Kafka on the Shore

"Inside our head...there's a little room where we store these memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in awhile, let in fresh air, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you'll live forever in your own private library."

This last little bit of this eminently wonderful novel really opened my mind. I've spent so many of these past few months yearning to seclude myself, in effect, to live in a private library, that it didn't occur to me that seclusion of that sort can be unhealthy. If we let our minds root, following the same paths day in an day out, dwelling on the past, letting ideas and emotions grow stale, then we of course can't expect our lives to course-correct. Fate exists, yes, but it's in all of us to wrest our futures into our own making.

This is what this book taught me, and for that, I am deeply indebted.