Finding Pushkin

"Everybody's born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up."

—Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

I have one too, of course, but I cannot say with certainty what it is. These days I spend my hours researching on and sketching dragons with the seriousness of an artist—doesn't matter if no one pays me to do it. I read up on brand identity and pore through hundreds of logos—doesn't matter if it isn't real work. I scribble in secret notebooks for my own joy—doesn't matter if they will never be read. I take bus rides to town to buy books and have coffee—doesn't matter if I've only four dollars left in my bank account. But I still wonder why I turned out like this. Perhaps there is meaning to an epic mediocrity after all.

So the book cannot be anything less than epic; its characters anything more than ordinary.