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Illustration by Marco Mancini

Among other things, I lack the dedication required to be a writer. It may sound like sour grapes but I like to think that this is mostly because I'm too busy living my life, which to me means interacting with the world as opposed to a computer screen. Also, quite unlike my tirelessly humble self, writers write because they believe they're good at it. Don't give me any of that romantic sputum like they have no choice, like they're compelled to write by an irresistible urge, like they're seized by guilt when they don't. Twaddle! They write because they feel they have keen perception, the ability to take profound notice of things, and the puffed-up desire to share these confidences.

By no means am I criticizing the act of writing. In fact, I'm eternally grateful to every egomaniacal author who has stimulated me in any way. My point is that I feel all writers must, to a certain extent, disregard their mortality by choosing to face a color monitor every day rather than the world outside their windows. Accordingly, if life is short, taking time out to write for an audience warrants appreciation if not for the talented use of craft employed in the prose, then for the hours sacrificed to provide detailed accounts for the attention of others.

However, when writing is good, the time spent getting it that way is not often considered because of the ease with which it reads. On the other hand, when a writer happens to be objectively wrong about his or her abilities, displaying a false confidence about his or her originality, never does writing reveal more clearly that precious moments have been blatantly squandered.

If you buy any of what I'm saying even with your disbelief suspended, I'd like to draw your attention to the shameful waste of seconds that resulted in the rant entitled Hateus Japanus Expatricus (issue 367). If I hear one more tedious monologue about the foreign population being unappreciative of Japan I'll start vomiting blood because I'll certainly be out of bile by then.

The only thing more tiresome than listening to people complain about Japan is to be subjected to finger waggers who heave it upon themselves to complain about the complainers. Sure, if you don't like this place, go home or at least keep it to yourself. I can't see how this issue merits more attention. Unless of course you feel the need to condescendingly wag your finger at all the pathetic mortals stricken with homesickness. Moreover, I loathe the implication that it is possible to thoroughly abandon one's conditioning and view this country through completely impartial eyes.

So you've never complained about Japan. Do you want a medal, you self-congratulatory fraud? Let us all kneel before the splendor of the worldly expat whose sympathy for cultural relativism knows no bounds. Beyond the unappreciative, you, my foreign fellow, are the most utterly unendurable of the lot. Get a life or go home with the rest of them.

Many thanks to Stefan David Martin for this Rant.