Daily Yamabushi

A few years back when I was working in Amarume at an elementary school, I was asked why I like to swim so much. Some of the students had obviously seen me at the pool or something so it wasn’t such a weird question, but I answered something that may have been a bit too mature for my audience. I said ‘because I don’t want to be unable to’, which at the time was an honest answer (and still is). This reason actually has very morbid undertones, but I think it’s rather important for us as human beings.

The very fact I can is reason enough to do anything. I’m constantly looking for new things to try, new people to meet, new experiences, because I know that something will come of it, even if the experience isn’t the greatest. Doing this blog has greatly reminded me of that fact because I keep remembering episodes from the past that have had surprising lessons, much like this one.

When faced with the choice to bike to school or not, the answer is ‘any day you can, is a day you bike to school.’ When faced with the choice to go for a swim or not, the answer is ‘any day you can swim, is a day you swim.’ In other words, when you’re faced with the choice whether to do something or not, do it.

The saying that it’s better to regret something you did than something you didn’t do is so true (thanks Anthony Kiedis).

So the next time you’re faced with a choice of doing something that will benefit you in any way, or not doing it, put yourself in automatic mode with the saying ‘any day I can, is the day I do’.

I was just reading the Cashflow Quadrants by Robert Kiyosaki where he highlights something his rich dad pointed out. Is what you hear a fact? Or is it an opinion? The answer to this question should have repercussions for how you act in response. If a valuer tells you your house is worth $1m, is that a fact or an opinion?

Facts are things that you find in your business statements, cold, hard, data. People who can’t read business statements (myself included) rely on people to explain them, and that explanation is also an opinion. Also, if you aren’t sure if something is a fact or not, it’s an opinion. Opinions have the latent problem of sometimes being wrong. So, when it comes to investing, and I would add other decisions in life, don’t rely on opinions and emotions. You can use them for guidance towards building your opinion, but don’t rely on them completely. Search for the facts and let them guide your actions.

I was also reminded that your primary housing is a liability, unless it brings in cashflow. Just a reminder to my future self, an asset is something that brings in cashflow. A liability is anything that loses it.

Price is there not to make profit, but to help create a sustainable market.

A few years back, a friend and I were running an experimental cafe. Our offerings were simple; a meal for about 800yen, a coffee for about 400yen, or both for about 1000yen.

We were running the cafe for a bit of fun, not to make money, so I was ok with offering an even cheaper deal, say the meal came with a free cup of coffee. Luckily, I was wisely advised against that.

Even though we weren’t doing it for the money, the price was extremely important. If we priced ourselves too cheaply, then it cheapens the market overall, and may put a strain on other cafes, or make them run out of business. This is the opposite of what we want.

Competitive pricing builds sustainable markets. Never sell yourself short, it could put you out of a job, or even worse, make you the lowest denominator.

I’ve realised one way in which writing a blog every day has affected me is that I keep thinking up metaphors. I keep looking for ideas in the oddest of places. Which I think is great. The greatest communicators are those who are able to keep the narrative going, and metaphors are an excellent way to start a narrative because they are so relatable. Ironically I didn’t use one in this post, but it’s something that I will be more conscious of in future.

Japanese people in general are amazingly passive. From what I’ve seen, they are taught from a young age to just accept things that are given to them in life. They are used to things being prescribed to them, being told how to think, how to act, I actually think the small camera showing how the celebrity audience is reacting may be a way in which they show people how they should be acting at certain times. In turn, they tend to be satisfied with the default option (check Internet Explorer’s rate of use in Japan, although recently it’s changing, that’s good!), and it’s when people are fed up with the default option that things go wrong.

That is to say, alternative lifestyles in Japan need to be either promoted, or accepted more. People need to know that they don’t have to follow everyone else. Especially in the modern world where our survival does not depend on the community, we should feel more free to do what we feel is right, even if it goes against popular opinion. I’m not referring to the criminal, I’m referring to alternative methods of making a living, doing things on the side, which still seems to have a bit of a stigma.

At least that’s how I feel. I’ve recently realised that I have been purposely doing things that I know may not be acceptable in Japanese culture, but that are nonetheless harmless, with the sole intent of showing people that things can be done differently. One example would be wearing casual clothing in an otherwise very formal setting. The majority of men I work with wear suits every day. I don’t. I usually only wear them to keep them from getting mothballed.

Passivity is good for communities. But the downside is that you are letting things happen to you, and that could mean things that would be avoidable with a little effort on your behalf. I respect the Japanese for being passive, but it doesn’t come without its disadvantages.

I listen to a lot of podcasts, I’ve listened to every episode of Freakanomics, the majority of Tim Ferriss’, basically all of disrupting Japan, the How I Built That podcast, and I’m currently going through 99% Invisible’s backlog but one in particular truly stands out for me. The Akimbo podcast by Seth Godin. I’m not exactly sure what it is about Seth, he has an extraordinary ability to explain things from a unique perspective in a way that makes you want to act on the ideas, it truly is remarkable- worth making a remark about. In fact, his is the only podcast I listen to at normal pace. All of the others I can listen to at 1.5x pace, except when they have a naturally fast speaker on it gets pretty tough, but Seth has a way of expressing himself not just through the words he uses, but also by the way he says them. It’s something I wish to emulate at least to some degree, he’s the biggest proponent I know of blogging daily, and it’s something that I look forward to each week. Don’t believe me? Give it a listen now.

No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter where you go, there will always be someone who is offended by your presence. Most often it’s simple ignorance or petty jealousy, but someone is always going to dislike something about you. The worst is when it’s someone whom you trust or has some sort of influence over your life, be it a caregiver, a friend, or someone else that is close to you. Those people can play on your trust and manipulate it to their liking. Often they are the hardest to deal with, not just because their relationship makes it hard to see, but also because as humans we have grown up not wanting to betray those who care for us (this is for our survival).

The main point is to not care about anything anyone else says about you. Positive or negative. Don’t let anyone else judge you, or when they do, don’t give them the time of day. Do listen to their arguments, there may be some truth in it, but where there isn’t, or where it isn’t constructive, ignore it.

In other words, as always flexibility is key. Be malleable. Be able to take whatever is shot your way, and let it bounce off you. Only absorb that which gives you positive motion.

(I don’t really want to write on negative things, but I believe that it is important to do so. There’s no hiding from when life hits you in the gut, so why hide it? Just don’t let it control your life)

Nike is right. Just do it.

Today there were two times when I fought the resistance and won. It may not seem like much, but ‘carpe diem’, I count it as a victory.

First, I was in a meeting with Sakata City delegates including the mayor. At one point I was asked to describe my involvement in a recently initiated project. This was great for me because I was feeling a little unconfident in my Japanese ability since coming back from NZ, but I had gotten over that. I wasn’t sure if I could get away with not talking, but a friend of mine pushed me, and I said, fuck it, and just did it. It probably wasn’t as good as it could be, but there’s always room for improvement.

The second thing I did, I wasn’t sure whether I’d be able to, was swim 800m x2 on the 1’20. This is tough for me at the moment. I can get under 1’10 for 100m, but never consecutively. Anyway, I did what I said the other day. I told myself to get to the 600m mark, and let the adrenaline get me over the line. And that’s just what I did. I kept telling myself to just push through till I got to the 600m mark, cos I’d know for sure then whether I’d be able to make it. To be honest, I’m not sure if I did, although I would only be a maximum of 1 second off. Either way, I proved that it was possible, and now I have to do it next week, this time with more conviction.

So there you have it. Beat the resistance by just doing it!

In Japan, or at least where I live, I was surprised by the number of solely-run small businesses in the area. Well, that’s not exactly surprising judging by the track records of Japanese companies (so-called ‘Black Companies run rampant here), but what was surprising was that basically all of these places have one day off each week.

I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have breaks, actually it’s the opposite, just does the owner really have to be there the whole time it’s open?

If they were working for their customers, they would be open every day. As a customer, you would want a place to be open as much as possible (except in special circumstances, i.e. exclusive locations), meaning it shouldn’t be too much to ask for your favourite cafe to be open every day. This gets more confusing when you think that the wages here are so cheap too, so it’s probably not a matter of expense. Kimuraya in particular is surprising. They seem to be extremely well-run, with multiple stores and many staff, surely they could be open 7 days a week?

I guess what it comes down to is a lack of trust in staff, and excessive pride. The owners believe that only they are worthy of keeping the shop open, that it’s up to them, and only them, for the shop to continue.

Actually, this point was brought up in ‘The E-Myth‘. It’s a basic facet of business. You build a company that doesn’t need you, then you can truly be free. Of course then you can choose to employ yourself, but your employment shouldn’t be contingent on the business running.

Maybe this also comes down to culture. They don’t want to be seen as being lazy. Only if that were true, it would be a sad example of culture getting in the way of progress.

Is always the toughest. When I swim 800m, the point where I most often feel like giving in is about the 600m mark. 3/4 in, you know it’d be such a waste to stop then. But then I know I can rely on adrenaline to get me over.

The same thing happened with my MA, I felt like giving up in my second to last term. I’m so glad I didn’t, that would have been a major waste.

This has got to be the dip that Seth Godin so eloquently talks about. That’s why I think it’s important to have positive self talk, and when combined with the trick where you reset your mind, anything is possible.

If it’s true that when you go against the grain, when you do the opposite of what everyone says you should do, that you have to take responsibility when things go wrong, the opposite should also hold true. When you do exactly what everyone else does, when you simply follow orders, this doesn’t mean you don’t have to take responsibility when things go wrong. You have responsibility for the outcome either way.

If the result of going against the grain is the same as the result of following orders, and going against the grain is the only way to innovate, why do we all so easily follow orders?

Be unconventional. Experiment. It’s the only way to innovate. It’s the only way to grow.

Confrontation looked down on? Check. Large-scale acquiescence? Check. Japan’s culture makes it easy for control freaks to take control. I feel that part of Japanese culture is knowing when not to take advantage of other people, a bit of self-constraint. But sometimes, for some people, that’s just not possible. Giving them free-reign to do so means they just take advantage of you, it’s one of the disadvantages of being a nice guy. You leave yourself open for being used.

The best control freaks are able to do so without your knowledge. Their influence seeps into your veins, controlling your every move without you even realising it. That’s why it’s so hard to know when you are under their spell. So, what to do when you have a realisation that you are being used like this? What is the ‘proper’ course of action?

Stand up for yourself. Call them out. Don’t just lie there like a sitting duck. But always remember to focus on the argument, never the person. Especially with control freaks, if you focus on the person, it will get them riled up, and when you’re riled up it’s impossible to change.

Stay calm, voice your concerns in a calm manner. Take your time when you do so too. Organise your arguments, and you’ll be fine. In the worse-case scenario, you don’t need to be with them. You can leave. Then the onus is on them to change.

‘For me money is important, yet I didn’t want to spend my life working for it. That is why I didn’t want a job.’ -Robert Kiyosaki, Cashflow Quadrant

Exactly how I feel, but not what I’m doing. I’m waiting for more stability I guess. I wonder if that’s necessary though?

Does part of you not want to break free like this?

Use your pencil with caution. Don’t let it tempt you to edit things in search of perfect. In the time it took you to erase and re-write that sentence, making it ‘perfect’, you could have written out another idea. Perfect doesn’t exist, but more ideas can help you get closer to it. Pencils are excellent tools for editing ideas, but when it comes to getting your ideas out, make a no-erasers rule.

Everyone who lives has an impact on the world in one way or another. Every life has a meaning, and every meaningful life that affects the world affects every other meaningful life. So, the question is, how is your life being meaningful to other lives?

It’s a question we should be asking ourselves every day. Not in a condescending or discouraging way, but more to remind ourselves of our position in the world. Our lives are truly gifts given to us that we have to make the most of, and one way to do that is to provide meaningful life to others, which in turn provides it to us.

I believe in the mantra that searching for the meaning of life means you are not living. I believe that time spent trying to look for the answers is time spent not living. When I first picked up a camera nearly 9 years ago, I remember thinking that I had to balance the time spent taking photos with the time spent on the experience. Looking through the lens of a camera is not the same as experiencing the same thing. The wind in your hair, the smile on your face, can only be replicated by truly experiencing something. Anything else is simply reminiscing, which is not a bad thing.

In yesterday’s blog post, I mentioned the need to focus on the cultural aspects of learning language more to help with student motivation. What I didn’t do, was describe which cultural aspects should be focused on. I think the answer to this question is really any cultural aspect that has relevance to the students’ lives, but I want to reinforce that as English is a language of the world, in the case of learning English, that means learning about any aspect of the world.

In fact, I think that instead of having students learn English from a young age in countries like Japan where it is not a major language, up until about high school or university, that time would be better spent learning about different cultures in the world, rather than learning English, or any other language. The logic behind this is two-fold: there have been documented cases of people becoming native-like with an age of onset after 20, which shows that with the right environment and learning techniques it is possible to learn a language at any age, and that with a greater understanding of the outside world, students should be more motivated to learn a language to be able to participate in that world.

It is true that children pick up languages fast, that much is known, but they also have much more time compared to adults in which to do so, and in addition adults do in fact learn quicker than children, which means that the language can be learned in a shorter amount of time, in some cases fluency can be gained in less than a year, I’ve seen it with my own eyes even.

It’s the same thing. It took me a while to realise this, but learning English in Japan is the same as learning Maori in New Zealand. When people in Japan talk about learning the language, they only talk about the actual learning of the language, the vocabulary and grammar mainly. Likewise, New Zealanders only see the Maori language as simply a tool for communication. In both cases, they are missing a major part of learning a language. You don’t learn a language just to communicate with speakers of that language, you learn a language to learn the culture behind it, and at the same time, to learn about yourself.

Perhaps they need to change it from ‘language learning’ to something else, but you really notice it when people go overseas and actually come face-to-face with the speakers and environment of that language, when they are immersed in it. In my case, I was mesmerised by Japan, not only the language, but the culture, history, and people. If being immersed in the culture was more of a prerequisite, I can’t help but think the outcomes would be different.

I’ve talked before about the downside to stoic philosophy being how it can affect other people who see you as cold, well there’s a flipside to that too; when you know that you should be stoic and accept a situation, but you just can’t for whatever reason. When you’re on the receiving end of a harsh situation, especially one initiated by a fellow human, it can be hard to accept.

There is good news though; if you give it time, your feelings will dampen, meaning you are on the road to acceptance. In the meantime, it’s probably worthwhile getting your mind off these things, and if these things appear in daily life, you have to get away from them somehow, until you can learn to accept. If not, you will be tempted to make that other person suffer in some way, which can in turn put yourself in a bad light.

Lay low, don’t show your emotions, stay calm. Remember Karma’s a bitch, and it’ll be a bitch to those who tempt it. Even then it’s better to just let it go.

It’s not about doing things well, it’s about doing things.

This morning the pool was being used for aqua-aerobics, so there weren’t any spare lanes when I got there. One lane had an old man who often spends a long time slowly swimming backstroke up and down the pool. So I hopped in the other available lane, one with a sweet little old lady. She was extremely polite, and obviously quite happy to be there, but she said to me ‘sorry, I’m not a strong swimmer’. Of course I told her that it was fine, I could just swim around her, which is what I did, but it got me thinking.

It’s not about being able to do something well, it’s about whether you do something. Just from her being there, I had a massive amount of respect. I know a lot of people, myself included, use the smallest excuses to put off things like exercise, one of the most common excuses being ‘I’m not good at it’.

How can you expect to be good at something if you don’t do it? You get good at doing things by doing those things. Doing well comes after doing. Do things first, then consider becoming ‘good’ at them.

Conan O’Brien used to have an hour-long show. Over time, he realised that he was just creating content to fill time, just using interviews with people he wasn’t really interested in to make the show an hour long, rather than filling it with stuff that people wanted to watch and he was interested in. So what did he do? Cut the show into 30 minutes of course. These constraints mean him and his team had to work harder to fill the time with content, but it also meant that they shed the filler.

Watching YouTube videos, where the length of the video can have an impact on how well it performs, and how much money it generates, you can tell that some people are putting a bit of filler into it. The truly good YouTubers understand that it’s the content that is important, not the filler. Once again, doing it for the money can have the exact opposite effect.

This is something I think I’m guilty of with this blog sometimes. A lot of my thoughts are unedited and they just appear on the page. That’s fine by me because I’m not aiming for a Nobel prize in literature, this blog is simply to get my thoughts out. In saying that though, if something does seem superfluous, I cut it. More often than not I’ve deleted paragraphs and paragraphs just to start fresh because I felt the message wasn’t succinct, or even valuable.

So, get your ideas out all you can, but make sure you refine them and cut out the filler. The world will thank you for it.

Midnight. On top of a mountain. Inside a small shrine. Only candle light to guide you. It flickers as you recite the Heart Sutra non-stop and enter a trance.

Every year from the 6th of May, Yamabushi belonging to Daishobo spend 3 consecutive days at Prince Hachiko Shrine on the top of Mt. Haguro praying the Heart Sutra in remembrance of those who lost their lives in the earthquake and following tsunami on the eastern coast of Japan in 2011.

I never thought I would be someone who would join in such ceremonies, but I’m glad I did. Not only did I get the chance to really consider the lives of those affected, but it was quite a solemn experience and time did seem to melt away. This time it was different because I was more confident in my ability to recite the Heart Sutra, so confident that I can remember it all, and I even felt the words just flowing out of me without giving any thought to it. That was quite a powerful experience.

Something like this sounds a bit like torture, but it’s nothing worse than what those who were impacted by the earthquake and tsunami felt.

I often hear people excusing the way Japanese people behave by saying ‘it’s because we’re an island nation’, as if that holds any truth. New Zealand is also an island nation. Does that mean our culture is the same as Japan’s? No way. That doesn’t mean to say that Japan isn’t at all different. Not at all. It just means that people shouldn’t make excuses for things based off basically nothing. Actually, people probably shouldn’t make excuses at all. They shouldn’t have to. Other people should be understanding enough to take things at face value.

Anyway, one instance of this was that in Japanese schools, students aren’t generally asked to form an opinion, and then when it comes to things like debates, they get offended too easily, and therefore are unwilling to join, or even have debates in the first place. This was put down to Japan having an isolated period during the Edo period (1603-1868). I’m not sure if there is a real connection there, but this seemed like enough for someone to excuse not having debates or other things where you spread your opinion in class. Because of some archaic time in the past. If something like this were enough to stop people from doing something, then we really need to reconsider how we make our decisions.

When it comes to fighting fires, co-ordination is key. When a fire breaks out, if it’s small enough for the municipality to cover it, then that’s fine, let them do their thing. But when the fire gets a bit out of hand, back-up from other fire services is required.

I feel that the local tourism industry is a bit like an uncoordinated response to multiple fires (or in this case, serve international tourists). All these places working to put out small fires, without any regard for what the people around them are doing. We may not need a regional fire service, although it could help, but I feel co-ordination between local “fire” services could be much more beneficial in fighting “fires”.

Simply don’t. It makes you look cheap, and can have the exact opposite effect desired.

Look at this website. Yamagata Prefecture, where I live, has declared that they would like to increase the number of overseas tourists, but somehow they think using a machine-translated site is going to do that. What that means is, they are not in the slightest bit serious about it. If they were, they would put money into creating content that their target market wants, stories from the prefecture that resonate with people and make them want to visit.

What we have now, is an atrocity. With an efficient site, like the Wakayama one, with well-researched keywords and attractive photos, they would be able to target people who search for experiences in Japan, rather than people who search specifically ‘Yamagata prefecture’. Right now, if you do that search, the prefectural page isn’t the first one to come up, although it is arguably filled with the most information, and it’s simply unreadable. Anyone who came across it would think that they aren’t really welcome. The prefecture can say they want overseas tourists all they like, but until they implement a proper website, nothing’s really going to happen.

Want to change the world? Put your idea into action.

With traction, the right idea can spread throughout the world. However, to get that traction, the idea has to be replicable. It has to have the ability to spread easily. How do you know if an idea is easy to gain traction? You don’t unless you put it out into the world. You have to put your ideas into action, then you can change the world.

Last year I made more money than I ever had before. That was through a combination of my normal jobs, plus a few extra translations and a little bit of interpretation. If I were just in it for the money, I would probably be a translator or interpreter. The reason I’m not is that I’m not in it solely for the money, and I feel that my other jobs, mostly Yamabushido but also my teaching job, are allowing me to have a positive impact on a great number of people, my main mission in life.

I was thinking about the money, and whether or not making less this year would have an impact on me, although I’m sure it would. This year, however, I have picked up a few different types of jobs, a bit of consulting and web design, that pays more than my other jobs, so I may not have that problem to contend with. Only time will tell, but I was thinking that if I were to quit my jobs and start on a sole project, with the knowledge that the first few years may not bear fruit, would I be content? My answer is ‘probably yes’.

Financially, we are in a safe position, with more than a few years’ worth of expenses saved, and more importantly invested and providing income. If I were to sacrifice that, I probably wouldn’t feel as confident. However, I think that with another new project aimed at having a positive impact on the greatest number of people, I wouldn’t be doing it for the money, so I could focus more on that simple mission. I’d still need for it to make an income, however. Food for thought.

Like traveling, meeting different types of people is a great way to broaden your outlook. The many ways we all think is as extraordinary and broad as the places we have in the world. Actually, since there’s more people, it’s probably broader! Anyway, getting to know many different people is a great way to learn about yourself and the world, and the best way to do that is to try lots of different things. You never know who you’re going to meet!

What good is recognition from having the most money as opposed to having your ideas spread?

It’s about having an idea and sharing it. It’s about thinking about who you are serving, and building something for them.

Share the idea. The idea of a trip to the Japanese countryside. The idea of living in a comfortable home. The idea of drinking a heart-warming cup of coffee.

Share the idea, and you will be wealthy beyond your means.

I have a friend who states that he doesn’t like sport. He sees it as useless back and forth (but he also loves games, which I consider a sport, I think he means like rugby, soccer and stuff). Anyway, it’s obvious that he wasn’t very good at sport, otherwise you probably wouldn’t say this. If you’re somewhat good at sport, you can appreciate it for what it is, a way to test and implement strategy against other teams or individuals. That’s why I love both playing and watching sport. If it’s something harmless like touch rugby or soccer, I love to play it (is soccer harmless?), and I love to watch rugby for the different styles of play clashing and the different strategies involved.

Japanese hospitality in general is much better than in NZ, but the lack of human emotion can be painful at times. In NZ, people are less fake, meaning that you can usually tell straight away how they are feeling, whether they really want to be in their position, or whether they’re just passing the motions. In Japan, it’s as if the staff are acting the whole time, and it’s hard to tell whether they are acting or not.

This is perfectly fine for places like convenience stores, and other menial jobs, but when it comes to jobs that you would want human emotion in, when they actually put some emotion into it, it can seem fake. And sometimes, it comes back to you too. What I’m explaining is called ‘Tatemae’, or putting on a face. In this world where acknowledgement of Tatemae exists, you begin to really doubt other people’s sincerity, and so it really takes a lot of effort to convince someone of your sincerity.

But now that I think of it, that can’t be a bad thing, can it? If you truly are sincere, which you should be at all times, people should be able to pick up on that.