A night out in yokohama isn’t cheap. After settling into my new apartment, I was worried about my dwindling financial savings. I was working part time remote, but would that be enough to cover that bills? If my worry wasn’t enough constant reminders from my mom were like a mosquito buzzing in my ear. I didn’t need anyone else to remind me that financially, career wise, and dream chasing was leading failure. The skills I picked in my build weren’t exactly profitable, perhaps it was my attitude. There were people who were able to make their lives exciting, but their skills far eclipsed mine.
It was impossible not to worry about things like finances and your career at my age. Thirty loomed over my head like the shadow of Arasaka over Night City. My friends and family would tell me that “Dreams Come True” and “Careers Work Out Eventually”. It was belief that made it easier to sleep at Night, but I doubted it was true. I also found that when you’re struggling in life many people offer comforting words, but hardly anyone is willing to actually help you.
“Oh use USA Jobs” “LinkedIn is a great resource”, I’m sure next someone would tell me that indeed is a good place to find work. It’s not like I hadn’t thought of these places myself or tried. In my quest for self improvement I decided to document my life more. I thought that if I documented my life it might lead to something.
What if it Leads to a Realization I Don’t Like
Using this blog and my youtube channel to get a more objective view of my life is like watching your own gameplay. During my quest to improve at eSports it was something I did a lot. When watching old gameplay you see the triumphs you cherished were not as cool as you thought they were. It’s much easier to view the flaws in your gameplay, or life, when you’re not in it. The belated David Foster Wallace explains my favorite example of this principle.
“There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”
David Foster Wallace
I titled my last video “Is My Life in Japan Worth Capturing?”. A scariest things for me is to wake up a year from now and realize it wasn’t. It’s not unrealistic to think that at the end of this year I’ll have a library of blog posts, videos, songs, and art projects with no views or traction. The scary thing about living in a cyberpunk society is that I’ll have an objective answer to my question.
The Things You Missed in The Video
While I do my best with the tools I am aware of to tell my story in photos, videos, and audio. There is something about text that allows you to see beyond a veil. Perhaps my BLOG is a form of oversharing, I’m wondering if that is a term the NPCs use to discourage content creation. I’ve realized any form of creation requires the shedding of your souls protective layer. With our creations we reveal a portion of ourselves into the world. Here is the written account of what happened of that Day in Yokohama.
The Day Started Early
That day started with me up editing a video. Many nights in my life end with me staying up late and looking at a monitor. Sometimes for “productive things” like work, art, or content creation. Other times it can be for useless things like exploring fictional worlds or competitive gaming. I spent night and morning putting together a reel for likes. These were the only fruits of my labor generally. My love for cars was the only thing valued in the algorithm cared about.
The reality of the matter was that on the platforms I was posting people liked the visual flair of JDM meets. The end consumer doesn’t care about how long it takes to make something only if the end result is good.
Waking Up Late
As a result of working on the project so late at night, I woke up the next morning running late. It appeared that running late was the theme of my life, but my friends were running late as well. I was able to make it to the meeting area early enough to enjoy some starbucks and writing about my experience the night before. Despite my shortened patience due to my lack of sleep I was able to compartmentalize the feeling and start writing. Writing had become a habit, a haven, and also a form of expression.
An empty page had become a serene place in a chaotic loud world.
Just Car Guy Things
The reason my friends and I were meeting so early in the morning was to help my friend Dave with his car problems. It always made me happy to help friends out with their car issues. There were times as a young teenanger I would drive over to my friends house and help them work on their cars. Honestly I was pretty useless under the hood of a car. Even now, I still can’t do much on my own, but with some guidance even I could help. Thankfully the job was on the more simple side. Dave only really needed our manpower to help relocate his car with a dead battery.
Car issues were part of being a car guy. Just a week earlier I had bump started my car after rolling it down a hill to restore the charge in my battery. I don’t think car issues are something that most NPCs really understand. Many of them think Why not just buy a new car. I might be speaking for myself, but to a “car person” cars are more than just a way to get from point A to B. During my time bump starting my car there was a period when my car was in the road blocking traffic. I might have angered some of the people in the neighborhood, but I needed the street to be clear to bump start the car.
That’s What Friends Are For
Similar to my situation, when we were working on Dave’s car we unintentionally caused a slight amount of inconvenience for those trying to enter the parking garage. Luckily for Dave, there were three of us. It wasn’t easy, but after some elbow grease we got the car out of the bay. Next took the battery out before finally pushing the car back in.
Arcade
Arcades carry with them a sense of nostalgia for a more simple time. The neon lit signs, signs of wear on cabinets, pay model, and titles themselves carried you into the past. When we sat down to play Wangan Midnight I had mixed feelings. On one hand titles like Wangan Midnight and Initial D were a catalyst for me to live in Japan. Conversely PC titles like Assetto Corsa with mods offered a far more immersive realistic experience.
This thought melted away as I started playing the game. Not every title needs to be as punishing and realistic as Assetto Corsa. Sometimes it was good to just have fun despite rubber banding mechanics. Life didn’t have to be serious all the time, you didn’t have to be great to have fun. Winning wasn’t everything.
I proceeded to get my ass kicked in Dance Dance Revolution. Mini Basketball was the same story, but I had a lot of fun.
Brewery
Revobrewery sits in the middle of Yokohama’s Minato Mirai area. It was a nice place. . .perhaps too nice for a person like me as I worried about the state of my finances.
Just for tonight forget about it, you start fulltime work next month. . .for tonight just have fun
At the brewery I interacted with my group of friends and family. As an introvert it was always really hard to interact with anyone when a group got too large. Communicating with me was difficult as I used a lot of game references and mechanics to understand and explain topics. I often find that although it’s difficult for me to understand people’s intentions and emotions, I try to read their actions.
Southside
From one craft beer place to the next. Seeing places like this in Japan had made me long for my home. Small craft beer places in the pacific northwest was the norm. There was even a craft beer brewery in my little neighborhood. Conversation topics consisted of what people do for work, and troubles we were having. Even though all these people were my friends I was having a hard time opening up. One thing I was starting to understand was doing nice things for people not because you feel like you owe them but as a token of enjoying their presence.
I had met a man named Johannes who had bought me a beer as we were having a conversation about work, life, and other bits of small talk. I then bought his next round not because he expected it or I owed him, but as a gesture. Hey I appreciate the conversation we’re having here’s a beer so we can continue talking. While the action remained the same, the feeling behind the action was different.
My father had developed a lot of transactional relationships in his life, I’m not sure if he even had many friends. That was something I know I didn’t want in life, so developing these non transactional relationships was important to me.
Round 1
While some of the group went to catch their last trains Dave, Johannes, and I stayed out. When the group gets small enough and I have enough drinks in my system I find it easier to open up. I felt bad offloading my career worries onto Dave and Yo, but I was geniunlly worried about my future. It felt bad to feel like I was continue working and struggling in Japan. My friends had assured me that in 10 years my current worries would be no more.
Getting into the IT industry alone was potentially a catalyst for a better life. Dave and Yo assured me that I’d learn way more in ten years then what I know now, but I was still skeptical.
Wrapping Up
As the day’s adventures and conversations slowly settled, even the late night party headed home. The Next morning, I found myself back at my apartment, staring at the screen, piecing together the fragments of the day. My life is a montage of late-night editing sessions, car troubles, arcade games, and fleeting moments of genuine human connection. What is the narrative of my life in Japan? It’s one of neverending struggle, but it’s my story.
Each frame, each written word, not only captures the essence of my experiences but also serves as a mirror, reflecting the complexities of chasing dreams in a world that often feels uncaring and indifferent. Not like the worlds in the cyberpunk realities I favor. Amidst this introspection, I realize that each step, no matter how faltering, is a part of a larger journey. A journey where? I know it leads towards understanding the very essence of the ‘water’ we swim in, as David Foster Wallace metaphorically put it. Whether or not this path leads to the realization of dreams or the unearthing of new passions, it is a path worth treading, for it is in the act of living and creating that we find our truest selves
