evening ferry hums—
no one on the upper deck,
only the wind speaks
In the autumn of 2014, I found myself somewhere between Kagoshima and Nagasaki, sitting on the upper deck of a rust-stained ferry as it drifted quietly across the inland sea. I had no real destination—just a pocketful of yen, a notebook with too many empty pages, and the kind of ache that follows you when you’ve left something behind but haven’t yet found anything to walk toward.
There were only three other passengers on board: a salaryman snoring softly under a newspaper, a girl with red headphones staring into nothing, and an old man who kept feeding crackers to invisible birds. The wind smelled faintly of engine oil and salt. I liked it.
I didn’t have a plan. I told myself I was traveling. But really, I was waiting for my life to catch up to me. Or to pass me by completely, I wasn’t sure which.
That evening, a boy on the ferry staff asked me in broken English,
“Where you see yourself… ten years from now?”
I laughed—more out of reflex than amusement.
It’s the kind of question that’s asked with good intentions but almost never met with a true answer.
Ten years?
Ten years ago, I still believed in things like clarity, strategy, permanent addresses.
Now, I was somewhere off the coast of Kyushu with a half-dead phone and no one expecting me.
I didn’t answer the boy.
Not then.
But I’ve thought about that question more times than I care to admit.
The Quiet Rule
If you want to go far in life—really far, not fast, not famous—you have to follow one rule:
Never lie to yourself.
Neverrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
That’s what I’ve come to believe.
And I say it like that—with too many r’s—because it’s easy to forget how serious it is.
You can lie to others.
You can play roles, adjust to rooms, bend for moments.
But the minute you lie to yourself,
something starts to rot inside.
Not loudly.
Not suddenly.
But slowly, like fruit left in a drawer you never open.
On that trip, I told myself I was free.
I told myself I didn’t need connection.
I told myself I was above regret.
But late at night, in ryokan rooms with thin futons and paper walls,
I heard the truth knocking.
I wasn’t free.
I was floating.
I wasn’t detached.
I was afraid.
I wasn’t thriving.
I was hiding in motion.
And no amount of train transfers or convenience store onigiri would change that.
What Ten Years Actually Means
When people ask where you see yourself in ten years,
they’re really asking if you believe your future self will be more honest than your current one.
They’re asking if the person you’ll become is someone who knows when to stop,
when to leave,
when to love without pretending.
I don’t know what city I’ll live in.
I don’t know if I’ll be partnered or alone,
teaching, writing, or stacking chairs in a late-night jazz bar.
But I do know this:
I want to be the kind of man who can look himself in the mirror at 2 a.m. and say,
“Yes. This is still you.”
What Travel Taught Me
In Kyushu, I learned that the path isn’t always forward.
Sometimes it loops.
Sometimes it sits still.
Sometimes it climbs a forested slope that offers no view.
But if you’re honest—truly honest—it becomes enough.
I met a woman in a café near Aso who told me she used to be an architect in Tokyo.
Now she made ceramic cups with uneven rims.
She said,
“I like when the clay wobbles. It shows where my hand slipped. I want my work to remember me.”
That stayed with me.
Still does.
Wabi-Sabi: The Truth We Avoid
Wabi-sabi teaches us that the crack isn’t the problem—it’s the evidence.
Of time.
Of touch.
Of effort.
When we lie to ourselves, we polish over the cracks.
We pretend the structure is still sound.
We say things like “I’m fine,” “This is normal,” “It’s not that bad.”
But when we stop lying, we begin to live.
Wabi-sabi reminds us:
- Truth doesn’t need to be pretty. It needs to be real.
- A life with uneven lines has character. Depth. Soul.
- It’s better to be a cracked bowl that holds warmth than a perfect one left on a shelf.
So, Where Do I See Myself?
If I’m honest?
In ten years, I hope I’m still telling the truth.
Still building quietly.
Still leaving room for silence.
Still chasing meaning, not metrics.
Maybe I’ll own a small shop—books, tea, repaired things.
Maybe I’ll live near the sea again.
Maybe I’ll still walk each morning without headphones,
just listening to my own feet on the road.
But more than anything,
I want to be a man who never lied to himself—
not about what he wanted,
not about who he loved,
not about what he feared.
That would be enough.
That would be everything.
life 