In a recent post, I’ve joked that it’s taken me nearly two months to get a new blog out. It’s impossible to measure progress on a day-to-day basis. Honestly, it only feels as if you’re placing a grain of sand on the scale of progress. Still in my reading of Mamba Mentality: How I Play, […]
In a recent post, I’ve joked that it’s taken me nearly two months to get a new blog out. It’s impossible to measure progress on a day-to-day basis. Honestly, it only feels as if you’re placing a grain of sand on the scale of progress. Still in my reading of Mamba Mentality: How I Play, just showing up every day is one of the most important things you can do when chasing a goal. That goal I was initially chasing has become so murky that I don’t know what rat race I’m in. When I talked to my therapist in college, we discussed how life was an ocean, and I was merely a small boat trying to arrive at a destination.
While I have no delusions of grandeur, I’ve read about similar situations in books I’ve read. Lord of the Rings, Life of Pi, and Hatchet all have moments where the protagonist feels lost. Would it be an adventure without the struggle phase of the story? The classic Hero’s Journey has struggle as the second phase. My personal story feels frozen on step two. So here I am showing up to figure this mess out.
Office Day
While my job usually involves meeting people and traveling around Tokyo, sometimes we have office days built into our schedule. Most of the time, I don’t mind the occasional office day. Spending time in the office gives you time to catch up on reports, research, talk to travel designers, and finish those pesky expense sheets. Additionally, while guiding, you almost feel alone. You’re on your lonesome managing logistics, people, and experiences. The office reminds you the feeling that you’re part of a team. It’s been so busy this year that there are some guides that I still haven’t met. It also happened to be the time for my mid-year review.
Midterm Review
My mid-term review was mostly positive. For the most part, guests were pleased with my friendliness. Families with teens and young kids particularly enjoyed my presence. I think it’s mainly due to some of my interests overlapping with theirs. What kind of 30-year-old who doesn’t make a living of creative work is stupid enough to blow their free time making music and art? The other free time goes towards making games.
Still, families loved it when I sat down to draw portraits during lunch or talked about recent anime or games. What was more fun was giving answers to the weird wacky questions kids asked, not only about Japan, but the world and the nature of being. I made sure to give an equally fun response most of the time, because like those kids, I wanted the universe to be a little more fun and fantastical. It had lost that feeling over the years.
It wasn’t all positive. I’ve written about this before, but on these group tours my company is contracted to do, we get a variety of personalities. Not all of which are plesant people. It’s often the barely tolerable people who leave reviews. People who enjoy the experience rarely write a review, which is annoying. What’s even more annoying is when the reviews don’t reflect the reality of the situation. The people who don’t pay attention because when I stop the group for explaination leave the group to take photos complain about the lack of history sharing. Those who chat during briefings will complain that they didn’t know what was going on or that briefings don’t happen. One person complains you use What’s App too much. . . the other complains that you don’t use it enough. Sometimes it feels like you can never win with these people.
Communication
Apparently, my communication skills need some work. . . I didn’t think this was the case. And neither did my manager, who has watched me guide before. I don’t know how many autistic people will flat out tell you, I’m autistic in their welcome briefing. I’m not sure how many people on the spectrum are tour guides? Anyway, the advice I was given was that it’s probably the most annoying kind of Type-A people who would complain about communication. Despite sharing what we will do in the morning, the night before, and once more on WhatsApp that’s still not enough for them. They also have an itinerary available to them on the website and printed out. I should send them an original document with specific times at the start of the trip to make them feel at ease.
It’s a disproportionate amount of work to appease such a small group of people who get power hungry behind a keyboard. . . wait, isn’t that what I’m doing with my blog that no one reads? The difference is that my complaining doesn’t affect anyone’s livelihood. Furthermore, I actually enjoy most of the people who travel on these group trips. The sad thing about working in the service industry is that customers expect perfection. I can’t live up to impossible expectations. They think that because they pay money, you can’t make mistakes.
My response to these guests and to you, my readers, is Why is it okay for you to make mistakes in your life or job, but with service workers, you are quick to condemn the slightest mistake?
Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the log in your own eye?
Life is in Cycles
For the next two days, I was out of the office. Tours weren’t on the itinerary; instead, I found myself at the Japan Cycling Tourism Association Center. I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I’d be riding a bike. What a freeing feeling to be cycling in Tokyo again. A bike fits that happy medium of speed between walking and driving and Tokyo. It’s hard to get an intimate feeling of a city when you’re driving. On the other hand, walking can only get you so far. You can achieve similar coverage to cycling when jogging, with the drawback of energy expenditure. So I found myself cycling through Tokyo’s streets.
The nostalgic feeling of cycling made me feel like a kid again. I still remember the newfound freedom of getting my first bike. A child’s first bike opens up their neighborhood to them, and it opens up the world beyond their driveway. Muscle memory of cycling through gears, shifting my weight, and manipulating both the front and rear brakes while pedaling was still there after all these years. A city I thought I knew so well was shown to me in a new light. I found myself at Hachiko’s Grave, a new shrine, a different temple. It was probably my favorite new way of exploring a city.
Glad I Stayed in Shape
Luckily for me, I had managed to keep general good health by running and exercising occasionally. Some of my other companions were not enjoying the experience. After some lunch, we set off to do the same route. In total, we cycled nearly 22 miles. My highlight was the wildlife we found at one of the shrines. A cat greeted us, sleeping on one of the lanterns. At night, frogs croaked along the pathway. They were calm enough to be picked up by one of my coworkers. There was also a lizard. I was able to scoop the little guy up and hold him for a bit. Gently, I pet the little lizard before setting him down.
Even Monkeys Fall From Trees
Despite getting comfortable on a bike, I got a little too comfortable. We were cycling down a hill, and I lost focus for a bit and accidentally squeezed the front brake a little too hard. When my foot slipped off the pedal, I knew I was going down. After realizing I was going to fall, I didn’t fight the fall; instead, I accepted it was happening and unconsciously moved my body to minimize damage.
A minute later, I found myself surrounded by my coworkers, treating the wound on my wrist. Really the only thing scary about it was the blood; I knew that the wound itself was a minor one. Compared to some of the gashes, injuries, and ouchies I’ve had in the past, it was a mere fleshwound. Because my parents made me play sports as I was able to brush it off. . . If anything, I had more emotional damage. . . but that wasn’t because of the fall.
You’re Good at Falling. I’ve seen many people fall and you’re pretty good at it.
Cycling Instructor
Good at Falling
It was a weird talent to have, but she wasn’t wrong. In any sport I played, I found myself on the ground. And unless it was a serious injury, I always got back up. In the case of my second ACL tear, I simply walked off the basketball court. The most significant step forward I have taken is my attitude and emotional outlook at failures, foibles, and falls. For the first time in a long time, I had made a significant mistake and was able to brush it off and learn from it. While I joked about emotional damage earlier, that’s just because I’m a broken individual. While before I might have been embarrassed, frustrated, and defensive about my fall, I found myself smiling and laughing it off with my colleagues.
This is a journey I have been working on for some time. Two years after my return to blogging, some of the information I meticulously researched is starting to sink in.
The Zen Art of Maintenance
One of the things that I never properly learned in life is to maintain equipment. We had bikes as kids, but my dad never really taught me about servicing the brakes, chain, or gears. Curious about how to maintain vehicles, I found a book on it. Maintenance, like self-improvement or the Mamba Mentality, is really about showing up every day. It’s really about having proper systems, checks, and habits, and then the discipline to apply them. Before we cycle, we do an A,B,C,D test.
- Air in Tires
- Brakes both front and rear
- Chain and pully test
- Drop slight drop to test for weird noises
For me, who is interested in mechanics but bad with them, I wanted to know how a free spin worked. With the clicking, I had a hypothesis that it would work, but seeing it come to life while watching a YouTube video switched a light in my head.
Sick
Unfortunately, I am a human. . .Hopefully, in the future, I’ll get that cyborg body. For now, I’m still prone to injury, fatigue, sickness, and all the other weaknesses of our human race. I think cycling 21.3 miles in one day had weakened my immune system, and I caught a cold. My head was pounding, my throat hurt, and the worst was the congestion. Still, I had the training to finish and a tour coming up. I powered through the brain fog, but on my office day, I didn’t hesitate to take a sick day.
For some reason, I feel guilty for taking a sick day. It’s not very Mamba Mentality, hell, my mom made us go to school sick. But as an adult, I feel responsible enough to make that decision on my own. I spent one day sleeping and drinking soup all day. A cold remedy here in Japan is CC Lemon and Pocari sweat!
Formula 1
I’ve loved Formula One since 2010. My friend and I would watch the Senna Documentary and old F1 VODs on YouTube in high school. To see the Series come to the big screen with a large budget and big actors was pretty cool. It had been a long time since I had gone to the cinema. I thought about my time working at the movie theatres, the endless DVDs we rented as kids, and how special a trip to the theatre used to be. . .how special it still is.
There’s something different about getting some popcorn, soda, and having a suspension of disbelief as you enter a fantastical world. It helps when things are larger than life and the audio is in 3D space at an IMAX theater. Of course there were some things as a real F1 fan that I had wished they would have included or changes to the story I thought would benefit the product, but overall I had a great time.
Emo Night
It was my friend’s birthday, and for her celebration, there was an Emo Night being hosted in a small club in Roppongi. For anyone who has met me, my clothing style is either basketball shorts, joggers, or alternative punk/emo. For work, I keep it tame with Khakis, but in normal day-to-day life, I felt like I was the only one who dressed the way I did. When I came to the event I was shocked that I wasn’t the only one dressed that way. . .it was an entire room filled with people dressed as or more punk/emo than I was. It was a room full of people who listened to Emo/Alternative/2000sRock/Metal and although I wasn’t the biggest metal fan the other stuff I jived with.
I found myself drinking, dancing, singing, and rocking to Green Day, Sum 41, and Papa Roach. Some covers and some original songs from Japanese bands I didn’t know. Overall I had a great time knowing that I wasn’t alone in feeling like the world had gone to shit, I was sad most of the time, and things weren’t alright. If anything, I want to go to another event like that. Maybe music is a collaborative result of lived experiences? I wanted to pick up my guitar, sing, scream, rap, and edit some things in a DAW again.
Scabs and Soundtracks
I don’t know what this post turned into — a ramble, a scab diary, a love letter to Pocari Sweat and mid-2000s angst. It’s not some grand revelation. Just another entry. Another fall. Another attempt to make sense of a life that keeps slipping sideways. The world doesn’t stop, and neither do I, even when I kind of want it to. So I keep moving — not out of some noble drive, but maybe because staying still feels worse. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe not. But for now, I’m still here. Still showing up. Still writing it down, even when no one’s reading.
