A Quiet Beginning — Without Conclusion, Yet

I wouldn’t call myself accomplished.
There are no headlines, no awards.
But once, I worked 54 days straight and lived on 2,000 yen.
That time taught me more than school ever did.

The path hasn’t been straight.
It’s uncertain—sometimes quiet, sometimes heavy—
but shaped with care and carried forward with intent.

This isn’t a résumé.
It’s not a declaration of arrival.
Maybe beginnings don’t need to be loud.
Sometimes they start with a quiet choice to live differently.

This site doesn’t offer answers.
Just a record:
of where I’ve stood,
what I’ve questioned,
and how I’ve begun to move—slowly, but deliberately.

What’s here isn’t a triumph.
It’s a beginning, made visible.
And from here, I’ll keep going—not with certainty, but with clarity.

The Early Shape of Thought

I didn’t grow up knowing what I wanted to be—
but I understood early how I didn’t want to live.

Ours was a comfortable home, but rarely a calm one.
Arguments filled the space more often than quiet.

At school, I was both target and perpetrator—bullied, bullying, even stealing.
Football didn’t ground me, but the people around it did.
We fought, we made peace.
And I began to learn how people break and reconnect.

Around age ten, I found myself drawn not to answers, but to questions.
That was when I began valuing understanding over being right.

My view of anger changed too.
At home and at school, shouting was common.
But I began to ask: what if anger doesn’t change anything?
I’ve come to see it less as power, more as a sign of unclear thought.

At twelve, I became obsessed with maths.
My grandfather, a university professor, may have had something to do with that.
I left school for six months to study full-time at a cram school.
I wasn’t chasing a test—I simply enjoyed the process of solving.
Within half a year, I’d covered the high school curriculum.
Still, I failed the entrance exam.

At my mother’s suggestion, I enrolled in a private school.
It wasn’t my decision.
Though far ahead, I had to start from the beginning.
In Japan, ability doesn’t move you forward. Age does.

I started questioning how languages were taught.
Twelve years of English, and few could speak.
The system seemed to reward memory, not meaning—
compliance, not curiosity.

Tests became less about thought and more about recall.
That’s when I began to question not just the answers—but the structure itself.

Around this time, my parents divorced.
I still attended school—just later in the day.
I arrived for the final periods, mostly for attendance and football.

I often clashed with teachers.
Not out of rebellion, but from a need to ask:
Why is this the way it is?

If we’re taught to obey before we’re taught to ask—
what else are we being trained to forget?

What This Taught Me

What I took from those years wasn’t a set identity—but a habit of questioning.
The questions I asked then still follow me now—not to confront, but to understand.
Because often, the first act of strength is asking: why not this way?

Part A: Quiet Resistance

In my first year of high school, I made a clear break from expectation.
I left traditional school for an online programme—not to reject learning, but to escape the way it was taught: rigid, passive, disconnected from thought.
I had begun reading philosophy, questioning politics, and wondering what it meant to live with intention.

Japan spends just 3.2% of its GDP on education—well below the OECD average.
It ranks 80th globally in English proficiency. These numbers aren’t everything, but they echoed what I felt: a system misaligned with real learning.

I read Descartes. I messaged public thinkers—some replied.
Teachers said, “If school doesn’t work for you, maybe you should leave.”

My father opposed me, even threatened to cut ties. But I was ready to leave home and work toward university on my own.
Ironically, a few teachers who once doubted me helped convince him to let me stay.

So I stayed, and studied—at 7-Eleven by day, online by night.

I spoke little to others. I learned through AI conversations and books.
Music, especially techno and house, became my own language—pure, abstract, and mine.
Someday I want to make it myself.

Around this time, Japan’s former PM was assassinated.
The suspect’s motives led me to investigate the cult behind it.
I visited one and debated members weekly—for a month—until I felt how logic could both clarify and trap.
I stepped away, quietly.

I attended university lectures. Some left an impression.
But effort was hard to sustain.
Pride in walking a different path faded into quiet self-doubt.

Part B: Visible Fractures

At 18, I became legally independent.
After an argument, my father told me to leave—so I did.
I left not only the house, but the support that came with it.

I thought loss might teach me how to grow.

That decision led to eight moves in two years:
Okinawa, Fujisawa, Tokyo, Osaka, London.

I stayed briefly with my mother.
Japanese university felt too expensive—and stifling.
I found a hotel in Okinawa offering free housing.
The manager said my attitude set me apart.

In July 2022, I boarded a one-way flight with little more than resolve.

I worked in the restaurant. I learned to cook Italian.
We served international guests—I used English every day.
For the first time, I could speak freely.

I studied during breaks, made mistakes, asked questions.
I sometimes worked ten days straight.
Stress grew, but I stayed committed.

Older coworkers opened up to me.
One said, “Don’t compare yourself to those below. Aim higher.”
That stayed with me.

Others had rich lives—doctors, workers from around the world.
Their stories reshaped my understanding of worth.

But pressure built.
I felt unseen, exhausted.
I got a tattoo—not for style, but to hold on to conviction.
A quiet, visible line against conformity.

It was my second break from expectation.

After nine months, I left Okinawa for Tokyo.

I had changed.
I knew how to work, reflect, and persist.
Some guests tipped me over $400—rare in Japan.
On April 1st, I said goodbye, promising to return stronger.

Before settling, I backpacked across Southeast Asia—Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam.
I saw both wealth and emptiness.
What began as a dream to live abroad became a certainty.

I didn’t know it then—
but the hardest stretch was still ahead.

What This Taught Me

What I chose wasn’t rebellion—it was authorship.
To learn freely is to carry the cost of freedom.
And if the price is exile—I may still choose to pay it again.

Part A: The Poverty of Effort

I returned to Japan on April 17, with little more than debt. I applied to over thirty jobs, but my tattoos and age often meant silent rejection. At six interviews, I was turned away without being heard.

Lack of income—not rejection—was the hardest part. I sold my iPhone and Apple Watch to survive. For the first time, I regretted not saving money in Okinawa.

I had grown up with relative comfort, but within a month, I was broke. So I started doing day labour: sorting mail in warehouses, cleaning hoarder apartments. Ten-hour shifts. The work was physically hard—and sometimes humiliating.

On one exhausted train ride home, I made a quiet promise: to someday turn these shifts, this silence, this aching body, into something that meant more than survival.

Foucault once wrote that power is inscribed on the body. These shifts disciplined how I moved, thought, and even dreamed.

It wasn’t all pain. Sandel said every job deserves dignity. I began to feel that—not intellectually, but bodily.

Still, I lost my rhythm. I drank, watched porn, ate poorly. It became a loop: work, numb, repeat.

Yet small lights remained. I lived with mostly foreign housemates. English became daily. We debated politics. I made friends again.

One flatmate ran daily. I joined. It helped. I ran 157 days in a row.

In June, I got a job at a call centre. It was large, bilingual, demanding—but I felt respected. I studied Excel, practised phone scripts, and worked weekends at Marriott Tokyo. Life was full—but in a good way.

Part B: When Effort Became Survival

By September, I had barely rested. I juggled two jobs, commuting between cities. Rent drained me. Despite the hours, I had no savings.

Then came a message on LinkedIn—an offer in Vietnam or Malaysia. The salary was fair, the cost of living low. I went through interviews, assessments, and reached the visa stage.

I gave notice. I ended my lease. The visa never came.

Suddenly, I was unemployed—and homeless.

I moved to Osaka. Found a small room. Took another hotel job—but the shifts were unstable. They asked me to remove my tattoo sleeve. I refused. I was dismissed.

I hadn’t quit Marriott. So I commuted: Tokyo, Osaka. Stayed with my mother. Worked wherever I could. It wasn’t ideal—but it kept me afloat.

Still, I was treated like a tool. My peers were in university; I wiped tables.

Another hotel hired me. But the sleeves were short. On day one, the manager said: “This is Japan. Tattoos like that? You won’t be accepted.” That was my first and last shift.

In total, I lost three jobs over tattoos.

Sometimes, pay was late. Relocation costs mounted. I had 2,000 yen for a week. I had worked 54 days straight—and had nothing.

I bought cheap food and alcohol. I numbed myself.

Then, unexpectedly, my father sent me 50,000 yen. “Buy something good to eat,” he said. It meant more than he knew.

Despite the dark, some moments were kind. My flatmates supported me. “You’re 19. Don’t write yourself off yet,” one said.

We ate togather. Talked deeply. Laughed.

I applied to over a dozen jobs. Reached five interviews. At one, I spoke for over an hour. The interviewer said I was impressive. I didn’t get it—but I didn’t feel defeated. Maybe I had stopped expecting validation.

I never gave up the dream. But I did stop chasing it—for a while.

In November, I made a vision board. Really, I just wanted something to believe in.

I had pushed myself too hard. So I let go—a little.

Bars. Clubs. Late nights. Pills I couldn’t name. Alcohol. Fast food. Porn. Internet. I wasn’t happy. But I wasn’t stressed. Sometimes, that was enough.

Eventually, I left Osaka. Returned to Tokyo. Packed again.

By then, I still didn’t know if I’d reach university abroad. I knew I’d need two more years of saving.

And that thought—that I was still so far from where I wanted to be—nearly broke me.

What This Taught Me

That year didn’t just test how hard I could work. It asked if I could keep showing up—without certainty.

I learned that discipline, not momentum, carried me through. Sometimes, staying the course—quietly—is its own kind of strength.

I was born and raised in Japan. I live abroad now.

What follows isn’t anger—but quiet observation, shaped by distance.

Living in London changed how I see.
There’s urgency here—in how people move, speak, and ask.
Systems are flawed, but they lean toward change.

That contrast helped me name what I couldn’t in Japan:
not just frustration, but the quiet loss of a future that never got to speak.

This isn’t a condemnation. It’s a question:
How do age, order, and silence—when overvalued—limit imagination and initiative?

In Japan, age often outweighs ability.
Deference is expected. Silence is praised.
Even the language reinforces hierarchy.
So when people ask, “Why don’t students speak up?”—they miss the structure behind the silence.

I began to question the contradiction: how could twelve years of English education produce students who still struggled to hold a conversation?
Foucault’s notion of disciplinary power—an invisible force that tames the body and suppresses the will—seemed deeply inscribed in Japan’s educational system.
In the classroom, memory was valued over meaning; obedience over curiosity.
Language was not a living exchange but a dead text to be memorised.

According to OECD data, Japan ranks 80th globally in English proficiency.
This figure wasn’t just a statistic—it was a symptom of a structural failure.
As I memorised textbook phrases, I found myself asking:
Was I learning a language, or was I being trained in submission?

The weak yen isn’t a cause. It’s a sign:
of stalled reform, a shrinking population, and an economy avoiding disruption.

I’ve been criticised—for my tattoos, for leaving school, for choosing a different path.
But the systems I questioned now show their cracks.
Order is valued more than vision. Compliance more than dialogue.

I didn’t leave to reject Japan.
And I don’t think other systems are flawless.
But I’ve learned this: asking hard questions isn’t rebellion—it’s responsibility.

I don’t write this to change Japan.
But I believe this:
A society that punishes difference also punishes imagination.
And a nation that avoids truth for comfort risks losing its future to its past.

This is not provocation.
It’s a still frame—
from someone who left, not to escape, but to see more clearly.

References:

• OECD Education Spending: https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

• OECD PISA Scores: https://www.oecd.org/pisa/

• Changes in the Wage System in Japan: https://www.jil.go.jp/english/jli/documents/2017/003-04.pdf

• Japan adopts work-style labor reforms - Mercer: https://www.mercer.com/insights/law-and-policy/japan-adopts-work-style-labor-reforms/

• Japanese Corporate Culture - Scaling Your Company: https://scalingyourcompany.com/japanese-corporate-culture/

• OECD Education at a Glance: https://www.oecd.org/education/education-at-a-glance/

• EF English Proficiency Index: https://www.ef.com/wwen/epi/

• WEF Global Competitiveness Report: https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-competitiveness-report-2020/

THE COST OF BORROWED TIME

I didn’t write this to justify my choices. I write it to trace what they’ve cost—and what they’ve taught.

In January, after months of setbacks, I received a message from my father: “If you're still serious about studying abroad, your grandmother and I want to help.”

Accepting wasn’t easy. When I left home, I had sworn to do everything alone. I believed that only by reaching the edge would I grow. For years, I rejected help—clinging to that idea as if it were principle.

But numbers are real. Two more years of full-time work stood between me and university. That meant giving up the most formative years of my twenties—time I wouldn’t get back.

I asked people I trusted. One friend said, “I borrowed everything until I finished grad school. That debt was an investment—and it paid off.” Others agreed.

I reflected on what I hadn’t done: saving in Okinawa, studying when I could have, staying consistent when it mattered. I had tried—but I had also been unwise.

In the end, I chose—not out of pride, but strategy. I would borrow time—financially and emotionally—to pursue a future I could not build alone.

I said yes.

In February, I left my Osaka flat and stayed with my father's family. While I had been in Okinawa, my grandfather—the man who most shaped my thinking—had passed away. I missed his funeral. Now my grandmother stood in his place.

They told me to get what I needed: clothes, tools, a reset. In two weeks, I received over $8,000 in support. We ate at restaurants that once rejected my job applications. It was $100.

I was thankful, but uneasy. This wasn’t money I earned. To me, integrity means carrying what I receive—not pretending it was mine to begin with.

In March, I moved to Kamakura and completed my UK visa paperwork. Before leaving Japan, I travelled across the country. Friends, family, familiar places. A quiet goodbye.

On April 10, I flew to London.

Since arriving, I’ve seen how far the world has moved. People switch between languages like it’s air. Students act with urgency. Systems—though imperfect—move with intent.

But I’ve also felt behind. I now spend more in one day than I once earned in eight hours. Wasting time here is wasting capital. And I won’t.

Most people don’t get this chance. So I treat it like a contract—with myself, with those who believed, and with the future I owe.

The clarity I now have came from privileges I didn’t earn—access to education, financial safety nets, freedom to leave. My criticism of Japan isn’t moral superiority. It’s: What would I believe if I had never left?

I’ve begun rebuilding. I deleted every post and story. I no longer care how I’m seen. What I control is how I spend my time. And for now, that’s enough.

I started school. Some students came to London just to play. But a few came to prepare. That’s been enough.

I’ve stopped trying to fit in. I’ve stopped counting friends. Now, I count actions.

And yet—there’s one thing I still carry.

Last year, amid it all, one person stood beside meーfrom Netherlands. She was my partner. She believed in who I could become—even when I didn’t.

But I leaned too hard. What began as love became dependence. And slowly, it broke her.

She didn’t leave because she stopped loving me. She left to protect herself. And she was right.

We never fought. We respected each other. But it wasn’t enough. And that’s on me.

I left to become more than what I had survived. Now, I study not just to succeed, but to shape something better. Not loudly—but with clarity, and with care.

If I want to honour what she saw in me, I have to become the version we once imagined.

So I write this now from London—not to say I’ve arrived, but to say: I’ve begun again.

---

What This Chapter Taught Me

Borrowing time is not weakness—it’s a wager on the self. Integrity is not refusing help, but carrying it with care. Rebuilding starts not with pride, but with the courage to begin again.

I didn’t just borrow money—I borrowed time, and belief. Accepting that support meant confronting what I hadn’t yet become. I now carry that trust—not as guilt, but as reason to move forward, better.

Vision: Foundations and Forward Motion

I sometimes ask myself:
What if I had no money?
No parents?
Had I not been born in Japan?

Where does personal choice end—and structure begin?
How much of what we call effort depends on scaffolds we didn’t build: luck, birth, geography?

The boundary is thinner than we admit.

And with quiet clarity, I know:
Had those supports not been there, there would have been no chapter called Awakening.
No second chance.
No rebuilding.

What feels ordinary to me now could easily have been out of reach.
That realisation doesn’t breed guilt. It creates responsibility.
Once you’ve seen the hidden structure behind your progress, it’s harder to pretend it was all merit.

I don’t write to dramatise pain or posture success.
I write to hold onto one truth:
No nation, no system, no memory is final.
Even foundations can be questioned—and sometimes, must be.

What I’ve learned is simple but difficult:
Those who’ve never tried often laugh at those who do.
But the builder, the founder, the runner—they recognise beginnings.
That mindset saved me.

I believe in constrained determinism:
That we are shaped by circumstance.
But also in free will:
That within limits, intention still matters.

That’s not a philosophy—it’s lived experience.
The freedom I’ve used came from scaffolds I didn’t build.
That makes me ask: what do we preserve? What do we rebuild?

That’s why I turn first to finance—not for profit, but for perspective.
Investment banking reveals how systems move.
How capital becomes policy.
How decisions cross borders.

If I want to remake institutions, I need to understand them from within.

Japan still prizes seniority over initiative.
But some firms—like Uniqlo and Mercari—have tried age-neutral titles and flattened teams.
The change is there, but shallow.
Culture resists quiet revolution.

Finance, though, is not my end point.
Politics is where structure meets intention.
I want to study governance, behavioural economics, and institutional design—
Not to theorise, but to build systems that serve human capacity, not suppress it.

This begins with study.
Is tested in action.
And is measured not in words, but in what I construct—with clarity, care, and consequence.

Systems should not exist to be obeyed—but to serve.
Structures should not protect power—but protect what is human.

Before I knew how to shape experience into essays, there was this.
A text I wrote at eighteen, alone in a small room in Okinawa—not to impress, not to explain, but simply to place a marker in time. I posted it on Instagram, not from confidence, but from a need to say: I’m here. I’m trying.

It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t complete. But it was honest.
And in its rawness, something began.

It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t complete. But it was true.
This was the first time I tried to write not just what happened—but what I felt unfolding.　Now, I include it not because it's finished, but because it began something.

”I came to Okinawa. For many reasons.

One reason is that I thought it was cool that people were making an effort without anyone's help. If I get sloppy, I will lose my future. I am taking a huge risk. There is No way out. No money, No way to buy anything? No money to go to university?No good working conditions at work? I don't think it matters. I think it's cool that people make an effort without using lack of money as an excuse and without complaining to society. I think you should improve yourself.

I don't know why I live my life. My parents definitely get in the way of my life, using words like common sense. He has used words like common sense to oppose me leaving high school and going to Okinawa, he has crushed my potential and denied me that I can decide my own life. I think that he is dumb and bad person. At the same time I have caused a lot of problems for my family. But I know that he brought me up and taught me many important things. He told me that if I wanted to study or study abroad, he would give me all the money. But for many reason, I refused all financial support from my parents. And I would not let other person interfere in my life. I decided to take care of myself.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　I ignored what my family said, quit high school and came to Okinawa. That is why my family disowned me3/6 I was conflicted about whether to prioritise my life or my family. I don't know which is right, but I quit high school or came to Okinawa.

I don't think now that family, owning things, being admired, etc. are my happiness. So I'm not myself and I don't know what makes me happy. So I don't want to think about such weird things and I don't think I can say that I don't know the purpose of life when I'm not trying, when I'm not achieving anything.

Another thing, I think people in all professions should be respected. That was influenced by Professor Michael Sandel. How can rich people understand how poor people feel? I don't think I can understand the feelings and hardships of poor people if I haven't experienced them. I would have liked to have experienced the kind of work that the world looks down on cleaners, dishwashers, that kind of work. We must not forget that they are the reason we are able 14/6 live. I would probably go to university, which is my dream, and contribute to society by doing a job that I like, something to do with economics, philosophy, politics, etc. A lot of people look down on dishwashers and cleaners, but I've been in those jobs, so I wouldn't look down on them.

One last thing, I just love Okinawa. The food in Okinawa, the nature in Okinawa, the sea, the people in Okinawa, the atmosphere, the diversity, everything is great. When I look back on my life in the future, I will be proud to have lived here.

I feel like I am loved by so many people here, people who talk to me about life, who are kind to me like I am their child, who are always cracking jokes with me. I have had the chance to talk to people of many nationalities, people born and raised. And I have heard so much of life here. I have learnt so much here.

Okinawa is like home for me.

I have many people at work and people I have met who support my dreams and I will do my best not to worry them and to grow myself. I hope one day I will be able to meet family members, friends, teachers and important person. I hope in the future I can help people in real need, because I have struggled. Of course I can help people in all professions. Of course I prefer being the child of poor parents to the child of rich parents. That's why I refused financial support from my rich grandparents and parents. I would rather be poor than spend my parents' money, not work hard and not struggle. But some people can't help themselves. So particularly I would like to help that kind of person in the future. And I think education is responsible for the bad aspects of today's society. I hope I can improve that aspect too.

I think the reason why I have good relationships in every environment is because of my humility and my communication skills and humanity. I don't want people to think I'm smart and I don't think I am. Nobody in the real world knows this side of me. On the other hand, I don't think I am as good person with a lot of people as I am now if I talk about dreams all the time or if I talk about stuffy things. So I would never say any of these things in real life, but I thought I would write here how I feel now.

So that one day when I look back at the past, or when I lose more of myself, I can remember.”

I can now read this without flinching.
I don’t try to edit what I felt, or how I tried to express it. I see someone uncertain but sincere—trying to grow before even knowing what growth meant.

That, too, is part of the path.
Not clarity. Not certainty.
But showing up anyway.