Sleepless in Japan

Apologies already. This post is more of a brain dump, allowing me to deal with last night's insomnia. Having slept 14 or 15h straight the night before, I was absolutely unable to sleep a single minute this last night. As I laid awake for about 8h pretty much since going to be around midnight, a million things went through my head. Some of them need some afterthought, most of them don't.

Being able to come to Japan every year is a big privilege in every way. On one hand its a financial outlay, a time outlay, being away from family and work and comes with opportunity cost attached. On the other hand, it's been one of the single most important things I've been doing in the last couple of years to continue to stay motivated in my job, apart from the satisfaction you get helping people generally, and its been a big inspiration to not only continue to train martial arts but to also start teaching it. Something that was much encouraged by my teachers here in Japan who said that in order to get better, I should consider to start teaching. That was pretty much 3 years ago, when I started our martial arts South London chapter. Indeed, having to prepare for lessons and generally trying to understand the material that is often theoretical and translate it into physical exercises that can be understood, repeated and improved upon has enabled be to be a little less bad at martial arts, or so I believe.

My fascination with Japan started when I met a fellow martial arts student in 1998, about to do driving lessons. She just finished her session and I was about to start mine. We got talking and she said she's off to train martial arts now. For me this was a big surprise as I lived in a small village and I would have/ should have known if there was anything like this. Turned out I didn't. A week later I was all signed up to what would become a 20 year love affair with Japan. Its a healthy historic, spiritual, physical and cultural obsession. At one point a few years ago I managed to go through all my favourite Japanese and non-Japanese anime movies, with many of them showing how life is and was here in Japan through the eyes of children or through the eyes of the eternal child, some of my favourite anime are compiled here. This is one of my favourite anime of recent years (demo only, also exists as dubbed version):

Laying wide awake for 8 hours gave me an opportunity to look at my life as it is, without attaching too much importance to the process as it happened considering I was getting more and more agitated as they night went by tossing and turning. However, a few really interesting questions came up time and time again, some of which I hope this trip will help me answer:

1. Being in the so called 'prime of my life' (almost 40), where do I want to be when I'm 50 and 60 and importantly, what do I have to do now and in the next few years to get there? We're talking what country, what work (and income potential), and how to continue to achieve work-life balance. I'm a big believer in plans and goals, even if they change/ evolve as I go along.
2. What will the next 5 years of our organisation look like, that's just turned 5? Its an amazing organisation that has supported hundreds of people into business and enterprise already but where to next, especially how to manoeuvre an ever tougher funding environment?
3. Can I and should I share with 'the world' what I believe are some of the fundamental insights and learnings I have taken from studying and practicing martial arts and how they've helped me be a better entrepreneur? The idea of a book has been with me for a couple of years now but it may be too presumptuous. 

Apart from these big questions, I've spent part of the night continuing to read Jordan B. Peterson's '12 Rules For Life', an interesting read and I am very much agreeing with the 8 I've read so far., whilst acknowledging that putting them into practice at all times will require much more awareness. A lot of the material corresponds to my reading and understanding of C.G.Jung that I consumed heavily in my early 20's, when I couldn't get enough of reading his books as his mind and insights into life fascinated me and to this day, continue to do so. My obsession with Jung went as far as visiting his home in Switzerland and to scale the walls of his 'fortress' just to sit in the courtyard that he would have once sat in, contemplating life and surely death. My last C.G.Jung book was his monumental life's work as he called it - The Red Book: Liber Novus, Jung's most intimate diary of his experiences and visions. It now feels hard to connect with all that I read as life seemed to have moved on, but certain truths still persist until this day. 

C.G. Jung's house (not open to the pubic)...

The other parts of the night were spent browsing videos on Facebook, some conspiracy stuff around Trump and how he's apparently unsettling the world powers (I skipped past that eventually), to Musk smoking a joint whilst on air doing an interview with a pretty well known talkshow moderator (who was also well known for being pro-marihuana) - sorry Musk, that wasn't very clever, you're getting a bit cocky here. I've also put a preliminary itinerary together when my family comes over in a few weeks to check out sights and sounds of 'my' Japan (the things I'd love to show them).

And the final part of my night was pretty much spent tossing and turning, adjusting the blinds, listening to the never ending noise of the crickets, which seemed to stop around 4:43am. I eventually got up at 8.30 to start the day with some yoga and 10min of mediation before making a killer of a wake-up tea (green tea, guarana-green tea, turmeric tea)...yes, they all go together in one pot. 

The plan for the day looks as follows: go to Kashiwa Starbucks to get a coffee, sit and read, do some journalling (training notes and travel journal) then go to my favourite sushi place for lunch before finding another, ideally new and more comfy coffee place that's not Starbucks, before eventually going to training again at 3.30. The evening can wrap up with a visit to the onsen in Minami-Kashiwa...and dinner.