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Life doesn’t require ideals: 7 ideas from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
This is a continuation of a series I started last year sharing ideas and learnings on different topics. This post is a little different; it focuses on ideas from one book, rather than on a topic. That book is Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.
🏆 Top 3 ideas
Idea #1: “If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”
There’s an interview where Mark Ronson, the producer and DJ, says he has to take a break from DJ-ing when it’s time for him to make music. It’s too distracting for him to hear other people’s music.
There’s the possibility it’ll filter into his own work, even subconsciously. “…by the time you put out this record, you’ve worked for a year and a half, and someone says, like, oh, yeah, it sounds like Arcade Fire,” Ronson laughs.
Some artists go to the extreme end of the spectrum. Prince has said he rarely listens to music, that he hasn’t heard enough to have even a favorite artist.
To me, the idea isn’t to stop consuming the work of others entirely. Instead, it’s about picking a unique mix and then creating space to generate your own…
