Japan changed my outlook on 2025

guzzling nigiri while my ancestors roll in their graves

I was offline in the latter half of December, vacationing in Japan with my partner. And by “offline,” I mean I powered down my brain so inappropriately that my response time, paired with the time difference, was abysmal. Loved ones must have thought I was dead. I blamed it on poor signal, but the truth is far less glamorous: I spent ten straight days in a wagyu-induced coma. “Sorry, I didn’t call back, Mount Fuji’s blocking the WiFi” sounds better than “I’m too busy trying to metabolize my fourth round of marbled bliss.”

Two weeks have passed since then, and I still feel like it was a fever dream. It took me a while to form cohesive thoughts again, my first days back at work one long, unrelenting brain fart. Everyone asked, “How was Japan?” The other day, I watched Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night. In it, a line by Ella Hunt’s Gilda Radner subtitles my trip better than I can:

“Do you ever have nostalgia for a moment when you’re still in it?... Thinking about how you’re going to think of it while it’s still happening?”

There are only a handful of days each year when I truly get a chance like this to unplug. Travel jolts me out of routine and lets me mainline childhood wonder for a little while. When you’re a kid, everything feels new and exciting – a Lip Smacker is Dior Lip Oil, a glance from your crush an orgasm. Time moves slower when life surprises you. In Japan, every view and vending machine cheated death. Every warabimochi so plump and perfect, I was basically seven-years-old again, blitzing my taste buds with Twinkies.

Choosing these pics was like picking a favorite child. Below, I present a few moments from Japan that altered my brain chemistry:

1. A quaint matcha shop run by two grandpas, where I got an impromptu tea ceremony. Imagine buying a donut and receiving a private baking lesson. A salad but having to sustainably farm for it. Take notes, America.

2. A Japanese head spa where I got a 90-minute scalp massage and a verbal takedown. Apparently, my scalp is too patchy, dandruff-y, and definitely not protagonist material. My masseuse read me for filth, fixed me up, and knocked me out like a drill sergeant.

3. Fresh toro so abundant it became a casual snack. A true menace to society. Did I sometimes walk 20K steps and “earn” it? Sure. Did I other times treat myself to a second breakfast after my hotel buffet? Absolutely. No one judged me except my pants.

4. The deer at Nara literally bow to you. BOW. Forget birth control ads – just show people these polite, mannered deer and say, “Wouldn’t you rather have this than a toddler?”

5. Everything in Japan is just aggressively adorable. Case in point: Snoopy Cafe. Even the trash cans are cuter than me on my best day.

6. More grandpas. This time, with drip.

At the start of 2025, my friends and I were texting, reflecting on life (read: spiraling about 2024 coming to an end). One of them asked: “What were the best years of your life?” Without missing a beat, we all picked when we were younger.

My friend on a grad school travel bender was the only outlier who said 2024. The rest of us are caught in a corporate Bermuda Triangle, where every year feels like a slightly worse sequel. As we get older, the years blur together, leaving less room for spontaneity, for vibrancy.

My first thought was: how can I make a conscious effort to cram in more new experiences this year? How do I break free from unchanging rhythms without feeling like I’m overhauling my life, my identity? January doesn’t help. Newton says an object at rest stays at rest; I say in winter, it stays under a heated blanket.

I told myself I’d kick off 2025 by stacking up trips and making lists of things I wanted to try. More grand destinations, more new friends, more wish-listed clothing I don’t need – just more. Pick things up, test them out, toss them if they don’t fit. (Also, how ironic is it that my strategy for spontaneity is… scheduling it? “Here, let me pencil in some unplanned joy between my GCal alerts.” Definitely something to unpack later).

But therein lies the catch: once you’ve had freshly-caught toro from Tsujiki Outer Market at 7 am, you will never look at a California roll the same way again. Holding space for spontaneity sounds cute until it turns into a hamster wheel. The more fun I have, the less I can go back to routine. This is how shopping addictions start, or why narcissists go to space. Jeff Bezos isn’t chasing a roller coaster dopamine rush at Disneyland anymore; he’s aiming for the literal stars.

Is that what it means to live? Endlessly chasing novelty while quietly lamenting our lost innocence? Now, moments of true awe feel like rare vintage pieces, and the more I collect, the deeper the well reaches. The line between excitement and entropy becomes finer. I worry about my friends on gap years, making memories that will eventually hit them harder than a comedown. I am a connoisseur of my own doom, and jadedness is the price I pay for age.

The paradox is: I crave new experiences, but I’m terrified of what they do to me. Maybe there’s a reason my body went numb after Japan – it wasn’t built for an endless barrage of information, consumption, ambition, for this much living. For 20 flights in a year, 193 new restaurants to fill my Beli, or 88 Letterboxd movie reviews so I can have my finger on the pulse. I wasn’t meant to process 5 TikToks in 60 seconds, cycling through my astrological reading and the socio-politico-economic state of the world. My younger years felt fuller with less, because I saw one great movie, thought about it for a month, and had nothing to compare it to. Now, comparison is the thief of joy, and novelty its equally evil twin.

In 2025, my resolution is simple: Simplify. Streamline. (Tech bro vernacular has its moments). Make room for surprise, without frying my senses. Chase emptiness, boredom even. This doesn’t necessarily mean surrendering to routine, but rather carving out time for spontaneous boredom. I want to play “Chopped” by clearing out my fridge. Thrift in the clothes I’ve had for a decade. Read a book and let my brain marinate in one thought at a time. I don’t need more streaming subscriptions. I don’t want my mind to feel like a skincare drawer with half-used serums. And I definitely don’t want to be in a wagyu coma so intense I can’t text my loved ones back. I want to leave work an hour early to catch a friend’s weekday improv show, or set a weekend alarm to roam quiet morning streets. Maybe I’ll even eat a California roll again. Not because it’s better than toro, but because it’s worth remembering why it mattered in the first place.