥想般的行為。 > Being active every day makes it easier to hear that inner voice. > You really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don’t get that sort of system set by a certain age, you’ll lack focus and your life will be out of balance. > What’s most important is what you can’t see but can feel in your heart. To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts. But even activities that appear fruitless don’t necessarily end up so. That’s the feeling I have, as someone who’s felt this, who’s experienced it. > > 最重要的東西是那些看不見、卻能在心裡感覺到的東西。為了能抓住有價值的東西，有時候你必須去做那些看似沒有效率的事情。但即使表面上看起來徒勞無功，也不一定真的是白費力氣。這是作為一個感受過、體驗過的人，我所擁有的體會。 [^1]: _“Running and reading are the keys of life.” — Will Smith_