WRITING

18/7/25
An unhealthy soul requires a healthy body

Recently, I've been reading Haruki Murakami's *What I Talk About When I talk About Running*. A lot of it has resonated with me, as someone who has struggled, time and time again, to find a framework for living that resonates with me and is in essence, *compatible* with me and how my brain works. To read about how running and writing (and more broadly, creative work in general) sort of have this symbiotic relationship where one supplements the other really resonated with me, as someone who has had exercise be their primary coping mechanism from an early age.

However, as I age into adulthood, I've discovered a variety of easier, less strenuous shall-we-say "coping mechanisms" that require less exertion to produce a desired result, which is, in a broad sense, "feeling good", or, in abstract, a more general sense of satisfaction. However, something I've noticed with the use of these substances is that, unlike exercise (and bear with me here), they produce temporally more "happiness" (i.e. for a longer time) and absolutely little to no (or even the opposite of) physical benefits.

Now, you might say, "Well, the point of exercise isn't to feel good. It's to improve your health and the function of your body." To that, I assert that, at risk of sounding foolishly hedonistic, the reason you desire to have good health or a functional body is that it feels better than being physically unhealthy and having a body that doesn't do what you tell it to do. The logistical aspects of it play a part, yes, but what it all boils down to in the end is whether or not whatever you're doing for yourself makes you feel good to be alive.

A phrase that Murakami asserts as his motto in *What I Talk About When I talk About Running* is that "An unhealthy soul requires a healthy body". When I read that, I felt it instinctively to be true. His assertion is that his primary habit and livelihood, writing, is essentially "toxic" and unhealthy for the soul, due to the unhealthy nature of the subject matter that he covers in his books. I, genius that I am, extrapolated from this that to engage in conventionally (socially, literally, physically) unhealthy behaviours optimally requires a healthy body. This was, at the time, what I needed to hear, as I have struggled with balancing my healthy habits with my unhealthy ones in a framework that I found resonated with me. When you begin to engage with the concept of self-improvement, generally, you encounter a lot of reactionary thought, at least initially, and this sort of baked-in Catholic sense of deriving a sense of superiority from denying oneself pleasure leads to residual effects of guilt when one engages in pleasurable activities.

To go on a tangent, one could argue that the very idea of a "framework to live your life by" is inherently reactionary in and of itself. This person that I made up is saying something along the lines of "do whatever feels good " and that "requiring a structure to base your life upon is indicative that you haven't outgrown your religious trauma and teen manosphere phase." To that, I say, you may be right. But for this moment, to feel comfortable in whatever I am doing, and to, essentially, feel good about how I live, I require balance and structure in some form. Not a boot-camp style regimented way of life, or to base your day around the number of times you pray in 24 hours, but something gentler. I, personally, require stability in my daily life, and while I have no desire to live as if I am in the army, I want to live my life in a generally consistent way that I feel positively about.

Point being, I suppose, that living a healthy, satisfactory life and engaging in unhealthy habits are not mutually exclusive. I forget who said it exactly, but as someone once said, "Everything in moderation, even moderation." Maybe this is instinctual knowledge to everyone else, I mean, how many people that smoke cigarettes feel like cigarettes are ruining their life? But I'm glad I could sound out my thoughts about it a bit. And also that I don't really have my shit together yet but I'm finding things in daily life to bring me stability, and I'm feeling positively about it.