An Egg vs. Hard, High Wall

The noteworthy author Haruki Murakami recently gave a short speech when he received the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society. Here's my favorite part:

If there is a hard, high wall and an egg that breaks against it, no matter how right the wall or how wrong the egg, I will stand on the side of the egg.

Why? Because each of us is an egg, a unique soul enclosed in a fragile egg. Each of us is confronting a high wall. The high wall is the system which forces us to do the things we would not ordinarily see fit to do as individuals.

I have only one purpose in writing novels, that is to draw out the unique divinity of the individual. To gratify uniqueness. To keep the system from tangling us. So - I write stories of life, love. Make people laugh and cry.

(hat tip to the very smart John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla)