2025 Japan: Sublime And Amusing

 While we always train too early in Japan to see cherry blossoms (sakura), plum (ume) have usually made their appearance in Tokyo

As a bibliophile, this is either a reflection of my addiction of buying books or the greatest market ploy ever.

2025 Japan: Ending And Beginnings

During our most recent training trip to Japan near the end of our time, our Headmaster made an announcement:  He was thinking of not going back to where we had done our training for many years and training only in the Tokyo region.  

The statement itself was surprising and even a little shocking - training at that site had been going on for well over twenty years.  After a few moments of silence, we all nodded in acceptance - he is the Headmaster and will only, ever, do things that he feels will improve the art.

It is certainly not as if training in Tokyo is some kind of burden.  Access to the hotel we stay at is much more convenient, anywhere from 20 minutes to 90 minutes depending on if you fly into Haneda or Narita.  The hotel is does everything it needs to - and honestly this period in my life, a regular mattress instead of a tatami mat is welcome.  There are several facilities we can train at, and it certainly much easier to take occasional half day we get during the visit to go see something or go shopping.

Still, things will never be the same.

I am not quite sure when I first knew there was training in Japan - maybe 2014 or 2015.  My sensei attended his first training there in 2016.  I intended to go in 2017, but life (e.g., Nighean Gheal's college) got in the way of spending money on what was not a critical item.  But I finally went in 2018, followed then by 2019 and 2020.  Our first return after The Plague was 2024 and then, of course this most recent trip in 2025.

The first trip - like most first trips - could never be replicated.  I had not been to Japan for over 20 years that first time, and certainly not for a specific task, only a tourist.  Everything - the housing, the food, the very nature of training, the drink machines with their hot and cold drinks, even the showers (I did not use the ofuro, the hot soaking pool, the first year because single sex showers, let alone showering with anyone else in the vicinity, was something I had successfully avoided for the most part growing up.  That second year when I found the restorative powers of hot water, I never looked back.) was new and exciting.

I was exhausted when I came home. It was magical.

There is a rhythm that develops when one was there.  In the past, it had been referred to as "prison camp" training.  And in a way, it could be considered that:  we rose early and trained hard.  We ate, showered, and to a large extent relaxed with each other in a group.  Going outside, even outside the facility and the parking lot, was something that not many people always did, let alone walk to the town that was maybe a quarter of a mile away.  Yes, we were often exhausted but there was also an element of not having the time to do so - and, I suspect, an element of missing out on being with the group.

The being with group, I have realized, is one of the most ephemeral things about the training. It was never something that was discussed, and I suspect many if not most of us could enunciate it as such.  But there was shared experience in meeting these people, spending time with them (we are from all over the world), united by our training and our Headmaster.  In a way, it became much like a family reunion, seeing people once a year that you shared a specific sort of relationship with.

And just like that, it seems it will be suddenly gone.

It is not as if any of that ends, of course.  We will continue to gather each year for training.  The place we stay will be different, the training facilities will be different, but the training will remain the same - I am sure the fact that we are somewhere else will not change the nature or the intensity of the training.  

And yet, something has passed which likely will not come again.

I have mentioned more than once the moments of kairos in our lives, that ancient Greek term meaning the specific or particular moment in time (as opposed to kronos, which is simply time passing).  Training at our facility was inevitably a kairos series of moments.  Likewise, the moment we found out that everything was changing was another one.

I have also mentioned more than once that the older I get, the more I realize that life is just as much a series of last things as it is first things, that if we are not careful we do not realize that things have passed until they are long gone:  the last time we went out to play with our friends, the last time we dropped a child off at their school, the last time we talked to our parents, the last day of seeing friends at a job before the layoff.

I try to be conscious of these moments more often. This one, however, caught me off guard.

Right up to that discussion, there was no reason to question that next year would be as the year past.  We could look forward to the same rooms, the same sorts of food, the same times and types of training, the same showers, the same training facilities.  In a way, we would train much more like typical Japanese students than most foreigners.

And suddenly, all that had happened for the last time.

We will gather in Tokyo next year and hopefully for many years after that, seeing familiar faces and greeting new ones.  There will of course be the adjustment of spending the whole time in Shinagawa:  where to eat (with no more cafeteria, we will have to choose our restaurants in the area; fortunately there are many), how we connect (without a common area, the tendency is to spend more time in your room), using the indoor hot baths and spa (which are reasonable and amazing).  My ability to use the Japanese train system confidently will continue to grow.

And yet...

And yet with all of this, there will come a new generation to whom the previous training facility will only be a story, to pass into the sort of legendary status that such things always do.  Less and less people will have direct knowledge or experience with it.  The stories will begin to start with "Once, when we were there..." rather than "When you go there next year....".

Such is the nature of life.

Someday - if I ever get the ability to go to Japan as a tourist and not as a student - I intend to take the 90 minute train ride from Tokyo to the coast - I can navigate it myself now, I have done it a number of times.  And I may walk from the town to the training center - but I will just as equally walk through the town to the sea shore and the beach that I always saw in the distance but never had time to reach when I was there to train.

Sometimes it is not that things are lost to us in those moments.  Sometimes it is just that we will come to experience and see them in different ways.  And, of course, without something old ending, something new cannot come into being.

And, perhaps in some small way, knowing that participating there in training is an ending and will in some way pass into a new thing in the myth and lore of the school.  

To figure in a myth; that is no small thing.

A Year Of Living Apartmentally

 Yesterday represented a year of living Apartmentally in New Home 3.0.

(All pictures from the past twelve months)

Had you asked me at the beginning of 2023 - or really any time in the previous 20 years from that - if I ever imagined myself living in an apartment again, I would likely have looked at you quizzically and slowly backed out of the room.  I had lived in houses, either owned or rented, since 2000.  The idea of moving back into an apartment was not even a thought in my mind; in fact, it would have been a step back.  "Rubbish", I probably would have snorted, and gone back to whatever I was doing.

Then, of course, 2023 came.  Lots of things changed.

On the whole, moving into an apartment has not at all been a bad thing.  Part of it is simply the apartment itself:  we are on the top story of a complex that edges up to a very nice residential planned community (judging by the home prices, anyway). The complex is quite quiet and I scarcely ever hear - or see - my neighbors.

I am a 10 minute commute from my work and could walk there if I wanted or needed to (I did once or twice between my rental car being turned in and my car arriving).  In fact, everything - work, church, grocery store, bank, even my gym (located by work) - all within walking distance.  And we are located near the local light rail, which means that things like "the city" are within 40 minutes - or the airport within 80 minutes.  All in all, pretty convenient.

One of my initial concerns was simple the "space" loss, as we went from around 2400 sq. ft. to half that.  Turns out it is not as much of a problem as I thought it would be.  Yes, we had to downsize and we are still in the process of doing that.  We still have things in the garage at New Home 2.0, and another round of things at The Ranch that will need to be relocated sooner or later.  But in the past year I have never felt "constrained" by moving into a smaller dwelling. And it is hard to argue with a house cleaning routine that can be accomplished in 20 minutes.

Things I do not like?  The climate control is non-extant except for wall heaters that probably burn more energy than they produce heat.  Part of that has been combated by portable heating and air-conditioning units (thankfully we live in an age where such things are available and can be shipped to your door).  Part of that has been combatted by the strategy of Paul Wheaton, who recommends heating the space around you not the whole house - thus, I have spent a lot of time in the other bedroom where the rabbits live.  Smaller spaces are easier to heat and cool.

One of the most interesting changes, though, has been in my thinking.

It is odd how realizing that you have limited space and accepting it leads to things like becoming more willing to go through things and part with them.  That is not all there is to it of course: part of it is the realization there there are likely many things that you will never really use again and being willing to admit that.  But having less space certainly helps the thinking process.

(The current 2025 garden - small, but at least I can still grow something.)

Do I think we will do this forever?  I am not really sure.  Honestly given the world today, buying a house seems a little like taking a risk I do not want to take - and do not have to, in this case:  where we are works perfectly for us.  But there are things I want to do and undertake - a bigger garden (obviously), bees, some kind of poultry - that require something more than the space we have here.

But that may be for another time.  It is painfully clear to me that for right now, we are exactly right where we are intended to be.

A Year Of Humility (XVI): Accepting Salvation

 One of the most humbling things anyone can do is accept the fact that they are a sinner, to agree with God's word that they are lost without His saving grace.

One of the next most humbling things is to believe it.

There seem to be two sorts of people in the world, those that have no problem believing it and those that have a great deal of trouble believing it.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I fall into the second bracket.

It is not, I suppose, that I question that He cannot do it. It is that I question that I can accept that it is done.

Arguably it comes from a lifetime of doubting myself, of second guessing my second guesses, of never willing to commit to a decision (and therefore, not believing anyone else can either).

I was reminded of my struggle that I have with this - and the certainty that I should have - by a song that was new to me at Easter (Run time 4:55).

Death was Arrested (North Point Worship)

[Verse 1]

Alone in my sorrow and dead in my sin

Lost without hope with no place to begin

Your love made a way to let mercy come in

When death was arrested and my life began

[Verse 2]

Ash was redeemed only beauty remains

My orphan heart was given a name

My mourning grew quiet, my feet rose to dance

When death was arrested and my life began

[Chorus]

Oh, Your grace so free, washes over me

You have made me new, now life begins with You

It's Your endless love, pouring down on us

You have made us new, now life begins with You

[Verse 3]

Released from my chains, I'm a prisoner no more

My shame was a ransom He faithfully bore

He cancelled my debt and He called me His friend

When death was arrested and my life began

[Chorus]

Oh, Your grace so free, washes over me

You have made me new, now life begins with You

It's Your endless love, pouring down on us

You have made us new, now life begins with You

[Verse 4]

Our Savior displayed on a criminal's cross

Darkness rejoiced as though heaven had lost

But then Jesus arose with our freedom in hand

That's when death was arrested and my life began

That's when death was arrested and my life began

[Chorus]

Oh, Your grace so free, washes over me

You have made me new, now life begins with You

It's Your endless love, pouring down on us

You have made us new, now life begins with You

[Bridge]

Oh, we're free, free, forever we're free

Come join the song of all the redeemed

Yes, we're free, free, forever amen

When death was arrested and my life began

Oh, we're free, free, forever we're free

Come join the song of all the redeemed

Yes, we're free, free, forever amen

When death was arrested and my life began

[Outro]

When death was arrested and my life began

That's when death was arrested and my life began

What Defines Us?

It has occurred to me that if the history of early to mid 21st Century U.S. History is ever written from the standpoint of a dispassionate historian, it may very well be defined as The Age of Rage.

If one considers it, the century literally started with a hotly contested election (A.D. 2000), followed by the worst attack on U.S. soil (A.D. 11 September 2001).  Things did not greatly improve from there.

Added to the mix was the fact the for the first time in world history, both news and opinions became almost instantaneous, brought together by technology that linked the world in real time (the InterWeb, the "computer in your pocket" we call a smart phone that comes with a camera/video camera/audio recorder) and platforms that allowed one to react in real time (The Book of Face, InstaPic, The Bird/Letter, and now Light Dispersing Atmosphere).

Suddenly, conversations were not necessary. We could see, hear, and most importantly react in real time.

I know what you are thinking: "TB, you are treading close to waters you never engage in."  You are right, of course - which is why this post is about none of that.

---

What it is about is the intentional and unintentional definitions of who we are versus who we appear to be in the virtual world.

Back in The Days of Yore, what we most knew about people was that which we knew about those closest to us and the usually limited and controlled information we learned about others.  Public images - even if not real and highly protected - were considered important.  One could argue that the idea of the "celebrity endorsement" found its roots in the idea that the celebrity was who they appeared to be through the media.

Now, of course, that buffer does not exist.  We are treated to scads of individuals essentially "in the raw".

---

As I have publicly stated more than once here, I have begun a retreat from social media which was originally rather slow but has picked up steam of recent months, which in turn has prompted a re-examination of the what and where I look at other things online.  There is more than one reason for this of course, but at least one of them beyond just simply having my "feed' filled with negativity and anger is how people are coming to define themselves by what the post and what they are angry about.

I have seen it in my own circles, where posts for or against this or that have come to be the majority, if not the dominant majority, of what people post and write on.  Places that are opinion free are becoming as rare as hen's teeth. More and more, people's public personas are now defined by the modern and the current.

So much so, in some cases, that it becomes hard to see beyond that.

(As a side note - and likely worthy of a second post - I will note that a great many people seem against a great many things these days; I see very few that are taking action to help address a problem that they see.  Another output of the technology/reaction culture is that it is easier to have an opinion - which is the click of a button - than it is to solve a need.  Especially one that will be done in the small secret places, a thing our modern attention culture is very much against.)

---

One of the commands that we as Christians have - and here, obviously, I am speaking to Christians - is that we are to reflect the nature of our Master.  We are imperfect of course and forever falling short of His perfect love and obedience, but the command inherent in our calling ourselves His is that we do the best we can.

When what we post about is more rage and anger and distrust and disbelief, we become less and less credible witnesses.

In a way, it is as prosaic as a business:  50% of any business' potential customer base will not believe what the company might believe.  If the company exists to make money - which in theory is the point of most companies - they will wisely minimize anything that would cause that 50% who is likely to disagree with "X" to actually give thought to what that company believes. In other words, wise businesses do everything in their power to not give potential customers a reason to say "no".

As is true for companies, so it is true for individuals.  And especially true for Christians.

---

There is a story told about a 19th Century preacher - I believe Charles Spurgeon - who had a fellow pastor come to him.  The pastor, who had recently published a prominent Christian work on Christ, was angry at a letter penned by a critic in a newspaper.  He in turn had written a response and had brought it to his friend for review.

Spurgeon (or whomever) reviewed the letter.  "You are completely justified in your criticism; in fact, I see several places where you could write more.  There is only one problem with the letter.  You have only signed it with your name.  You need to add "Your name, author of Work about Christ's love".

The first pastor looked at Spurgeon and quietly left.  The letter was never published.

---

At some point, "current modern event" will have passed into history.  What will be left are not only those public personas - those pictures, those comments, those quotes, those articles - that exist to show the world "who we are".  

Christ cannot make a written Gospel a lived Gospel, as He has ascended. That task is for us who remain here.  And the question I now ask myself whenever I "like" or approve something or comment on anything is simply "How will this seem years from now when I am talking to someone I need to reach?"

We like to speak as Christians of how Christ's will is to become our own.  Yet too often I find that I will drop His Cross for my own thoughts, desires, and opinions.  That is not an option that is really given to us; ours is to carry it daily, not lay it down for the moment, no matter how justified it seems.

 

Essentialism (XV): Essence Of The Essentialist: Explore: Sleep

"The best asset we have for making a contribution to the world is ourselves." - Greg McKeown

McKeown starts the chapter with a story about a man named "Geoff".

At 36 he was at the pinnacle of his career:  he was an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the year, a Young Global Leader, cofounder of a successful economic fund, and CEO of a global microlending organization that reached 12 million poor families. His schedule, as a result of this, was hectic:  he traveled 60 to 70% of the year and slept 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night.

Which came at a cost, which manifested itself over time:  night-time anxiety attacks with no anxiety, organs shutting down, physical impediments like being unable to stand up.  After a series of emergency room visits and doctor visits, he was given two choices:  be on medication for the rest of his life or take a year off and disconnect completely.

He chose the second option, swearing that he would only be away for a couple of months.  What happened instead was unexpected, at least for him:  14 hours of sleep a night, six weeks of being unable to function.  The two months became much, much longer.

Almost 2.5 years after the initial diagnosis, he was asked what his experience had taught him.  "Protect the Asset" was his response - the asset, of course, being himself.

---

If we are the greatest asset we can contribute to the world, says McKeown,  by underinvesting in  ourselves - our minds, our bodies, our spirits - and failing to care for them means we are damaging that which we would use to make the highest contribution.  And sleep, he, proposes, is one of those things.

Like "Geoff" above, McKeown experimented with his own reduced sleep schedule, trying to minimize it or even pulling once a week all-nighters.  His results, perhaps unsurprisingly, were similar to the ones listed above.  He may have gotten more "done", but it was not very well done.

Non-esssentialists, suggests McKeown, see sleep as just another thing to be done in an "already overextended, overcommitted, busy-but-not-always-productive life".  Essentialists contrarily see it as necessary to operate at high levels of contribution, and thus systematically and with deliberation program sleep into their lives - yet another of the tradeoffs Essentialists acknowledge must be made.

---

The rest of this section is McKeown quoting various studies about the benefits of sleep.  One that I found particularly interesting is a study by K. Anders Ericsson of violinists.  The first factor - quoted in Malcom Gladwell's concept of "the 10,000 hour rule" - is that the best violinists spend more time practicing than the merely good violinists.  No surprise there.  But the next finding, not nearly as well known, was that the second most important factor differentiating the best violinists was...sleep.  They average 8.6 hours a night, 1 hour more than average Americans at the time. Additionally, they spent 2.8 hours napping throughout the week.  The authors of the study concluded not just that while the practiced more, the fact that they were well rested meant they could practice with greater concentration and thus get more out of the hours they practiced.

McKeown notes some companies at the time of writing were actively addressing this, by allowing variable hours (to accommodate early risers and night owls) or the infamous "nap pods" of Google or even setting policy that employees need not show up early (or at all) after a "red-eye" flight.   Why?  Because, he argues, those companies made the connection between well rested employees and excellent, creative work.

---

Application:

Sleep is something that has come up quite a bit for me this year.

I am famously a Non-essentialist in this regard:  I for years have tried to program my life into allowing me the least amount of sleep that I need to allow me to "do" everything that I wanted or felt I needed to do.  The result was completely unsatisfactory on almost every count:  I was tired for the bulk of my career and everything I did was often in a haze of activity.

My thinking on this changed a great deal after reading the book Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker (which I recommend with the caveat that although Dr. Walker is as captivating a writer as an academic can be, there is a lot of material around the nature of sleep and how we came to know that and his opinions on policies about sleep to get to the part about actual sleep recommendations. If you can find the Appendix online, that is the application).  Beyond just all of the physiological benefits of sleep - which may include helping guard against Alzheimer's, something I am pretty interested in - he makes the very strong recommendation that everyone beyond the age of a teenager (e.g., when we hit our adult sleep patterns) needs 8 hours of sleep a night (or even little more).  But not really less than 7 hours.

8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is almost unheard of for me; my sleep pattern seems destroyed after the birth of Nighean Gheal and has never really come back (a casualty of being a parent); at most, I can generally sleep about 6 hours without waking and if I am lucky after that waking, slip in another hour of dozing.  What that means is that more like 7 hours a night.

That said, I try to act as if I am going to get eight hours a night.

Two things that Walker recommends are 1) Have a standard going to bed time including wind down that you never vary from; and 2) Have a standard waking up time you never vary from.  This has been the greatest challenge for me - not the standard waking up time, but rather the standard going to bed time.  Why? Because of course I am trying to fit "one more thing" into my day.

The other thing that I am practicing is that unless it is my waking up time (or within 15 minutes), I stay in bed.  I am not getting into the habit of waking up and deciding to get up and do things.  My father did that, until he was waking up at 0300 every morning.  I may not be able to go back to sleep, but I will not cave in to the fact that like or not, 8 hours is the goal.

Do I really hit that goal?  No.  I am still somewhat trying to fine tune my sleep pattern between when I wake up and when I go to sleep.  A full 8 hours would have me preparing for bed at 2030 and going to bed at 2100 - but I wake up far before 0500 and do not always go back to sleep.  And so I am working on fine tuning that time - somewhere between 2100 and 2145 seems ideal; 2200 is too late.  And based on those times, 7 to 7.5 hours is the maximum I seem to be able to get a night.

Do I feel better?  Somewhat surprisingly, I do.  I still struggle with not "getting enough done".  But I can now very definitively tell when I have enough sleep - and when I have not.

The Collapse CLXXXIX: Strongholds

02 November 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Between my missive of two nights ago and today, Old Man Winter has made his arrival with a vengeance: a full foot of snow has fallen. It certainly makes me glad I did my walking last week and did not wait until now.

Snow – really any inclement weather – has an odd magic about it even in such a situation as we find ourselves now. In earlier days it would have been an inconvenience, a thing to be managed and planned around. Now it effectively shuts everything down with a soft sort of thud. The snow will melt of course, and then come back and then melt again, until we see the other side of it in March or April.

If there is any blessing in this, it is that what shuts us down shuts almost everything and everyone else down as well. While it is not certain that we will not have “visitors”, the chances are greatly reduced.

Especially if they were walking when this hit.

---

I left you with a bit of a puzzle in the last letter. I laid out for you the geographic location and situation of our town, its likeliest threats, and the puzzle of what to do given a town split in half by a road (and by sentiment) with the most likely risks coming from two particular directions in what could be quick attacks (or any direction in longer directions, of course).

I had originally thought of the school building this town still has from the early 20^th Century. It is brick (which is a plus) and is somewhat away from everything else on flat land, thus giving a clear field of fire. Unfortunately it suffers from one defect: it is a bit far.

The school sits about ¼ of a mile away from the center of town – a little farther for some (like myself), a little less for those closer. The idea of getting everyone there in short order, let alone with the essentials, is a bit daunting – and in the direction of at least one of the threats that could come quickly. Yes, I suppose we could “store” things there, but that also creates a second problem of security , a problem I am not ready to deal with at the current moment.

Given that – which still have potential – I was forced to cast about for second options. Oddly enough, one was right in front of my face: The Post Office.

The Post Office (which shares a building with the once-upon-a-time gas station and mini-mart) is literally in the center of town. The “bad” news is that it is literally right next to the highway that runs through town. The “better” news is that it is made of masonry blocks, has a pretty clear field of fire, and is literally in the center of town – at worst a one minute transit for anyone.

We have used it before for various things as you may recall, so I believe we could reasonably get the current engaged population inside (perhaps not long term comfortably, but reasonably). It has limited points of access in terms of doors and windows which could be fairly easily barricaded – or so Young Xerxes and his nascent band of stalwarts assure me; I am not military engineer. The roof is obviously not stone of course, so that presents a bit of a fire hazard, although I suppose that tin roofing (could we ever find any) could be overlaid.

The problem, as I am defining it, is what would be the most likely occurrence. If history is any guide at all in similar situations (as if economic collapse was all that “similar”), attackers come in two types: raiders and settlers. The settlers are the far more pernicious (Ask the Britons how the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes worked out for them) but do not strike me as the most likely. It is from groups that are similar to what came through in July that we need worry about more: the raiding bands that seek only to loot and move on.

Could both locations work? I do not know that there is not a place for a short term and long term solution. And surely I do not have all the answers; all I have is a need and trying to find the best way to fill it.

The immediate need, of course is the short term one. Another benefit? Much of the current work could done inside, a plus given the weather that has just arrived.

Sometimes even that which seems to shut us down can be used to our advantage.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca