Note on 'Kafka on the shore' and 'Colourless Tsukuru and his years of pilgrimage'

When we are young, we try to find our own identity by travelling. We try to explore the outside world and try to experience as much as possible. We think that travelling is the only way to find ourselves. Kafka on the shore tells about 15 year old boy running away from home to find himself, to runaway from expletive given by his father and to look for his mother and sister who abandoned him when he was small.
At the middle age, after experiencing both happiness and sorrow, we find ourselves by going inside ourselves. Because the past does not disappear and makes us as persons of today, we can not erase the past though we try to forget or avoid it. The only way to find ourselves at that time and to see what makes of us today is facing the past, facing the sorrow. Once, we open our heart, accept the sorrow, the weakness as well as the hurt, the regrets at that time we can find the depth of ourselves.
Colourless Tsukuru and his years of pilgrimage is about a 30 year old man seeking for the reason for his  hurt of being abandoned by his close friends when he was at early 20s.
As usual, the images, stories in Murakami's work are always metaphor. You might not in that event however, you might experience the same feeling that event brings about
Inspired by Kafka on the shore and Colourless Tsukuru and his years of pilgrimage.