Kafka on the Shore

So I've now finished Nausea. It was a rough go and took me longer than I thought it would. I'm about 350 pages into a new book now. It's called Kafka on the Shore, and it's one of the most amazing books I've read, but for different reasons than all of the other books I've read here were amazing. It's somehow taken the place of the cartoons I watched to get out of my last funk. It's taught me an important lesson, and I decided I ought to jot it down here while I have it in my head. The lesson of Nausea, it seemed, was that one must be for a reason, rather than merely existing. One must change things, affect things, and somehow be something to others. It is through these actions that one can know himself, but I'm already allowing Murakami to leak into my memories of Sartre. This book is full of Hegel, Haydn, Greek tragedy, and Arabian Nights. It creates a universe in which it can make sense, and a comfort in finding sense there. It's strange, because so much of the book, when looked at squarely from a normal context, is utterly absurd. Every time I try to talk about it, I lose it and end up trying to justify it all.
But, I suppose, I must now get to the lesson it's taught me. I've learned that sometimes I must feel the cogs turning. That's where I was for about a month. Other times, I must be the cog that turns, effecting change and driving the machine. Still other times, and this is one of them, I must be the cog that is turned. I must feel the universe, feel God changing me, using me, and let it pass through me. The only way I can explain this feeling is to call forth memories from when I was acting or singing or running full speed through the woods. It's like taking my hands off the steering wheel for a while, except that now I understand that it was not me taking my hands off the steering wheel and sitting in the driver's seat. I was ceasing to be the driver, and starting to be the car. I'm learning to do that now. Perhaps this is what they all meant when they prayed that God help them to accept the things they cannot change. That never really made sense to me. I still think it's a silly way to live, but I think I've found something similar that works for me. When you can't be the driver, be the car. When you can't be the car, it's best to be the driver. And on long, lonely trips from Philadelphia at midnight, it's sometimes just good to be along for the ride.