Tokyo Zombies in a Pirate Summer – Depression, Anarchy, and the Great Outdoors

A City on Zombie Alert

Visited Tokyo last week for the first time in three months for some business, and to attend the weekly Bitcoin Cash meetup there.

Rolling in on the shinkansen, I could see things had changed since March. Nearly everyone was now masked. I mean almost 100 percent of the denizens of that great city. The city was under a new ‘Tokyo Alert’ (an official phrase used for the first time in history) whose exact meaning and implications people in Tokyo didn’t know anything about. What they did know was that Rainbow Bridge and the government building in Shinjuku were lit up in red. That’s scary, so something must not be going well!

The official justification for the lighting theatrics was a slight rise in Covid-19 new cases. While I was there the towers were red one night and blue the next, as the cases had ostensibly fallen. The psychological effect this had was noticeable even for me. And I don’t believe all their bullshit. Emotions are powerful. My friend who’s into coding put it best:

Set_mood = fear

It was amazing to see the decay of the social and economic situation in that massive, sprawling metropolis. At the very center of the city, one of the most popular meeting places in summertime — an outdoor sunken terrace surrounded by restaurants — was basically dead. I shared the Yebisu restaurant with one other customer at 7:30 pm on a Thursday night. There’s no way this situation is even close to sustainable.

Yet, everyone is wearing their masks, being good little citizens. Not really complaining or making a fuss. Compulsively sanitizing hands entering and leaving stores while simultaneously fiddling with their faces to adjust their masks, smoking, talking loudly and spitting on each other at restaurants, etc.

The summer heat in Tokyo is like no other. Stifling, humid, stultifyingly hot as the sun is sucked into all that pavement, radiated full force back into people’s faces in the sauna-like, windless concrete jungle, ad absorbed into every miserable, sweaty body. Still, masks. Even fuckers exercising. Jesus. I tried to explain to some students of mine that they likely don’t even help, and that their ‘experts’ have said as much, but it was no use. One lady just looked at me like I was some kind of freak and said: ‘But why didn’t you wear a mask?’

Depression

Witnessing this economic and human socio-spiritual decay has really taken a toll on me through this lunacy, and in waves. I came back from Tokyo addicted to Minecraft (tried it for the first time before leaving, with my son) and with about zero desire to try to accomplish anything anymore, because what is the point? If the world is this retarded, why should I try?

This kind of thinking and funk hits me sometimes. Just gotta go with it a bit, not fully buying into it, but also rolling with it and fully accepting it. It sucks being viewed almost as some sort of pariah for not going along with the fear campaign, but one still must live for themselves. Woke up this morning after four days of this funk and self-loathing and decided to get back into life. If they wanna be dumbasses, fine. I have anarchy. I got running. I got the beach and sea and rivers and my family is awesome. Decided to focus on that, and the few friends I have here who aren’t duped, and get back at it.

The BCH meetup was encouraging as well, because those folks aren’t zombified, either, for the most part.

Upcoming Run/Interview With Pete Quinones, and His New Documentary

In the interest of looking forward, then, I’ve been planning a full marathon (actually a bit longer, so technically an ‘ultra’) with a friend, down a beautiful stretch of coastline by Murakami City called the ‘Sasagawa-nagare.’ It’s gonna be hot, and will require some training, so that will be good to keep me focused. If they want to cancel everything we have been preparing for and training for and enthusiastically anticipating, fuck ’em. We’ll do it ourselves. We’re gonna make this one a charity event as well, like our previous Sakura Cash Run back in April. I’ll post some donation info soon for those who may want to support.

In other news, I was recently on the Free Man Beyond the Wall podcast with Pete Quinones, a strong voice of reason and principled anarchy in libertarian circles. I couldn’t listen to it myself, because I was too nervous, and rambling, but if you’d like to check it out, you can do so here. I think maybe I get warmed up toward the end. Further, Pete’s documentary, The Monopoly on Violence has just been released, and I highly recommend giving it a watch. It clearly demonstrates the anarchy is not only the moral alternative to statism, but that it is also the historically favored, logical, and practical one.

For now, until they try to start jabbing everyone with that vaccine they’ve said is coming in 2021, it’s enjoying nature and my tribe, and making money however. I’ve also been enjoying the various stimulus measures that have been taken here, getting as much of my stolen loot back as a can, and trying to use it for enjoyment and sound investments before their filthy fiat goes to zero or is replaced by digi-dollars and yen, as it were.

Thanks for stopping by, as always.

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