September Rain

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

The day my daughter came home and said "school taught us Japan is a bad country."

Lowest crime rate on Earth.
Literacy near 100%.
We form a line in a disaster instead of looting.

I asked her to tell me where the "bad" part starts.

To my kids: this country is yours. Hold your head up.

[September Rain @September1840]

@elvenminstrel @SunWeatherMan The noise will be intentional to drown out all the signals. They just need to keep the veil down for another decade.

[September Rain @September1840]

@drhingram moar

[September Rain @September1840]

@Sarge2909 @1Nicdar @keefer1536 Putting this off for as long as possible is my strategy

[September Rain @September1840]

@PolitiBunny

[September Rain @September1840]

@wbrienb @zachariaspro There is a long history of disasters on Earth. Some seem to happen on a somewhat predictable frequency. We are in that range for the next event now, but it is probably 11-12 or 23-24 years away. It seems the needle is shifting to the sooner rather than later.

[September Rain @September1840]

@ReviewsPossum Evergreen 🌲

[September Rain @September1840]

Powerful

[September Rain @September1840]

@HashZappa There are many Observers

[September Rain @September1840]

@manhattanmaker @HardPass4 @jarvis_best @malletcncworks Nice cutting boards!

[September Rain @September1840]

Happy June 4th to all who celebrate!

[SpaceWeatherNews @SunWeatherMan]

THANK YOU! ~ 300 MILLION VIEWS on YOUTUBE

Much appreciated 🙏🙏🙏🙏

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A potluck. Everyone brings one dish. I have never been so out of my depth in my life.

I was invited to a gathering. "Just bring a dish to share," they said. Simple words. I did not sleep for three days.

Because I understood instantly what this was. A summit. Every guest, a lord of their own house, arriving bearing tribute. And tribute is judged. Tribute is ranked. To bring the wrong dish to the wrong table is to fall in standing before your peers, possibly forever.

So I prepared. I made my finest dish. I carried it to the door with two hands and a straight back, braced for the weighing of my worth.

The first lord arrived with a bowl of orange powder noodles. Macaroni and cheese. The crowd roared. He set it down at the center of the table. The CENTER. I noted this. The center is the seat of power.

The second lord brought a tower of small brown meat orbs in red sauce. "Meatballs," he announced, like a man laying down a sword. They were placed beside the macaroni. A strong showing. An alliance, perhaps.

I studied the table like a battlefield map. Potato salad: defensive, reliable, old money. A vegetable tray, untouched, clearly a hostage offering no one expected to win. And then a woman walked in, raised a flat box overhead, and the entire room turned and CHEERED.

Pizza. She had brought pizza. Store-bought. Still in the box.

I was stunned. She had not even cooked it. And yet the people rejoiced as if a king had entered. I revised my entire understanding of the hierarchy on the spot. Effort means nothing here. Only the roar of the crowd decides rank.

I placed my dish down, humbly, near the napkins. A peasant's position. I accepted it.

And then a man tapped my shoulder, pointed at my dish, and said the words that changed everything.

"Whoa, did you make this? This is amazing. Everybody, you GOTTA try this guy's thing."

The room turned. The room came. The room ATE. My dish vanished in ninety seconds. The pizza woman herself took a second helping and looked at me with respect.

I had won the summit. By accident. With a dish I placed by the napkins.

I understand nothing about this country. I have never been happier. I am hosting the next one.

So tell me, America.

Is there a system to the potluck? A secret rank? A hidden law?

I have decided there is not.

You just bring the thing you love, and everyone eats it, and somehow everybody wins.

It is the most insane way to hold a war.

I will fight in every single one.

[September Rain @September1840]

Better than reading the stoics

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

USA. A house. The garage is full, so the car sleeps in the rain.

I walked past an open garage today, and I finally understand Americans.

The garage was packed to the ceiling. Boxes. A treadmill. Old chairs. Three bicycles hanging from hooks. Christmas lights in a plastic tub. No room for even one more thing.

And the family car? Parked outside. In the driveway. Getting rained on.

I stood there, deeply moved.

In Japan, we put the car in the garage and the boxes in the house. Americans do the opposite. And now I see why.

The garage is the treasure house. Inside it sleep the sacred relics: the bicycle the child outgrew, the chair no one sits in, the lights that shine one week a year. These must be protected at all costs.

The car is not a treasure. The car is a warrior. So the car is given the highest honor a warrior can receive. It stands guard at the gate, in the storm, all night, so the treasures stay dry.

The owner came out with his coffee. He saw me looking and shook his head.

"Yeah, I really gotta clean out that garage," he said.

Clean it out? I bowed to him. "You are a good man," I said. "Your car guards your home with its life."

He looked at his car. He looked at me. He said, "...thanks?"

He has never thought of it that way. But I could tell he liked it.

So now every morning I walk past, and I bow to the car in the driveway.

It has the hardest job in the family, and it never complains.

The owner waves at me now. He thinks we are friends.

We are. But mostly, I am here for the car.

This morning it was raining again. The car was soaked, still guarding the gate, still faithful.

So I gave it my umbrella.

I do not need it. I have known harder rain.

A warrior on duty should not have to stand in the storm alone.

[Jarvis @jarvis_best]

My god

[September Rain @September1840]

@manhattanmaker @HardPass4 @jarvis_best That’s awesome, where is the web store?

[September Rain @September1840]

@DavidWong1972 @Rothmus What do you call a paraplegic at the beach?

[September Rain @September1840]

@DavidWong1972 @Rothmus What do you call a baby turning blue?

[Trilochan Singh 🎧 @SinghInSerenity]

The ability to laugh at a joke and the ability to stand up for what's right are two completely different things.
I've met kind people with a dark sense of humor, and cruel people with perfect manners.
Character is revealed by how you treat others in real life, not by which jokes make you laugh.

[September Rain @September1840]

The Turkey bots are out in force