By TD Houchen

From the inception of this column, I’ve intended to offer

whatever bits of wisdom I might have accumulated over the course of my almost 7 years living on planet Japan, in the hopes that you don’t make the same mistakes I’ve made, or something like that. It’s supposed to be a sort of advice column given in the form of social commentary, Japan-style. I’ve discussed primarily Japan-esque topics such as tatemae- honne and isshin denshin, and I’ve gotten myself in deep dookie after having dished out and perpetuated stereotypes of both Japanese women as well as us nutty foreign dudes, essentially, I’ve been trying to make your stay here a bit less irritating, while trying to be vaguely entertaining, though I’m not sure what success I might have had. It’s still pretty irritating for me here, despite my best efforts, however, I do think I’ve had marginal success making my life slightly more entertaining, yours too I hope.

Maybe I’m irritating to me, I’m trying to suss it.

In this installment of WIR, I’d like to flip the script and offer up the advice to do your own thing at all cost, instead of trying to do as the Romans are doing. Sure, I’m going out on a limb here, telling you to buck whatever trend you see being forced upon you in favor of following your own pied piper, even if he leads to disaster, but that’s exactly what I’m telling you to do and here’s why.

It’s a spiritual thing. See, once you’ve latched your boat to the next guy’s, you’ve also tied yourself to his karma, be it good bad or indifferent. Remember when you were a kid and somebody might take the Lord’s name in vain and you’d move a few feet away from that person, hoping that the coming lightning bolt didn’t accidentally scorch you while it torched your friend? Yeah, so, Karma is a bit like that, in that, if you’re following the next guy, or the next guy’s trends, you’ve increased the likelihood that you’ll reap what he has sown. You don’t want to do this. Unless you’ve got no ideas or mind of your own, which, as an avid and faithful reader of RAN, I’m sure you do.

You need to carve the path, instead of just walking on it. You need to give those ideas that are swirling around your dome sustenance and feed your imagination. It causes you to

become like a sort of positive energy vibrational magnet, who doesn’t want to be a positive energy vibrational magnet? You’d do yourself a huge favor by becoming a PEVM, you could do much worse.

Doing your own thing sets you up as an attractor of energy for which your projects can survive, and thrive. Playing follow the leader allows you to only see the guy directly in front of you, and chances are, there are several guys in front of the guy in front of you, when do you ever see The Front?

You don’t.

There’s that song about New York, Frankie sang, “..if I can make it there/I’ll make it anywhere..”, make it wherever you already are. Hell, think it’s easy making it in a country as homogenous and notoriously resistant to change and difference than Japan? No way man.

If you’re able to strap up your boots here and carve your path, create your identity, and thrive as a missionary of independent thinking in a land where independent thinking has been all but banned, you’ve earned your stripes and given yourself the green light to succeed almost anywhere.

We support you here at RAN. This piece is not a shameless plug or self-promotion, it’s a write-up letting you know you’ve got a friend, a potential business ally, a partner, a ready- made-support-staff here at RAN magazine. Our creed is that we’re here as a bunch of people who want to bend the world to our path, not the other way around. We’ve all got ideas and dreams and RAN is the physical manifestation of lots of those dreams.

If we can do it, so can you. I’m no military brat, however that axiom Be All That You Can Be repeats itself in my mind on a daily basis.

While everyone else is going around complaining about the lack of whatever there is or isn’t to do, you be the one to do it. Plan that event, open that business, shoot that movie, build that school, there is no time like the present.

Therefore, as my man Vinnie Vintage implores, do

you/’cause I’ma do me…..

Be All That You Can Be.

Right About Now…