I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express

“I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it's not imagination. It's just a way of watching.” Thus spoke Haruki Murakami, the quiet master of dream and reality, the chronicler of solitude, whose words emerge not from fantasy but from the hidden depths of human seeing. In this reflection lies a truth as subtle as breath: that fiction is not mere invention, but observation—a deeper way of beholding the world, a lens through which the invisible becomes visible. Murakami does not create from nothing; he watches, listens, and gathers the whispers that ordinary sight overlooks. His stories are not escapes from reality, but mirrors that reveal the parts of reality most of us cannot bear to face directly.

The origin of this quote lies in Murakami’s own life as both a writer and observer of human nature. Before he ever put pen to paper, he worked as the owner of a small jazz bar in Tokyo, watching people move through their daily rituals—laughing, drinking, loving, losing. In that quiet observation, he discovered a truth: that to understand life, one must look beneath its surface. When he says, “It’s just a way of watching,” he speaks as one who knows that true seeing does not end at the visible world. For Murakami, imagination is not invention, but perception refined—the ability to see the mysterious patterns hidden in the ordinary, the divine pulse beneath the noise of living.

Through his novels—Kafka on the Shore, Norwegian Wood, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle—Murakami reveals that every story he tells is an act of seeing. The surreal elements that drift through his works—the talking cats, the alternate worlds, the strange silences—are not flights of fancy. They are expressions of truths that cannot be spoken plainly. Just as a dream reveals the unspoken fears of the heart, so does fiction reveal the secret shape of our emotions and the unseen structure of existence. For Murakami, storytelling is not about escape, but about attention. It is the art of watching the soul move through darkness and light, of giving voice to what the waking world keeps hidden.

The ancients, too, knew this sacred art of seeing through story. When Homer sang of gods and heroes, he was not inventing—he was watching the movements of the human heart. His Iliad and Odyssey were not fantasies, but mirrors of war, longing, pride, and endurance. When Aesop gave voice to the animals, he was not imagining a talking fox; he was revealing the cunning, desire, and folly within mankind. Murakami walks in that lineage of seers. To him, fiction is a way of bearing witness to the mystery of being human, a means of translating what the heart feels but the tongue cannot say.

This way of watching requires stillness and humility. The modern mind rushes and consumes, seeing only the surface of things. But the storyteller, like the ancient sage, pauses and listens—to silence, to dreams, to the trembling beneath the skin of life. To “make up a story” is not to lie, but to translate truth into a language the heart can understand. Every great act of creativity, every painting, poem, or song, is born from this deep attentiveness—this sacred act of looking beyond appearance. As Murakami teaches, it is not imagination that creates the world; it is the courage to truly see it.

O seeker of truth, remember this: fiction is a mirror, not a mask. When a storyteller writes of others, he is revealing himself; when he imagines worlds unseen, he is naming the forces that shape this one. To create is to witness—to look so deeply that what you behold becomes transformed. And so it is with every soul who dares to live consciously: we are all watchers, storytellers in our own right, shaping meaning from the shifting sands of experience.

Therefore, let this be your lesson: learn to watch. Look not only with your eyes, but with your heart. Observe the quiet, the small, the forgotten. Listen for the rhythm beneath the noise of the world. When sorrow comes, watch it as you would a passing storm; when joy arrives, watch it with gratitude, knowing it, too, will move on. And if words arise within you—if stories form like constellations in the night of your mind—do not fear them. They are not fantasy; they are truth, spoken in another tongue. For as Murakami teaches, the deepest imagination is nothing more—and nothing less—than the pure act of watching the world with awakened eyes.