Fresh, energetic and unmistakably your own

August 05, 2023 | Read Online

Fresh, energetic and unmistakably your own

Originality, according to Haruki Murakami

Cole Schafer
August 05, 2023

In Haruki Murakami’s delightful book on the craft of writing, he shares what he believes to be the 3 basic requirements for a writer or an artist to be deemed “original”…

The artist must possess a clearly unique and individual style (of sound, language, or color). Morever, that uniqueness should be immediately perceivable on the first sight (or hearing).
That style must have the power to update itself. It should grow with time, never resting in the same place for long, since it expresses an internal and spontaneous process of self-reinvention.
Over time, that characteristic style should become integrated within the psyche of its audience, to become a part of their basic standard of evaluation. Subsequent generations of artists should see that style as a rich resource from which they can draw.

The first requirement on Murakami’s list is something every writer and artist can achieve if given enough time and effort. While your clearly unique and individual style might not be “commercially” successful, I do believe that each of us has the ability to step into a pair of shoes that are entirely our own.

The second requirement is much more difficult. Once you’ve found something that works, something you’re good at, it’s difficult to abandon that place of comfort for uncharted territory where the outcome is unpromised and the monsters, undefined. Most writers and artists never reinvent themselves. Instead, they do what’s comfortable for their entire careers.

The third requirement is completely out of our control. Few writers and artists will ever achieve a level of originality where they actually become a standard that art is evaluated upon and compared to. Ernest Hemingway, The Beatles, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Thelonious Monk are the rare exceptions.

All that to say, I found Murakami’s requirements to be a bit out-of-reach, if not unattainable. I think he must have sensed this because a few more pages in, he gave a simpler, more concise definition of originality…

“

Fresh, energetic, and unmistakably your own.

”

While it takes a great deal of courage and confidence to be truly ourselves in an algorithmic world that rewards us to churn out work that is shallow, watered-down, unpolarizing and cookie-cuter… this definition of originality is something all of us as writers and artists can work to embody.

By Cole Schafer.

P.S. If this newsletter left you feeling inspired, do me a huge favor and tell one person to subscribe.

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