It’s been more than 2 years since I left Australia last time. I look forward to seeing old friends as well as making new friends.

I’ll be here till 23 March. My plan is to get to Thailand via Malaysia. I’ve decided this much, but not further than that.

All I want to do is, in short, to be on the road. So, in that sense, I have no goal in mind. But, if you think about it, we are all on the road. Some people keep moving constantly. Some people stay at the same place. I want to be on the road with the spirit of goer.

To stay or to go. If this was a question about traveling in time, I’d have the same answer: I’d keep going in time. This is a metaphorical question, so my answer is metaphorical too, but I don’t want to stay at the same temporal location or to desire to go back to the past. In a metaphorical sense, going back to the past is like being occupied only with old memories.

But let’s talk about the past for now. More than 10 years ago, when a favorite teacher of mine at high school asked me what I’m going to do after studying in Australia, I told him I want to travel around the world and be able to work from anywhere through the internet. This was all before I got to know about Chris Guillebeau and other folks who do that kind of things. My 18 year old self knew it would be possible to do this in a few years time and now there are people living this lifestyle.

I forgot all about this dream until recently. Even when I learned about the concepts like location independence, it didn’t come back to me.

I could have gone to live on the road 2 years ago, but I didn’t. I think I wasn’t aware that I could do it. I bet there are things you want to do right now and perhaps you are not aware that you could do them somehow. Does that sound likely?

I’m happy with what I did and people I met during the last 2 years. I made some great friends and memories, and I wouldn’t have met them if I hadn’t done what I did. So, I’m not going to say I should have gone, but it’s great, because it makes me aware that possibilities are in front of me to grab.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. You do what you do and you don’t know what happens until you actually do it.

By the way, here’s what did happen to me.

I left Japan on 7 Feb. I got to Gold Coast Airport early in the morning on 8 Feb. I was to fly to Sydney from Gold Coast, so I went to Jetstar’s check-in counter to get a boarding pass. The guy at the counter told me I could catch an earlier flight, because I was there… early. I thought about it for a second, and declined his offer. I already had a plenty of time in Sydney to catch a bus from Sydney to Canberra; I didn’t need an extra hour to kill at Sydney Airport. I chose to have a rest at Gold Coast Airport.

At that time, I didn’t realize there was a time difference between Gold Coast (or rather, the state of Queensland, I suppose) and Sydney. So, when I showed up at the boarding gate for what I thought to be my flight, an officer from Jetstar told me I was there too early. I thought it was 10:45am, but it was 9:45am. So, I ended up getting one extra hour, which I didn’t think existed.

With my planned flight, however, there was a problem with the airplane. So, the passengers on that flight had to get off the plane and had to arrange a new flight. Flight, cancelled.

I was supposed to get to Sydney around 2pm with my original flight. By choosing to catch this flight rather than the earlier flight the guy at the counter suggested to me, I ended up getting to Sydney around 3pm. My bus was to leave from International Terminal at 3:15pm, and it takes about 15 minutes to transfer from Domestic Terminal, where I landed, to International Terminal. You know what happened. I missed the bus.

It wasn’t a matter of life and death, but it’s interesting to realize that there was clearly a decisive moment that changed my life to some extent. I mean, all of us do face one decisive question everyday: Should I choose x or not? In this case of mine, it was pretty clear upon reflection. Again, I don’t know what would have happened if I had chosen to get the earlier flight. I wouldn’t have written this post this way for sure. But the rest, I don’t know.

I wrote the “you don’t know what happens until you do it” part of this post before this aircraft exodus story. It’s funny how things happen like that.

Things don’t go as planned sometimes. It was a good reminder and I’m thankful it didn’t cost my life or anything.

I was sparring with a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt. He is one of the top players in his division in Japan, and around my size. I’ve never made him tap before, though I came close to it once or twice.

I managed to catch him with my favorite technique – triangle choke just like the other times I got close to beating him. What was different this time is that I didn’t let him escape like before.

Beating someone in sparring is not that big a deal. But at that moment when I felt I could get him finally, I had a thought that distracted my decision making. I’m sure I had a few other better options than sticking with what I was doing. Even if I were to keep going with triangle choke, I could adjust the angle and so on. But, I didn’t. I was afraid of making such a tiny adjustment. Or perhaps I didn’t think he would be able to defend himself.

He managed to keep going without tapping for 4 minutes. If he hadn’t been a top black belt, I’m sure I would have made him tap. But he is a top black belt. He defended himself successfully and smashed me right after I gave up this triangle choke attack.

What did I learn from this experience? I learned a little bit about myself and what I want to do.

1) I get lucky sometimes like this.
2) I am good at getting lucky, because I train to catch those lucky moments.
3) But, if I can’t take advantage of those lucky moments, it doesn’t mean much.
4) My triangle choke is probably good enough to finish the majority of grapplers in a situation like this one.
5) But, my triangle choke is not good enough to beat top players like this black belt.
6) I don’t want to do brute strength moves to cover the lack of super fine details that my triangle choke is missing.
7) I don’t want to settle with my good enough triangle choke either.
8) There’s something to do with my mental state as well – I was calm ‘enough’, but I did feel like, “Shit! I’m going to get him finally! Whaaaaa!”. This probably disturbed my decision making.
9) What can I do? Make no excuses. Work on super fine details and my mental strength!

You gotta work on fine details if you want to get the hell out of the ‘good enough’ zone. I don’t want mediocrity.

Can you relate yourself to my experience? If so, what did you learn?

Farewell – Miyazawa Kenji

I bet you probably don’t know how it sounds when you play those three notes with your contrabass. That joyful feeling, full of honesty and hope, almost blew my mind away like a piece of grass.

If you understood the character of each sound and a countless number of rich sequences fully, and if you could use them as you wish, you would do difficult, yet bright and divine work.

Just as famous musicians in this country took up their instruments when they were young, and already established their own schools, around the same time, you took up a drum made of leather and a flute made of bamboo.

But, among 10,000 people living in this town and that village, there are probably about 5 of them around your age who are as talented and capable as you. Every one of them, however, would lose what they have within 5 years. It might be because they have to work or because they simply give up. No kind of talent, power, or resource will stay with us forever. Not even people stay with us either.

I didn’t tell you, but I won’t be here at this school anymore from April. I will have to walk a dark and steep path.

If you lost the skills you have now, the right tone of your music, and the brightness you carry with yourself after I had left the school, I will not take care of you anymore. Because what I hate most is the majority, who feel comfortable and satisfied with the little bit of work they can do.

If you…

Please listen carefully.

When you fall in love with one sweet girl and think of her, there will be a statute in front of you, a statute made of countless shadows and lights. You must turn it into music.

When everyone else enjoys living in town and plays all day, you will cut grasses alone at that stone field. You must create music from that loneliness.

Bite every contempt and misery and sing anyway.

If you didn’t have a music instrument…

Listen, my disciple.

Play, as best as you can, the pipe organ made of lights that spread across the sky.

 

—

This gives me goosebumps, because it feels like he’s talking about me. No, in fact, he’s talking about me. And you. You are one of those people who’s got what it takes. I’m one of them too. But what are you going to do about it? What am I going to do about it? Are we going to spoil what we have so we can walk a safe path that leads our dreams to death? We could spend the next 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, or 50 years walking that path. Or we could choose another path where things are dangerous, but you feel alive. I’m not here to judge which is better, but I do want you to choose what you want to choose rather than following what others think is good for you.

In 2000, I went to see Bad Religion’s gig in Tokyo. I was 16. That day was one of the turning points for me in my life. My friend suggested that we’d go and see the members of Bad Religion after the show, at the back door of the venue. So we did.

At that time, my English wasn’t as good as it is now. Perhaps better than the average Japanese 16 year old kid, because I had some interests in learning English. I wanted to understand what my favourite bands were singing about. I wanted to talk with them too.

And I met some of the members of Bad Religion (to be more specific, I remember meeting Bobby, Greg Hetson, and Jay). It’s a shame I didn’t get to meet Greg Graffin, the singer of Bad Religion. He was and still is my hero.

I wanted to tell them how much I loved their music. But really, I didn’t know how to express that through words in English. I felt… defeated. So, I decided to study English a bit more.

On the way home, my friend recommended me to read a book by a Japanese journalist. I can’t remember the details of this book, but this journalist was talking about how he went to and studied at university in the US. Very inspiring. You can tell from the title of the book too – I’d translate it as “Messages to Wolves”.

You might have noticed already, but I’m actually quite simplistic when it comes to these things. I get easily influenced by strong messages, the kind this book sends too. Maybe not anymore, but I was immediately influenced by him anyway.

So, that was 2000.

Through this encounter with Bad Religion and the book my friend recommended me to read, I decided to change myself significantly. Learning a language is a significant change.

My desire to see the world grew as well.

2001 was the first year of this change. In 2002, I went to Australia to take a university preparation course in Tasmania, Australia. No, I didn’t have to fight Tasmanian devils. That’s not a requirement for one to enter university in Australia…

In 2003, I moved to Canberra, Australia after finishing the preparation course in Tasmania. I changed my mind a bit and I thought that going to university in Canberra would suit me better than going to university in Tasmania. 2003 was, for me, my first year in Canberra.

As I think about it, I didn’t have many friends back then. I did have martial arts friends, which I think is funny. I guess a lot of international students would make friends with other international friends and some local Australian students. I didn’t have these friends, but I had friends to smash each other through Judo. Oh yeah. Some of them were students, but many of them were not.

Let’s put it this way again. 2003 was like a warm up period for me in Canberra.

Anyway, my life in Canberra got a little bit more interesting from 2004, because I started getting more, non-martial arts friends from 2004 onwards. Good. I’m going to skip a little bit here… Fast forward.

I finished my undergraduate study and came back to Japan in December 2006.

2001 to 2003. 2004 to 2006. Now what about 2007 to 2009?

Somehow, I happened to decided to go back to Canberra, and I went back there in July, 2007. Perhaps I’ll talk about this period more sometime, but not now. So, this one will be really short. I came back to Japan in September 2009. There you go, the 3 year pattern. Or the “big changes in every third year” pattern might be more appropriate. I don’t know.

2010. 2011. I made some huge changes in me throughout these years. But not as much as I wanted to make. One can always keep evolving.

So, what’s ahead of me in 2012? Let’s just say goddamn big changes, for now. I’ve decided to leave Japan on 7 Feb. What does this mean to you? Maybe not much, because most of you have never met me in person. In terms of the content of this site, though, you can expect to read something more reflective, freshly delivered from the road, wherever that maybe.

Enough about me for now.

I’m curious. What’s ahead of you in 2012?

Love is being stupid together.
Paul Valéry

I love being stupid together with people I love. By “being stupid”, I don’t mean being reckless, mindless, rude, or indifferent, but I mean being playful, relaxed, and delightful.

Instead of being serious, I prefer to be stupid in this sense. What did I mean by “being serious”? Something like being tense and inflexible.

I’m often perceived as a serious person, but seriousness in the sense of being tense and inflexible is something I want to let go. Instead of seriousness, I want more of playfulness, ease, and delight in my life.

I love what Paul Valéry says about love. (If you liked the Paul Valéry quote, you might enjoy  reading my annotated collection of 65 love quotes as well.)

I agree with him that love is being stupid together; I want my love to be stupid in the sense I mentioned above rather than to be tense and inflexible.

One clue I have about how to stop being serious is to throw away the “what about me” attitude. I can understand it’s natural to worry about yourself – I do that too, but instead of being paralyzed by placing too much emphasis on yourself, you can choose to find absurdity in things you experience and choose to laugh at yourself.

When you are interacting with someone, instead of basing this interaction on the “what about me” attitude, you can choose to be curious about that person and pay more attention to him/her than to yourself. Oh, and forget about trying to impress him/her.

The idea of being stupid together applies to self-love as well, I believe.

Just like being stupid together with people you love, why don’t you be stupid together with yourself too? Instead of labelling your thoughts, feelings, desires, and dreams as silly and stupid and pinning them down, why don’t you be silly and stupid together with the part of you that you label as silly and stupid? That’s some self-love for you.

And, hey, we can be stupid together too.

Once upon time, there was this young man. He kept himself busy with his life and he liked what he had been doing.

But he realized that his love life was not where he wanted it to be. He wanted to meet someone attractive. By attractive, he meant something like being cute, creative, and intelligent.

One day, he went to a party and met someone cute, creative, and intelligent. He had an interesting conversation and interaction with this girl. He did think she was cute, creative, and intelligent, but somehow he was being oblivious to the fact that he had been looking to meet someone like her.

It was only after she had left the party when he realized that she would match the kind of person he had been looking for. He felt stupid.

In fact, he felt so stupid that he realized he needed to do something about his obliviousness.

She was an attractive person that he always wanted to meet and he did nothing. He made no moves!

Many guys wonder, when they like a girl, whether she likes them or not. Since he was being oblivious, there was no room for this question to get in and to bother him. But at the same time, he had no clue about a very obvious hint she gave him.

In many cases, guys misread a woman’s behaviours and gets too excited, thinking that her behaviours indicate that she likes them. But there are cues that only fools would miss, like her saying “We should catch up some time again”.

That’s what she said before she left the party. He said, “Yeah, we should”, without getting her contact details or anything. He didn’t realize that he should have gotten her contact details and that what he did can be interpreted as “Yes, thank you, but I’m not interested”.

He had no idea at that time.

I highly recommend you not to be that guy. I’ve been there, done that, because it’s me. I’m that guy. I felt really stupid. It’s funny now and I’m glad I made this mistake though. After all this kind of mistakes is what slaps my face and to do something about what’s not working in my life.

Here’s some lessons I want to share with you.

1. Know what you want well so you can recognize it when it’s near you.
2. Pay attention.
3. Be socially intelligent (Hint: when people suggest that they want to catch up with you again, it’s very likely that they are interested in you. Of course, there are times when they are just being polite, but).
4. When you make a mistake like this, realize it’s a chance for you to do something about what’s not working for you.
5. Laugh at your mistake and turn it into a lesson.
6. When an attractive girl/guy says “We should catch up some time soon”, don’t say “Yeah, we should” and do nothing, especially when she/he is the kind of person you want to get to know.

I want to use this online space to have a conversation with great people like you. It’s not a place where only I talk to you, but it’s a place where I want to talk with you. So, I appreciate comments from you and let’s get a conversation going.

Have you ever made a silly mistake like this and turned it into a great lesson for yourself? What did you learn?