Peace, Love, and "Fam"archy! (Thoughts from Ueda Castle, Nagano, Japan.)

I'm a recluse. A hermit. A creature that comes out of its shell after a few whisky highballs or a good topic being broached. I know there's a lot of people like this. I'm not trying to sound special. Just feel like documenting this, my family's most recent excursion from the seaside of Niigata to the hills of Nagano. But first. I'm gonna eat some curry rice and gulp down a couple cold Premium Malts beers. Be back in a second.

Okay. That's better. Now watching TV with my in-laws. Isaiah, my son is playing off to the side with a new Power-Rangers-looking toy his grandma bought for him this afternoon. It's a somewhat rare moment of peace where he seems to be content to be in his own world playing with his toys and just calmly talking to himself. As the beer goes down I start to understand more and more of what the comedians on TV are saying.

Today we went to Ueda Castle, here in Ueda City, Nagano, Japan. It's Obon week (A holiday in which families gather together to honor the spirits of their ancestors) and there was also a special, unrelated samurai event going on at the castle. That means lots of food, people, and interesting stuff going on. The cicadas were singing at full blast as well, which was nice.

I had wanted to come here because I noticed the previous night there was a Bitcoin drop on the castle grounds. I enjoy geocaching with Bitcoin via the Takara app for iOS. With a little help from my wife I was able to make the pick-up. We went on to walk around a bit, see the sights, and then have a beer and a snow cone near the entrance. You can check out the vid and my one-question interview with my wife here:

After leaving the castle we headed out to a nearby ramen shop, got our fill, and then tried to hit the planetarium. No go. Planetarium was closed. Fall asleep in car. My son does, too.

When we got back I continued my nap upstairs, having weird, super heavy mud sleep dreams of being a vigilante murderer dude and having to hide the fact that I have a room full of bodies and blood and guts of the bad guys I have taken out. Go figure. Who knows. I just know I wasn't really a "bad guy" but I also couldn't let my identity or profession be discovered. That would have been the end.

I wake up. Leave my life of vigilantism temporarily behind, and go downstairs to find my son playing with his new toy. These days, all I can think about is writing. After quitting my main gig, it is important to stay on top of things. Even before all this though, I have sometimes had a hard time playing with my son and staying interested. Especially since half the time I have to follow his instructions to a T or be told I am doing it all wrong, and watch him get immensely frustrated. I get frustrated, too.

I am still figuring all this out. I think it is somewhat normal. I also think that his extreme frustration and bent toward unreasonable perfectionism is a partial result of all the shouting matches my wife and I have had throughout his infancy and early childhood. We are getting better, but so far from "perfect."

We decide to go outside. It's nicer here, and we both can feel more free. Now we can race and play and we're both having a good time.

The way of the peaceful parent is not easy. The way of the anarchist is not easy. We are breaking cycles which have been violently passed down for thousands of generations. We fuck up. But you know what? Hey. Here I am, in my own imperfect way, doing it. And I commend you dear reader, wherever you are, for doing it too.

We'll be leaving Nagano tomorrow. My wife was just telling my mother-in-law for the first time about the medicinal properties of cannabis, corruption in the vaccine industry, and that 9/11 was an inside job, all in one conversation. I had to laugh. It is like trying to feed 17 pizzas to somebody all at once. Not even really possible, but it's possible that a little seed of truth is planted every time. I couldn't help but feel proud, and happy too.

Anyway, in the words of my son:

PEACE, LOVE, and ANARCHY.

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Graham Smith is a Voluntaryist activist, writer, and musician residing in Niigata, Japan.