I found myself on the train again, a year earlier I had been on the same line. Each experience colored that of the next, varying hues, shades, and shapes shifted as the train glided through the city. A sense of Déjà vu as the car shifted back and forward,  only a year had passed, but I had changed. The hopeless romantic was being slowly asphyxiated, by a more pragmatic, cynical version of the same being. No experience was ever the same, no matter how similar. A duality existed where change felt more apparent after a long period of stagnation. Although the scope in which we measure change is subjective in itself. Inattentively staring as the world passed by, I caught the sight of my own reflection after entering a dark tunnel. Was life like riding a train following predetermined tracks? It had certainly felt that way, I being only an observer, just along for the ride. My life had felt more like a roller coaster, my mind only remembers the extreme highs and lows, time moved both fast and slow.

The vast expanse of Tokyo hid my reflection as I wondered if life could be the self-authored adventure I was sold as a child. The thought of being a small boat on the open ocean was just as, if not more frightening as being the tied down to fate. My mind floated off to the memories of dancing cars on roadways. Drifting turned the concrete roads into canvases. There was art and poetry among the mix of control and chaos, the middle way.

The Year of The Dog

Seeing the bronze Hachiko statue made my mind search through files related to dogs. It was the year of the Dog, which would explain my year of misfortune. The burden was only getting heavier as the days ticked by. During my small time owning a pet, I realized the world got lighter, but it’s a luxury I couldn’t continue keeping due to my allergies. Dogs have become so much a part of our human culture that people dress them up, throw birthday parties for them, kiss them, and erect statues of them. The bronze dog blankly stared like the only dogs I had ever owned. Stuffed animals were no replacement for living breathing thing, my dad had dogs before I came into his life.

I had only known Comrade from watching him in the chain linked kennel. His barking and size were enough to scare me, but there were times when he would sit there happily wagging his tail at the sight of us. The mischievous dog would dig his way out of the kennel, only to wait for us on the porch. He walked with a slight limp as age was wearing down on his joints, but we would take him around the cul de sac every now and then. Despite his age and leg damage, the only memory I have of him is being stupidly happy. Most dogs are that way, their owners usually mirroring that attitude, it’s probably why it’s hard for me to understand them.

Even on the day we went to the humane society he was stupidly happy walking into the building where he would die. My face felt like it was melting as tears streamed down them for a half an hour. The shocking thing was seeing my dad not shed a single tear, but we never got another animal after that. My severe eczema and allergies not only made me feel isolated from other people, but animals, and the world I was born into. . . I was more of a cat person anyway, but I’d settle for having any animal. Speaking of someone who seemed like a dog person. . .

The Cheeky Australian

Despite Shibuya Crossing being one of the busiest places in the world, it wasn’t hard to spot a blonde white guy. Like the bronze dog I was next too, he too wore an ever present smile on his face. Was it the jubilant view of the world that was skewed, or my cynical, dark, twisted one? Not having eaten that day, Tom and I explored until we found ourselves situated in a ramen shop. For most of my life I had assumed ramen was something that was dried and served in a Styrofoam bowl. The first time my dad showed me the magic of the great tasting meal that I could prepare myself at seven was a glowing part of my youth. The difference between that and the real thing is like comparing a T.V. dinner to the meal it supposedly models, but the Nongshim spicy noodle soup bowl still tasted like home to me. It was probably in Korea where my dad acquired his taste for noodles, but the love of noodles he had passed down took me to a different place.

“So how did you end up here?”

I had gotten to know a little about Tom in the past week of training, but the face you show in group situations is different than you show someone you consider a friend. Tom didn’t know that sharing a meal with anyone was a rare experience for me. The reason I didn’t have many friends is because I was too guarded most of the time. How can others trust you if you can’t open up and be vulnerable around them? Taking my normal place in conversations, I let Tom do most of the talking as I asked questions.

Being a little older than myself Tom had grown up in a small town in Australia. Thailand was the first place he taught before making his way to China. From there he came to Japan. English had granted him the opportunity to live this life of exploration travel. This seemingly free lifestyle matched his personality so well, as the stories of his travels across Asia made me wonder if I could hop from place to place. Coming to Japan was crossing another place off the list. He had a friend here, but despite his comfortable life in China he probably just wanted to see more of the world.

“I can’t go anywhere else, my dream is here.” Although Tom told me of the lucrative offers in other countries, what I wanted out of my future was more than money. I could have stayed at home if all I cared about was the benjamins. I wanted to go to animation school at one of the best places I knew.

Cognitive Dissonance

Akihabara was a new sight to both of us. With so many flashing lights, sounds, and movement it was on the brink of being sensory overload. From the train station to the actual trains themselves there was anime everywhere. Some of the characters I’d recognized, but Tom had no idea who anyone but Pikachu was. Being surrounded by games, electronics, and arcades was like nerd heaven. The first plan was to try and win a Pikachu in a UFO catcher. Unknown to us finding a Pikachu in a crane game was more difficult than we thought it would be. Just as we were about to give up, we spotted a crane game which had our little yellow friend. Tom put a couple hundred yen coins in and the machine came to life.

The crane moved slowly to the right, then creeped forward casting a shadow on the smiling mouse. We watched in anticipation as the crane slowly descended, the claws slowly closed on the smiling plushie. The Pikachu came up just a little, it began to slowly ascend with the mechanical arm, before plopping back onto the bed of similar toys. UFO catchers are a magical thing that allow someone to honestly express themselves like a small child. Tom let out an exasperated sigh while smiling “aw come on, it was this close”, it wasn’t just Tom who behaved this way. Children, teens, and even Japanese adults would smile and give similar reactions while playing these games. Like teasing a cat, the thrill of almost winning can be fun too. Tom again tracked the position of the crane as it veered right, then deeper into the pit. The crane descended wrapping around the red cheeked yellow mouse. Watching the mouse rise gave us hope, the crane ascended, moved over the drop point, and opened. There was no plushy as it robotically opened, we wouldn’t walk away winners this time.

We were in the land of nerdom, a place where people dream of visiting, a place I had always wanted to go, but I still didn’t feel like a winner. There was an empty feeling in my heart that I couldn’t seem to shake. Was it because I was thinking about the impossibility of living off what little savings I had? Akihabara is filled with all sorts of cool stuff, but I had learned that cool stuff costs. The universe sadistic at times, it’s the same feeling when I see cars I love drive by, but also know a broke loser like me can’t afford them. Like  going to Disney World after already figuring out that magic isn’t real.(Don’t get me wrong I still had a blast at Disneyworld. . . thanks mom). From Third to Fifth grade, all the kids with rich parents would go on and on about it. By the time I got there I was old enough to slam down a beer, the man behind the curtain was already revealed at that point.

Maybe I was missing my family? Usually on an trip this big they would be there bickering about stupid things that didn’t matter. The final feeling I could think of was the reason I felt down was because it was a big goal of mine to actually get here. Now that I was here in the center of nerd culture, I was thinking now what? There was no big revelation, only a large void where that goal was. I was lost on multiple levels as Tom and I had no idea where we were going, simply walking in a direction. Picking seeming random stores and shops, we began to look on the inside of some of these places. Little statues of the characters I knew lined the walls of one shop, complete with the manga, CDs, and DVDs of the series in which they come from. The next shop we went to was filled with PC gaming peripherals, recognizing the brands was easy for me, but so was recognizing how expensive all those goodies were.

Getting To Close To Stars Burns You

Between my low reading level and the school system that systematically taught you to hate reading, the bookstore was one of my least favorite places to go as a child. I often found myself retreating to the comics, video games, magazine, or the art books. Once again I was stuck between aisles of paper where ninety percent of the books were above my reading level. There was one thing I could understand, the art books and posters plastered throughout the store were works I had seen before. Small black signatures decorated with cute sketches had signaled that the artists that I had long followed online had book signings at this very store. What was usually reduced to pixels and small images online carried an extra presence in the prints and large posters before me. Time stood still as I studied all the signatures and sketches, the years of experience showed in the small caricatures. Initially I was overjoyed, that joy slowly dissolved and was  being consumed by a darker force within the recesses of my soul. What began as jealously shifted to despair and insignificance. As inspiring as the works were, they simultaneously made me feel embarrassed that I ever touched a pencil and paper. I should just drop it now because I would never be as good as the people I admired.

The idea that I wasn’t good enough was something I had been burdened with since as long as I could remember. The weight only encumbered me more as the failures stacked up, the one thing I thought I was good at, gaming had also lead me down a road of depression and suicide. I wasn’t entertaining or skilled enough to be a content producer after all. What people wanted was a persona, but in the words of one of my favorite musicians. “I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.” Perhaps I was too afraid to let the true self shine, and it wasn’t the real me after all,  maybe people saw through the lies I was telling myself. There was so much plastic in the world that nothing seemed real anymore. Ambition is a weapon that can backfire on its user, you chase visions that you see in your mind only to be disappointed with what reality gives you back. Never satisfied you either float in an existential void or burn yourself out trying to shine in the light of the stars you chase. Who was I? What was my true character?

Enter The Realm of The Shadow

If it weren’t for Tom I would have sat there and contemplated the beginning and the end, alpha and omega, from my birth till my demise. We left one shop only to go towards the next, tom motioned towards a staircase leading down. The staircase, illuminated by orange tungsten lights gave a warmer, but dimmer glow than that of the florescent lights of the store before. Being in the basement the lack of natural light made the store inherently darker, small mirrors allowed me to take a peek at my own face as I nervously descended. Being in Tokyo the staircase had multiple turns in order to save space in any one direction. Tom let out a small laugh, which persisted quietly during our whole stay, wondering what was so funny I rounded the final corner. What I saw was enough to make a grown twenty-three year old man blush. It was an anime store and I did recognize some of the characters, but I hadn’t seen the characters presented in this fashion before. From wall to wall the place was decorated hentai, with rows and rows of shelves filled with hentai in-between. Although Tom and I made a ball of it, smiling while pointing out various things to each other, Tom found a dakimakura pillow especially entertaining and wanted his picture next to it. What perplexed me at first was the amount of customers in there just casually browsing hentai. The most surprising thing to me was seeing girls in the aisles opening and sifting through different books and magazines, some of them were cute too. I often forgot that girls were just people too. The shadow, a concept I had been studying, went from just knowing to understanding just a little more.

The shadow is a term first coined by Carl C. Jung to embody the darker aspects of ourselves. Anger, fear, sexual desires, and negative thoughts are all cornered to the recesses of our souls. Through culture and upbringing this denial of self is propagated by the conscious mind. Seeing girls in that shop made me realize that everyone even women thought about perverted things, they too had sides of themselves they didn’t like or want anyone seeing. I had avoided my shadow for far too long, like a big dog it had started to drag the master around. Being real with yourself can lead to much self-discovery and growth. Do you want to know why I keep everyone at arm’s length, to see the part of me that I keep hidden, will you still like me after you learn the truth?

At five I’d almost died of a blood infection, I spent weeks in a children’s hospital bed. The only other exciting thing other than the video games was the blue angels visited, but I was asleep when they came. They might as well be real angels because of their inhuman skill and rarity. Sometimes I think it might have had a happier life if I had died then. Before that I might have called life heaven on earth the only memories I had were of paradise in the Philippines, rolling down the hill in a pedal f1 car, and playing my first video game. After that the shadow had consumed most of my psyche, fun and happiness were just fleeting sparks that were quick to fizzle into the darkness of the never-ending night.

When I entered school I was 1 of 3 brown kids on the whole campus, the middle class to rich kids made fun of the way I spoke, and when we spoke Tagalog we got more laughs. The kids in the grade above me were especially rotten, on top of that the parents of spoiled wealthy kids would speak about the old cars that my dad would drive around. Things got worse when my dad started hitting a pipe, he would “disappear” for days, I wouldn’t see him for weeks at times. The worst day was when he missed my birthday and the family members who came didn’t have the decency to tell you the truth, I’d stopped believing my birthday was special after that day. The constant fighting made home not even feel like a place I wanted to be, when we got too big to hide under the bed we had to settle for hiding in our rooms. During marital problems we lived with uncles and aunts, or they lived with us(I enjoyed it when our family lived with us though). Our mom forced us to eat dinner together, but unlike those fake T.V. families our table felt more like the north Korean border. Things exploded when we found our dad hiding in a motel bathroom high out of his mind, it hurt even more when we found out he’d been supporting another family. I was told I had to choose between mom or dad, but they stayed together “for the kids”.

That’s when I became a jailor for both my parents, feeling it was my existence that kept them together, which forced them to work long hours in jobs neither of them liked all too much. Going into middle school I’d lost all respect for adults, they were just flawed humans after all. I danced with authority, although I was never one of “the troublemakers.” In six grade I felt the stupid chemicals humans confuse for something called love, only to feel how shitty it is when that feeling dissipates. In seventh grade I lost the ability to trust anyone after your best friend dated the girl I had a crush on(this is petty), he had also convinced me to go to an expensive high school, I was trying to avoid to save money for said slave parents, and then ended up going to a different school altogether. Eighth grade I made a poorly timed joke, got in a shit ton of trouble and cried in front of my whole class, fucking embarrassing. Not knowing what to do with my emotions, I was a bully in grade school, and when you have that reputation going into highschool you don’t keep too many friends.

I went to a small private high school almost everyone was wealthy and white. . . making me feel isolated again. Not knowing what to do with these emotions and thoughts they manifested into a sense of low self-worth. With low self esteem it was even more difficult to make any friends. It’s hard to like other people if you can’t even like the person you see in the mirror every day. My high school existence could be summed up in so amazingly average and forgettable at anything and everything, I might as well have been invisible. I remember being one of three kids not being able to bench press the barbell. Socializing with the few friends I did have became increasingly difficult because I was cut off from the one way we communicated, xbox live. I cried in front of the freshman football team, because I slipped and missed a tackle and the guy scored. I was the safety, our team was so good that for most of the time I was just there not doing anything, the one chance I had to do something I blew it. I was crying because I felt like I didn’t belong on a team of so many talented people.

Inadequacy became a part of my personality and was made concrete when I was told to “be more like your older sister.” I gave up trying in school I would never be as good as my older sister, so why bother. Instead of taking challenging honors or ap courses, I cruised through the normal curriculum with minimal effort. My mom didn’t believe in my ability so why would I? Sophomore year while many of my peers were starting I rode the bench in football, got cut from the basketball team. What I thought was a good thing in making the varsity team in lacrosse, turned out to be no fun because I only kept the bench warm. When I did get to go in I felt that, I was never good enough, constantly disappointing the coaches and parents of other players. My mom forced me into wrestling, but I should’ve asked her to enroll me in a basketball league outside of school.

Junior year I can’t remember very much of . . .too many concussions maybe?  I did get super drunk at the only party I went to and proceeded to make a fool of myself, I wanted to just dig my own grave and lie in it. More bench riding, solitude, and injuries. This is the year I tore my acl, the real pain was not being able to “play” any sports at all. . . The one constant that had been there all my life through the shittiest of shit storms was gone. It was painful to go to football games and practices in the following year. Senior year I asked a girl to prom and got blown off. . . I had confused her general nice attitude with her “liking me”, which is common for loners like me. . . My social development was lacking to say the least. It was hard coming to terms with being not as fast or maneuverable I used to be on the field with the healing knee injury. Applying to colleges I only applied to one because it was “affordable”, easy to get into, and had a program that sounded interesting. I really wanted to go to USC and study cinematography, but I was too stupid to receive scholarships, and my parents couldn’t afford to help me. . . Having a mountain of debt didn’t seem like a fun deal either. During my graduation party I got way too high off a marijuana brownie that I had a friend by for me. Resulting in a nightmare of the same night occurring multiple times groundhogs day style, one of which had me sitting in a cell arrested.

My first year of college wasn’t too bad, but my social anxiety made my legs shake when I gave a presentation in english class. It was my sophomore year where I tore my ACL, failed classes, considered suicide and needed counseling. I balanced out the stress of life with drugs. . . But the drugs felt nice amidst all the chaos. I started to make art and music and while they did a good job of soothing painful feelings. . . before darker feelings crept up once again. My art and music feel worthless, the one thing I thought I could be good at exploded in my face. Everything I tried I sucked at. . .I got into this game League of Legends, trying to get better and play on the college team, but I failed at that, and since so much focus was put on the damn game, I began to start failing classes again. My summers were consumed by summer classes I had to take to balance out my shitty semesters.

Thinking of suicide on the daily makes you question why you’re even alive in the first place. Floating around in an existential Nihilism where everything seems pointless. . . I didn’t care who won elections, what basketball team won, if the football team of my college won. . . None of it really affected me in any way. I graduated college sacrificing my weekends and free time chasing dreams and visions which yielded no fruit when I could’ve enjoyed my youth. . . Whatever that means. . . Enjoyment is a foreign concept to me. I wasn’t able to get a job out of college. . . While other people I knew were working for big companies . . . . All I had were some shitty songs and artworks. . . My hobbies have stopped being fun and enjoyable because when I look at them all I see are flaws.

The world is unfair, it’s as simple as that, while some people get to stand on top of the world and shine, most of us are fighting for the light that’s left over. Just another broke, unsuccessful, college grad. . . This world has so many neat things, but you got to pay to play. As just another failed content creator I really have nothing going for me. All of this on top of being allergic to animals and foods. . .ah this is nice. . . But you can’t have it. The damn eczema too fuck this, fuck it all I’m done. . . Screw you guys I’m going home. People tell me that my dreams will come true one day. . .but really it only feels like my nightmares come to fruition. Of course there’s more to this shadow that I can explain or fully comprehend but that’s the jist of it. But life even when you’re feeling shitty you have to put on that fake smile and say that everything is all right or you’ll be called out for being a whiny complainer.

The shadow had hollowed me out into a shell of a person. It was always there no matter where I went. In the back of my mind it was an ever present force, coming to terms with accepting it was hard to do. You can’t just forget everything and move on. The conversation my close friends had about a certain cartoon staring some characters from Teen Titans came to my mind causing me to let out a small laugh.

Keeping that stupid smirk on my face I turned to Tom.
“Hell I would draw it if it made me rich” . He smiled back as we left the store, heading to a place where they sell happiness in the form of fried potatoes. Leaving the shop I found something that I had heard about from the Anime character that was just me in another life. The cynical Max Coffee drinking boy that made me feel more okay with sharing my view of the world.

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