工作地点旁边的大楼里有两个二手书店，中午没事时会随手淘几本书。看在村上的大名和一百八十页的薄度上，这本《当我谈跑步时我谈些什么》就被我收入了囊中。
顺便说一句，二手书店真的是个神奇的地方。刚进门时看到满地满墙推起来的书时让人有种莫名的饱足感，但当你靠近一排排书架的时候又会产生一种饥饿感。估计是因为中午要在一小时内吃饭和买书所以没吃饱，又或者是因为对知识的渴望，对未知的好奇。浮躁的心在这里沉静了下来，从角落里堆砌成山的旧书中找到心仪的那本是每天中午让我最快乐的事。
至于什么是让我心仪的书，除了作者、出版商和内容本身要能吸引我以外，书名也起了很大的决定因素。现在就摆放在我书桌上、从二手书店淘的书有：<The Rape of Nanking> by Iris Chang; <The Argumentative Indian> by Amartya Sen; <A Thousand Pieces Of Gold> by Adeline Yeh Mah, <Love's Executioner> by Irvin D. Yalom 等等。在看到这些书名时，我就默默有种‘这些书就本该属于我‘的感觉。
让我对二手书店着迷的另一个原因，是这里大部分的顾客和我一样，都是单纯地抱着对淘到一本好书的向往而来的。没有什么别的目的，单纯的、自发地来到这里。这样的氛围让我很放松。村上春树也在这本书中分享到，他与其他跑步者们有一种相同的磁场，当擦肩而过时，他们的呼吸频率、小腿肌肉的用力程度，甚至是脸上流露出来的表情都显得格外的亲切。这就是我对二手书店的感觉。
开始不为考试而读书是从前年开始的，读了一些，但今年也因工作越来越少有专门的读书时间。买的书倒不少，但许多都是读了前几页之后就搁置了。偏偏我喜好读历史类的小说，这类书一般较难读懂，有的内容会很沉重，不适合用零碎时间来读。
读书时我喜欢一个人呆着，找个阳光投射地正好、人烟稀少的地方，边听歌边看书。听什么歌其实不太重要，我只是习惯一个人的时候放个歌当背景音乐。最近比较沉迷Lauryn Hill，Angel Haze (Battle Cry) 和Spotify的Love, Sex & Water歌单，还迷上了Jony J和毛不易。村上春树在跑步的时候有大致固定的歌单，大多是有节拍、节奏感并且可以鼓舞人（坚持跑下去）的歌曲。我之前跑步的时候喜欢听Eminem，听他咒骂人生，越跑越来劲。但目前对我来说读书和音乐可以同时并且不打扰彼此的进行，无论放什么类型的音乐似乎不太会影响我读书。
不知道大家为什么读书。对于我而言，我读书一来是想获取知识，二来是对这个世界的好奇。想看看其他人的生活是个什么样，想从平凡的生活中发掘意想不到的东西。最近发现了一本介绍印度尼西亚的草药Jamu的书，有趣的是这些草药甚至其原理都与中国的草药相似。作为一个学习东南亚文化、生活在这里、也去过日惹（Jamu盛产地）的人，竟然没听说过也没见过，回头看看自己生活的还是不够仔细啊。也感谢有书籍可以帮我补上旅行后留下的遗憾。
说说这本书吧。
说是谈跑步，这本书囊括了村上春树对写作、对人生、对自己等等的看法。如果没能把人生活明白，他是不可能把整本书写得行云流水，在各个领域自由切换的。
其实读这本书，更像是在读我自己。看看自己和这位伟大的作者之间有多少相同之处（还挺多的），又有多少不同之处。虽说村上春树在书中描写自己的能力、才华时写得太谦虚了，但自己跟他之间最大的差距就应该就是坚持和专注吧。
因为他做到了一件看似简单却被许多人中途放弃的事情。生活中许多的看似无意义，重复的小事，例如跑步，或者一份无聊的工作，就像是《小王子》中描述小王子对玫瑰的感情一样，只要用心将这些事情坚持的做下来，都能找到它们对于你的意义。以下节选来自《小王子》：
“You're beautiful, but you're empty...One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together, since she's the one I've watered. Since she's the one I put under glass, since she's the one I sheltered behind the screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three butterflies). Since she's the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.”
也有可能是处在一段迷茫期，我对村上春树这种看事情简单明了，非常了解自己所长所短，并且能分清楚想做的和不喜欢做的人尤其敬佩。在他的世界里，事情应该都很简单吧。不喜欢的不做，喜欢的就尽全力做，如果才华不够就用强大的专注力来凑 ———用专注力如钻井水般挖掘仅有的才华，最后再用跑步训练自己的耐力，然后拥有更加强大的注意力。
村上的跑步的规则就是：不步行，跑到终点线。在他跑到快要放弃的时候，想的永远都是如何使两条腿动起来，如果腿跑不动了就用手臂的力量带动身体前进。一步、两步、三步，最后跑到终点线。看似简单，人人（在他们自己的想象中）能做到的事情，村上春树在现实生活中做到了，这就是这本书最打动我的地方。
也是因为这本书，一直断断续续无章法跑步的我，终于有了想系统训练和战胜未知的决心，报名了今年年底的半马。这也可能是这本书对于现阶段的我的意义吧。
摘抄我喜欢的句子：
Foreword:
In each shave lies a philosophy. No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditatitve act.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
One:
To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow.
What's crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you've set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explaination, but you can't fool yourself.
The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday.
I run in order to acquire a void.
So the fact that I'm me and no one else is one of my greatest assets.
Right now, I'm running hard. I'll wait till later to think about what it all means.
Two:
Since failure was not an option, I'd have to give it everything I had. My only strength has always been the fact that I work hard and can take a lot physically.
I never could stand being forced to do something I didn't want to do at a time I didn't want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it and the way I wanted to do it, I'd give it everything I had.
When you are young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy.
I have to pound the rock with a chisel and dig out a deep hole before I can locate the source of creativity.
Life is basically unfair. But even in a situation that's unfair, I think it is possible to seek out a kind of fairness.
People basically become runners because they're meant to.
Three:
Being active every day makes it easier to hear that inner voice.
No matter how much you might command your body to perform, don't count on it to immediately obey.
There are three reasons I failed. Not enough training. Not enough training. Not enough training.
Train meticulously and resicover what I was physically capable of. Tighten up all the loose screws, one by one. Do all that and see what happens.
I'm writing, in other words, to put my thoughts in some kind of order.
Four:
Most important quality a novelist has to have: Talent. Focus. Endurance. Focus - the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever's critical at the moment. Endurance - the energy to focus every day for half or year, or a year, two years.
You'll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point.
Exerting yoursel to the fullest within your individual limits: that's the essence of running, and a metaphor for life.
Five:
If something's worth doing, it's worth giving it your best - or in some cases beyond your best.
Six:
You have to wait until tomorrow to find out what tomorrow will bring.
It should add a few new elements to your inventory in understanding who you are.
I didn't come here to walk. I came to run. That was the rule. Break one of my rules once, and I'm bound to break many more.
That's life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what's going on.
Seven-Nine:
Until the feeling that I've done a good job in a race returns, I'm going to keep running marathons, and not let it get me down.
It is 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.
Maybe it's some pointless act like pouring water into an old pan that has a hole in the bottom, but at least the effort you put into it remains.
What's most important is what you can't see but can feel in your heart.
One by one, I'll face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the scenery as far ahead as I can.
