There is an unease I feel when I look at people in Japan today.
In an age of market fluctuation and a steadily weakening JPY, many seem drawn to the promise of quick money under the glittering crown of what is “buzzing.” The chase itself looks innocent—just a video, just a post, just a side income. Yet the direction of this shared momentum leaves me unsettled.
As someone who has lived outside the country for nearly half my life, Japan has always been my reference point. Whenever I faced perplexity or personal difficulty in India, it was the image of Japan and its people that centred me—a place of restraint, dignity, and an implicit pledge to the larger good. That image functioned as a moral anchor.
That is why it hurts to realise how rapidly opinions and expressions appear to be drifting toward something cheaper and more careless. What once appeared thoughtful now frequently seems rushed; what once felt principled now feels transactional. Behind this shift lies excessive capitalism or monetarism—forces that cannot be separated from today’s economic anxiety. When survival feels unsure, values are often the first to be compromised.
I sense a narrowing of perspective. As the country moves toward 2026, many people seem to view the world only through their own borders. Their mental journeys rarely go beyond what is immediate, profitable, and personal. A prevailing attitude emerges: money, the moment, and the self are all that matter.
Within this mindset, countless people produce—or reproduce—propaganda-like content without malicious intent. They do it to earn a little extra, to keep up, to stay visible. The harm is rarely recognised. Yet such repetition shapes narratives, distorts self-image, and quietly affects how a nation is perceived, both by itself and by others.
Ironically, had I not returned, I might never have noticed this change so clearly. Distance had preserved an older image in my mind. Coming back forced me to face how deeply the pull of money has infiltrated everyday thinking. Today, I no longer know whether the Japanese person I am speaking with holds a thoughtful, self-aware set of principles. At times, I even find myself viewing the person in front of me as fundamentally different from myself—much as I once did when I was new to India.
I am not composing this from a position of comfort. I, too, struggle to regain the income level I once had. Stability is not something I take for granted. And yet, watching this money-driven hype unfold has an unexpected effect on me: it repeatedly reminds me of why I left the country in the first place.
What brought me to an already over-capitalised Japan, and later to India, more than twenty years ago, was never the ambition to become rich. It was the desire to build peace—quietly, imperfectly, and over time. In that sense, even this unsettling moment acts as a reflection. It forces me to ask, again and again, what really counts, and what kind of future is worth working toward.
