Chop Wood Carry Water: How to Fall In Love With the Process of Becoming Great

John is the fictional protagonist at the center of the extended series of parables in the book. John appears on the page as an American child obsessed with the idea of becoming a samurai archer. As a young adult, John pursues the dream in Japan, spending roughly 10 years under the tutelage of Akira before finally understanding the lessons of his sensei and mastering the art of archery and life.

John has an inherently Western worldview in which success is defined by achievements, milestones, and accolades. In Japan, his Western worldview clashes with Akira’s Eastern approach to success.

Because John is a character in a parable rather than in traditional fiction, he is not a fully-developed character. John is a conduit for the Western worldview of goal-driven success. John’s character is a means of conveying an ideology and demonstrating how a revision of that ideology can result in greater success.

So that readers can view themselves in John, he is intentionally left blank. He is not given defining characteristics, quirks, or distinctive mannerisms. John is also a vehicle for Medcalf to deliver critiques on Western society through the more articulate and level-headed Akira. Though John is open-minded and willing to learn, he remains focused on competition, winning, and reaching his goals, even as he spends every day working on the unglamorous tasks associated with and necessary for the athletic mastery of his craft. Through John, Medcalf critiques America’s obsession with shortcuts and easy fixes, as well as the American fixation on identity being linked to ability. John arrives in Japan fully loaded with Western mentalities and departs Japan with a mix of both Eastern and Western philosophy.

Jordan is a fictional character within the extended parable featuring John as the protagonist. He is John’s younger brother. In the opening chapter, Jordan is severely injured in a tragic car accident that leaves him unable to walk, talk, or eat without assistance. John helps care for Jordan throughout their childhood. The brothers dreamed of becoming samurai archers together, but after Jordan’s accident, John was forced to pursue his dream alone. He does not see Jordan again until a decade of training in Japan has lapsed.

Jordan is a mechanism through which Medcalf imparts the lesson that sacrifice is essential to success. In the final chapters of the book, Medcalf’s extended parable has concluded, and he reveals that he isolated himself from friends and family to immerse himself in the grind required to find success. In the extended parable, Medcalf takes this practice to the extreme in forcing John to sacrifice his family throughout the duration of his decade-long pursuit of success. Jordan is the family that John had to sacrifice to achieve his vision.

Akira is a fictional Japanese samurai teacher who lives in a remote village in Japan and teaches a range of students from home and abroad. His name derives from the Japanese word for intelligence. Akira is a Christian who believes in the enduring love of God and holds his faith at the center of his identity. Through parables that mimic the structure and moral subject matter of the Bible, Akira teaches John that success lies not in achieving but in the journey toward greatness.

Akira is a proxy character for Medcalf, whose worldview and religious outlook parallel the samurai warrior’s. Through the vehicle of Akira, Medcalf delivers his critique of Western mental training and mindset and offers an alternative that blends Eastern mindfulness and a slower, day-by-day focus on mastery with the Western Christian work ethic and search for self and identity. By blending these worldviews in the character of Akira, Medcalf creates a character who straddles both ideologies.

As with John, Akira is not a fully-realized character precisely because Medcalf wants readers to focus on the message rather than the conduit for it. Medcalf reveals that Akira was once a truck driver in Japan and that he once had a girlfriend. Akira is keenly aware of American sports, business, and culture, though how he is aware of these facets of Western culture is not clear. He is an avid sports fan, repeatedly referencing basketball and golf, among other sports.

John and Jordan are obsessed with samurai archers when they are children, eventually visiting Japan and learning a great deal more about their heroes. At long last, John eventually makes his way back to Japan to spend a decade training with a samurai archer. Along the way, John learns the history of the archers, their schools of thought, and their most famous practitioners.

The samurai were warriors akin to Western knights who lived in feudal Japan during the 12th-19th centuries. These warriors served regional lords or the emperor or worked in magistrate-level positions. Many were landowners or touted imperial lineage. During the early years of the samurai warrior class, archery on horseback was the preferred method of defense, though this shifted as the samurai class evolved. Individual samurai are called Bushi, meaning “warrior.” The etymology surrounding the word samurai suggests it originated from an earlier word meant to signify one’s service to the emperor, and the term encapsulated leaders and bureaucrats in addition to military service.

The highly trained archers among the samurai were called kyūjutsuka, and they practiced kyūjutsu, or archery as an art form. This blend of martial arts and archery was greatly esteemed among the samurai, though they are traditionally pictured with a sword rather than a bow and arrows. There are several types of samurai archery. These range from mounted to standing, from rapid-fire and long-distance shooting, to name a few. According to the ancient rules governing samurai archery, which are called the Gosha Rokka, mental training is one of the six essential elements a warrior must master.

Kota is the main character in a story told to John, the fictional protagonist, by his samurai teacher Akira. In the story, Kota is a skilled architect who builds a home shoddily, not realizing it is his own home he is building. When he gets the keys, he is dismayed because he did not know he was building the house for himself. Through this story, Akira encourages John to apply himself fully to every task, whether he benefits directly from it or not. Kota is not a reoccurring character, though the lesson appears throughout the book.

Katsuo is a fictional character in Medcalf’s extended parable featuring John as a Westerner living in an Eastern samurai camp. Katsuo is a fellow participant at the samurai training facility. At times, John views Katsuo as competition and is downtrodden when Katsuo wins the archery competition. To John, who views winning as confirmation of talent, Katsuo represents a roadblock. Akira attempts to help John view Katsuo as a colleague rather than a source of competition, and through the mechanism of Katsuo, Akira explains that competition results only in grief.

As with Akira and John, Katsuo is not a fully-realized character because he is meant to perform a role in Medcalf’s parable rather than exist in the story as a full character. He has no defining characteristics and appears only as a means of forcing John to reconcile his goal-oriented mindset with Akira’s mission-oriented one.