Today is another street festival in my neighborhood. There are pantomimes and salsa dancers on stilts and puppets and ballet dancers and traditional Japanese dancers doing modern styles.
These kinds of events don’t seem to have the same effect on me that they do other people. They’re not bad by any means, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t help but feel they are substituting for something that is lacking.
Tokyo is a fun city full of events and influences from all over the world. You can find just about every style you want here. Still I feel that people here are incredibly lonely. I feel it even stronger now because I stopped drinking.
In Japan socializing has one very simple rule: Get drunk first.
If you drink and have money to spend, there are plenty of options to socialize. If you don’t drink and are trying to save money….well good luck.
People don’t talk to strangers on the street here, nor on the train, nor in a restaurant. It’s not unheard of but its seen as a nuisance in the city. In the countryside it may be different but if you talk to a stranger who isn’t drinking in a pub, if they are friendly to you, it’s merely because you are foreign and see this as foreign culture. They would most likely be very uncomfortable if it was a Japanese person.
As a foreigner who lives there, eventually it gets tiring to play the foreigner because it means no one ever treats you like you belong here.
I don’t think it was always like this. There used to be more relaxed cafes where you could socialize with strangers and make new friends. It was easy. There were classic cafes and relaxed dj cafes and original friendly local shops everywhere. Not all of them requires you to spend a lot of money like they do now.
Now the cafes are designed so that you leave as soon as possible and the staff is trying to promote that so they won’t talk to you unless they think they can sell you something.
It’s a tight grind now, and people only seem to be thinking about what they can get from you. This isn’t unique to Japan and I can feel it in myself too.
I want to find people who can help me promote my work and always have that in my mind, but in order to be sincere with people I try to keep ilmyself from constantly thinking about what I can get from other people and keep trying to focus on what I can give to other people. I want to live in a world where people are giving so I need to insist on this myself.
In the middle of writing this I discovered a new CBD shop that looked friendy. I was invited in and the guy was trying to sell me oil. It’s a new shop and I am interested in CBD so I tried a coffee. He kept hinting for me to buy a CBD cigarette (which was 4x more than a coffee) and eventually I caved in.
I don’t think he was a bad guy, he was just grinding, but heres the problem with that mindset. I kind of wanted to buy one but not right now. The way he pushed me made me a little uncomfortable. I was ready to become a weekly customer if he had treated me more casually and not tried to milk me. But since he had expectations of me, I didn’t feel great there. And so I may not go back…if i do, it certainly won’t be regularly.
This is why I am doubling down on being real.
I feel the urge to milk people too.
I feel the urge to focus on what I can get.
I feel the urge to pressure people to bend to my will.
But that doesn’t create a virtuous cycle and that’s what I am after.
I want win/win’s. I want to feel real connection with people. Not only that, I know that real connection can lead to even more support for the work you do. The problem is that when you EXPECT that added benefit, it tends yo run away from you.
Pressuring people is more reliable but it isn’t a good long term strategy. It means you will constantly be burning bridges and enjoying your time with people less. Having ulterior motives means you can’t enjoy the moment, you are constantly in your head and that drains you energy and your magic.
It’s not worth it.
When I see this kind of event, I feel it’s a substitute for natural relaxed human connection, an overcompensation.
No amount of spectacle can replace real human connections. Watching a performance is rarely more fulfilling than a chance to build mutual understanding with people.
I can feel the local government and organizations pushing hard to promote more buying. I don’t fault them for it, but I know what they are doing and I am not impressed.
I’m not trying to rain on people’s parade and I think this kind if event is better than no event, I just want to acknowlesge that we are covering up a hole.
I was heard recently that 85% of people lack meaning in their lives and this doesn’t surprise me at all.
So as meaning becomes harder and harder to find, I will focus more and more of my energy on trying to build up atmospheres that give people a sense of meaning and connection.
And hopefully one day soon, we can enjoy these spectacles more because we feel a sense of connection and non-judgemental comfort and feel that the world isn’t out to get us.
This post has been manually curated by @steemflow from Indiaunited community. Join us on our Discord Server.
Do you know that you can earn a passive income by delegating to @indiaunited. We share more than 100 % of the curation rewards with the delegators in the form of IUC tokens. HP delegators and IUC token holders also get upto 20% additional vote weight.
Here are some handy links for delegations: 100HP, 250HP, 500HP, 1000HP.
100% of the rewards from this comment goes to the curator for their manual curation efforts. Please encourage the curator @steemflow by upvoting this comment and support the community by voting the posts made by @indiaunited..
This post received an extra 6.11% vote for delegating HP / holding IUC tokens.
I think I belong in Japan. 😄 People here strike up conversations anywhere. I dread going to the grocery store because it's basically a gab-fest with the cashier. Having said that, this changes by province and city. Vancouver, where I live, is very reserved. Unlike Alberta and other provinces where people approach and talk to you for no reason other than to talk. It creates a strong sense of community, I think. It is interesting how Japan is such a homogenous culture, and yet they prefer not to interact with each other. I thought it would be different. Fascinating article.
I’m sure there are a few things that interests you no matter what happens and that’s just the truth. Well, I’m someone who reacts to all those music, salsa dance and so all. They entertain me and has a way of keeping me alive