tokyoliving123

Tokyoliving aka Allen. Minnesotan living in Tokyo for a long time. Avid cyclist, writer, day job university teacher. Twitter – SkoogInJapan

Hello Coil'ers, I am writing to let you know from this day forward I will be posting links only to my personal blog site.

While I enjoy posting on the COIL platform, my passion lies on my personal blog site. The site is COIL monetized so if you have enjoyed reading my posts here, feel free to visit my site. Or better yet you can follow me on my site and get notifications for new posts.

And if you like what you read, you can still certainly upvote my posts here on COIL whenever I post links.

I will of course continue to read and upvote those that I follow here.

Thank you for your continued support.

Just the Right Time

https://tokyoliving123.com/just-the-right-time/

With so much information coming from so many sources nobody really knows the truth. I know the narrative has gained so much momentum saying anything to the contrary is met with lashing out and anger.

I have been listening to a number of level headed experts in the field of pandemics and disease. These are people at the top of their field. The overwhelming consensus, the response from many countries has been too harsh. The one reality, most governments were ill-prepared and had no game plan. So the only plan, draconian measures to placate the masses by fear with the US leading the charge.

Give an American something to be afraid of and they latch on to it like a dog to a bone. The mainstream media knows this making things worse. I am reminded of a media course as an undergraduate at the University of Minnesota in which we were asked to compare the narrative framing between Isreali/Palestinian conflict. While I will not get into details, I will say that a photo even a phrase influences viewers and readers. It is subtle and powerful.

Recently, as an exercise, I compared the use of adjectives and phrases between the New York Times and the Japan Times in reference to the corona virus. Nearly every headline in the NY Times used words such as, worst, plummet, uncertainty deep, concern and faint hope, to name a few. In the Japan times, adjectives were not part of the headlines at all. They simply reported the news.

Starting from the above premise over the last number of decades America has always needed a boogie man (an ism if you will) and so they conjure them up. First it was communism which lasted three decades resulting in an ever increasing military budget with direct and proxy wars. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the Soviet Union, there was no longer a boogie man. Where would it come from?

In the 90s we started seeing sightings like sasquatch in the woods, a new boogie man. It wasn’t until 9.11 that this new one took shape in the form of terrorism. The result an even more bloated military budget, longer wars, more drum beating and fear.

What the masses don’t realize, there is no end to these “ISMs.” As a consequence, fear permeates all aspects of American culture, TV shows, commercials and the mainstream media to name a few. With terrorism abated we now have a new one.

The new boogie man is literally in the air and terrifying they say. The over the top response to placate the masses through fear has been hugely successful. Rather than admit that the government is unable to take care of you, are ill-prepared and have in fact cut budgets to departments meant to help in the case of something that is occurring now, they have to amplify fear. I don’t mean to downplay the severity of those that have gotten sick, though most have recovered.

Here is where the problem lies. Fear up until now has never really been on US soil. Sure 9.11, but that was an anomaly. The reality, terrorism and communism were over there, not over here. Now the pandemic is here. As long as the boogie man was there, Americans could continue to be free to live there lives. We had to defeat terrorism and communism so Americans could continue to remain free. With the pandemic on American soil, and the draconian measures implemented, American freedom is being infringed upon.

Freedom will win out and people, as we have begun to see, will take to the streets. It would not be as scary had their been a game plan and a United States operated as their name implies, united. People are mad and demand answers. Over time, they will no longer trust the government and the media and this where things could become truly sinister with a real life boogie man.

COILer's this is a freebie for all!

As some of you know I am currently working on a book – 10KLRS. Thus far it is going on nearly two years with another year to go before completed and published.

Besides editing my book daily I have spent countless hours blogging on both COIL and my own website tokyoliving123.com. What you didn't know was that I have been tirelessly working behind the scenes with a web designer to re-design my website and commissioned an illustrator here in Japan to create images for my site and eventual book cover. It has been a labor of love that has come to fruition and ready for public viewing.

I am very excited as I have begun my own personal branding campaign that will tie in my blog site along and the eventual release of the book, which will be in both electronic and softcover.

Over the course of the next few months, in order to boost interest and followers, I will be putting together some merch as in merchandise connected with book. Stay tuned for the release of this and other fun items.

Thus far if you like what you've read on COIL, feel free to spread the word and follow me on my blog site, twitter and Instagram.

Oh, and don't worry I will still be posting on COIL.

Without further adieu, I give you – tokyoliving123.com in its newest incarnation.

UPDATE: As of May 9th my blog site is also monetized by COIL.

People get a slice of one’s life and make and pass judgments on that slice. The reality is that people never know what goes on hour after hour, day after day, weeks and years. Nobody ever gets to see all of what goes on in one's life. Passing judgment on a sliver of someone's life is a disservice to oneself and others.

It is here I want to start with the truth, “You don’t know.” People bring their own value judgments to a situation, and while that is on some level human nature, it is not true. We delude ourselves into thinking we may know what is best for another person. Giving people room to be who they are, letting them live with their own choices and taking responsibility for those choices whatever the outcome may be.

I try to live a middle way by trying not attaching feeling or judgment to someone’s choices. This is not easy, judgments come all the time. With meditation there is a chance to see how these judgments surface, note them in my mind and let it fall away. By doing this there is a modicum of clarity in how I view the person.

Delusions is a form of judgment, a way of thinking clouded by justification and living in the past and/or future, not in now. That’s really a different way of seeing the world and people. I don’t want to live that way any longer thinking I know what’s best for another person when I begin from that place of judgment. It is a form suffering for myself and the other person.

COIL'ers 100 + 20, no it's free!

Everyday is a new day. Every chapter is a new chapter. Staring anew everyday. Start from that place life is much easier going. If we see it as a series of days that build on one another, any one event can topple it making it seem like a bigger deal. Knowing that if every day is new, if things didn’t go as as planned one day the next day we get a chance to start fresh.

I’m having a bad day, tomorrow is a new day. How cool is that? Rather than a day, how about each hour, minute or moment is new. Living life with that reality in mind, things get really interesting. There is so much freedom in living with a mindset of moment to moment newness. I think the new buzzword is “mindfulness.” Well living in Japan, mindfulness is an inherent part of the culture and in the air. It has become a big part of me in my day to day living and writing.

If you live moment to moment, rather than think of it as time, think of it as word to word. Each word representing the moment, and like every moment every word is fresh and new never the same. There is no reason to get hung up on what you want to say because it is already there having been revealed in that moment, then the next moment and the next. Well you get the picture.

So it is with my book. Just as I finish revising a chapter, each and everyday chipping away, the next chapter comes along having to start new. My initial reaction, a feeling of an overwhelming task. Then I remember one moment at a time, one word at a time and I begin to chip away at it all over again as I have done with previous chapters. Even if I don’t have a long writing session, I can at least chip away at a few sentences and begin anew. Then little by little, day by day that gets completed and a new chapter begins.

So it is in this spirit that I continue with the next chapter having reached the halfway point of revising my book, 10KLRS.

COIL'ers no 100 +20 today.

I like that I can get things done that I put my mind to. I am still a flawed individual that much I know. Yes there really is no connection between getting things done and being flawed. OR is there? I don’t want to assume just because I get things done that there is nothing else wrong with me or needs to be brought into the light to be examined.

There is definitely things in my life that still need that examination. I like to spend money, I like the pursuit of things, the feeling when purchasing something you want, but don't need. Or the anticipation before meeting someone in hopes of there being chemistry and a connection. My mind goes into imaginative mode whenever that happens. I like that feeling. This is my stuff and it will always be with me ebbing and flowing depending upon my spiritual condition and willingness to let it go.

I do notice it comes on strong whenever there is something going on internally. An emotional upheaval or shaking of the psychological jar revealing some kind of layer of silt that needs to be cleared up. Or a peeling away another layer of metaphorical skin revealing a new vulnerable layer.

The thing is I don’t know if this is even true or not. Because really all we have is now. If I look to the past or into the future, that is delusion. Now if something comes in up the present, that's something different altogether – reality.

I don’t know for certain anything even whether or not there is layers, or jars to be shaken. Was this learned, taught or is it true?

All I know is I don’t want to get mired in any of this stuff so that I can remain open and get it done.

COIL'ers, a new video by Eckhart Tolle recently released. He's an odd fellow as you will see, but what he has to say is poignant and timely.

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I trust my instinct and act on it. Meeting someone on a random corner at a random time last week turned into a nice bike ride with this person that I had wanted to meet. I don’t profess to know what kind of relationship it will be, if any at all, but he is a nice guy and we had a good conversation while cycling along the river.

Acting and trusting instincts is a gift meant to be honed. Trusting what comes out, trusting that feeling, trusting trusting trusting. The more I trust my instinct the more I am comfortable trusting it.

Experience

Experience, failing and learning over time. Experience, gaining a modicum of clarity. Experience, dealing with personal issues so that when that instinctual nudge comes it becomes familiar. Experience, feeling your way in the dark knowing the light will come.

Surrender

Know inherently living a life of insecurity is surrendering to something much larger. With surrender comes power, true power, true nature, true being. Being is presence, presence is power. Not tied to the past or wound up in a knot so tight that it is nearly impossible to untangle. Resulting in everything seen and done out of habit and a narrowly defined prism of one's psyche.

Now

Living in the now, the moment, the being with what is in front of me is the way to do be. Things come together. Ready for whatever will be coming my way.

Timing

Life is timing and timing is what it will be when things are ready to come together. Confluence one into one author, cyclist, teacher, lover, father and more ...

COIL'ers a little something 4U

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My sleep last night was restless. As usual the day before the first day of classes my brain has a tendency to play scripts of what I want to say in a certain order. It’s an auto-pilot switch that cannot be turned off. The only other time I experienced this was the night before a play or a film I was doing. Usually it was the play because we only had one shot at getting it right on stage. With film, if I forgot a line they could do the scene over. I didn’t like to take advantage of that, but on occasion it happened. With teaching classes, I don’t get a do over and I do want to come across as I know what I am doing.

The way in which I teach is a balancing act. I have somewhat of a script, albeit loose allowing for improvisation if something comes up or students don’t quite understand. I like to teach this way because it reminds me on some level of my acting days. We had activities of all kinds that included improvisation. For example, in pairs we were given a scenario, “man finds $100 on the ground, it’s the other persons.” The teacher would give us this one line and say, “Action!” With a partner we were to improvise the lines, make them up as we went along. The only initial rule, do not negate, as in don’t say no, always accept what’s given to you by your partner.

My students are my partners and they give me a lot of information in which I can work from to make their classroom learning experience beneficial and enjoyable. My activities are dynamic and engaging with a variety of activities with students changing partners often.

The online classes are a bit more of a challenge as we lose the dynamic energy of face-to-face connections. I am still able to make it work as evident of the first day of classes. They were engaged and able to do what was asked of them. As we move on to more classes it will become more challenging and dynamic from an online perspective asking more of their efforts and engagement. And with my improvisation background I do not have to negate their experience and can change plans midstream to meet their demands in what they are asking. Even if they don’t know they are asking. It is just a matter of paying attention.

Teaching fifteen classes a week (100 minutes per class) online will be demanding. I am up to the challenge and look forward to trying out new activities and ways of doing things that I hope will improve and enhance their learning experience.

COIL'ers, no 100+20 today!

What I write for warm ups doesn't really matter. It is literally warming the fingers to the keyboard and making room for the words to flow from my mind to the screen. There is a gap of time, but not so much that I miss the words as they come. It takes practice to see the words in the mind’s eye, grab it and let it come out unimpeded so that it can make some kind of sense to the reader. Well, actually warming up topics do not need to make any sense at all. It is just getting the words out. I don’t come to this with some sort of agenda it is just a flowing of words. A melding of the process of the now into the now.

I find that if I do not finish a sentence or thought it just hovers there in my mind waiting to be expressed. It’s like a customer at the local 7-11 waiting in line. Next! I tend to want to explain the metaphor not trusting that the reader will connect to it. It is one of those areas I want to let go of and simply let the metaphor speak for itself. It must be some sort of control wanting people to understand exactly my meaning. People will connect to it and derive meaning however they will. It is not up to me. Just as they asked Bob Dylan to provide meaning to his lyrics, his response, “I don’t man! That’s not my job! You figure it out!”

There is something to be learned about the idea of not really on some level caring about the meaning and just letting people figure it out. That is assuming that people are smarter than we let on. I see it all the time in movies and TV shows wrapping up meaning in a nice little bow for the viewer to understand without having to ever give any effort or imagination on their part. It's offensive.

As far back as I can remember I have been drawn to words. Not obsessively, just interested in them. I liked taking long words and figuring out how to use them in context. I wouldn’t look up the meaning of the words, simply determine in what context they could be used. In my early days of wordsmithing, I would use a word incorrectly. Some people would point it out and others would just nod as if I knew I used it correctly.

I usually didn’t look up the meaning of words. It came to me naturally. Naturally in the sense that I would hear a certain word used multiple times and determines its meaning. Take the word preposterous. Basically meaning far-fetched, ridiculous. I never looked up the meaning, but heard it used so often that I learned the meaning of the word. “That is a preposterous claim,” one debater saying to another on one of the political talk shows my Father used to watch.

Usually these types of words I heard in the background of my life. During my childhood the political and talk shows where these words were uttered were not the kind of shows I watched. Playing army, or a board game with my brother, my Father would be sitting in his plush, plaid corduroy chair smoking his pipe while watching these shows. It was here that unconsciously these words would become a part of my lexicon later in life.

As an adult, I would be having a conversation with a friend and out comes the word, “The way in which he argued his point was preposterous. It made no sense to me.” These were what I called “SAT,” or “Scholastic Aptitude Test,” words. SAT is an American high school college readiness test. This test had all kinds of these words. I didn't score well, but somehow the words would naturally rise to the surface. The only time it wasn’t natural is when I tried to force one of the many words rooted in my unconscious to come out. It was only when I let go and spoke without a thought that the word would come out contextually perfect.

To this day I rarely look up words. If I do it is to make sure the spelling is correct or to use a synonym of another word in case I have used one word too many times. The thing is, I don’t want to alienate my readers by adding way too many SAT words. Only a well placed SAT word here and there keeps it interesting. My readers prefer, like myself simple, clear and direct.

Then I do like to shake things up a bit.

COIL'ers for you ...

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Don't want to be alarmist, but this sh%t's for real.

I was all hyped up on fear and hysteria because of reading all the reports on the corona virus. Not Just because of the actual virus, but because most governments are spitballing and making it up as they go along.

That is not to say they are doing what they can behind the scenes, but the reality is they are clueless on some level as to the extent of the details of what life will be like post pandemic. We are beginning to get a glimpse of how bad it will be. I said from the get-go, the aftermath will be worse.

The problem with globalization

I am no expert let’s clear this up first and foremost. I am simply a guy who pays attention, reads, writes, observes and has lived outside the borders of the country in which I grew up. This gives me a perspective which many don’t have. Even as I read the stories and op-ed pieces from well known American journalists on the corona virus and globalization I hear an American bent to their tone. It’s not their fault they live there and cannot see beyond the borders despite their convincing language. Sure they may have traveled to other countries, but a tourist does not give one a global perspective. Living outside of the US for more than a decade I have had to confront my own cultural biases, expectations and question who I really am in this world. The answer to that, it depends.

We may be living in an interconnected global world, but it is time to rethink what that means and at what cost, because it is not working. Those it benefits, the wealthier nations and corporations. No not another conspiracy theorist, realist. A realist in the sense that I see reality.

The media paints a white rosy picture of globalization where everyone benefits. This is absolutely not true. Tracing the path of globalization, there has been some benefit, lifting countries out of poverty. At what cost? Who really benefits in the end?

Where this is all going I have no idea. It is my hope that leaders and people will rethink how to do things in the future. Globalization as we know is not something for meant for corporations driven by profit, looking only out for number one, rather it is a world community looking out for each other. The goal, making sure everyone is taken care of and not letting one person fall below the poverty level, be without a home, food, clothing, education or health care.

Starting from that place, globalization 2.0 will look very different and my hope, sustainable.

A little extra for you subscribed COIL'ers.

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