Musashi
“People do not give up their loves and hates as long as life lasts. Waves of feeling come and go with the passage of time. […] The world is always full of the sound of waves. The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing and play, but who know the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows its depth?"
Musashi is an incredible book. If you’ve never read it, you need to put it on your list right now. It’s based on the life of the samurai Miyamoto Musashi who has his own non-fiction work in the Book of Five Rings, which this book is loosely based upon.
On episode 50 of the Jocko Podcast, Jocko Willink said that eventually he’d be covering Musashi in an episode and wanted to give everyone enough time to dig through the monstrous book before the spoilers from that episode came. It was set to coincide with episode 100 of the Jocko Podcast.
I prepared myself well in advance by reading Musashi in the spring and was blown away by the book.
It follows Musashi through the challenges that made him into the legendary samurai as well as great complexity with the interwoven stories of the other characters he crosses paths with. It’s a really engaging way to get a glimpse into some of the history of Japan as well as the samurai.