One of the most famous saying of Japan roughly translates as “The frog living in the well doesn’t know the big sea”.
The meaning is that the people living in a small community, closed in themselves, can’t even imagine how truly big the world is: of all the “Truths” in this world, I feel like this one resonates with me the most. In most of my (relatively) brief existence, I kept accumulating knowledge of many different things, jumping here and there, from a small puddle of notions to another one, like a stupid frog, and finally I reached the big sea: Tokyo. In all these years, I have been proud of knowing many things, but I always approached every new experience with the mindset of a frog: being humble, slowly diving deep into every water with my pace.
But now I’ll be in Tokyo and the perspective of the frog really feels heavy in front of a city way bigger than any city I have visited yet. Images, sounds, smells, feelings, tastes, no matter how crazy I can imagine, I already know that none of my thoughts will be close to reality, so I’ll just wait to jump into my flight in 9 hours from now (and the article will be posted 2 days after my actual departure). Shit. But also. Exciting shit. In any case, shit.
For all you out there who don’t like these sentimentalism, I’ll say it clear: I won’t be touching the blog until pretty much mid-september. The first two weeks will be hectic because of immigration procedures and documents and many other things so yeah, you may probably hear from me on Instagram (@edgeofbobo) and nothing more. And after that, I have no idea. Completely blank. Of course I’ll try to work onto something while I’m away, but I don’t know how and when so yeah, I don’t know what to say. You can still comment, request songs or anything you want, it’s likely that’ll reply to that.
In this summer I experienced some new things on this blog. I translated an entire album from Miura Daichi, an artist I hadn’t even ever listened to, and managed to obtain a somewhat decent result with my interpretation. On top of that, thanks to that the blog received an important boost in view (from an average of 3000 per month, to a whooping 4200 in July and a ridiculous 5500+ in August) and many interesting interaction with some users about my content. I’m very much happy, especially because it felt like it bloomed from the effort I put in the blog (but I’m not so stupid to think that it is all thanks to me and my effort).
Also, suggested by a commenter, I decided to open a page on Ko-fi, a site where you can donate freely a “coffee” (3$) to support me. I don’t expect anyone to donate, but it’s there. I did it mostly to think about the blog in a more “serious” way rather than a simple past-time: I hope this change of mind was also reflected in the latest content.
At this point, I feel like I’m too hype for the departure and I can’t help but rambling stupid shit that doesn’t interest anyone so I’ll just stop here.
Thank you to everybody, followers, supporters, readers and pretty much anyone who interacted with my work. I’m smiling. I’m happy.