A Mans Way Home

Japan is a concern. Its is a country which is currently seeing the result of an intense period of sociological alteration and reformation. With plunging birth rates, the highest suicide rates on the plant, a shrinking and rapidly aging population, the rise of Hikikimori; an expression of people's loneliness and isolation in modern society. What has been the result of these changes and problems? Nearly 20 years of economic recession. So what happened? What brought Japan to this point where they as a society are slowly collapsing, and the interference of the state does little to improve the situation? Well since the beginning of the Meiji restoration the Japanese have changed their culture to become more westernised. A process that was partly forced by the Americans, who after sailing across the Pacific on their black ships threatened Japan with war and colonization if they did not open their borders to trade and outside influence. This enforced openness and influence from the wester...

I’ve never trusted psychiatrists. Why would I? Whenever I have had to sit in one of their chairs and allow them to poke through memories of my past, they were determined to find that singular point of trauma on which all my current unhappiness and problems could be blamed. To open it up and drag it into the light of day. I felt uncomfortable allowing my private thoughts and emotions to be revealed to someone that in all honest I hardly knew let alone trusted. These sessions tended to not end well, with me feeling worse than when I first went in. They didn’t solve anything for me except to expose my failures, make me relive my regrets and force them back into the forefront of mind at a time when I wanted solutions, not reasons. The reasons were clear to me I knew what I regretted in my life and how they had caused me to be in that situation. I’ve never needed help to know what I regret. Was it the abusive relationship that I went through for 3 years as I was desperate to feel like...

I have never been a socialist and have always had an intrinsic caution towards anybody who loudly shouts how full of love, empathy and care they are for their fellow man, before quickly shoving the blade in between their shoulders. One of the most shocking moments of my life was when a socialist friend of mine proudly proclaimed that those who oppose his philosophy of love and acceptance should be executed. Myself, a pacifist, was repulsed by this statement. You can’t change someones mind if they are dead. You lost the argument. I saw this as a clear contradiction in how they; the left, proclaim themselves to be and how they act, an implicit hypocrisy. Perhaps this has been revealing itself so rapidly with the left leaning media which seems preoccupied with tearing itself apart. They shout loudly how moral they are and how much they love their fellow (wo)man but then are quite willing to see them suffer, lose their jobs, mental health and perhaps even their lives, when the outrage mob ...

I worry for the future. I worry for what people are prepared to do. Through the implementation of philosophies generated in the echo chambers of minds that innately fail to see more than one perspective. Their goal? Equality. Liberation. Revolution. Order. Protection. Patriotism. Words formed through the evolution of language in to perfect ideals, that operate more like paroxysms of thought spewed forth from the gestalt. Perceived as ideals to attain and enforced on a world that resists. Universal truth... Fake news. Liberté, égalité, fraternité of old white men or stupidity. Independence from responsibility and thought. A sea change from temperance to extreme weather conditions. Love for you fellow man belied by the hatred for his works. Freedom of expression, thought and action, but only for those who think act and express themselves like you. Why do I worry? Why would I not? I still have the hope that many more years of experience will come my way. Yet that experience may not be w...