Reflections on Time and Connection.

May 14th, 2025.

Seiichi Hayashi

I truly have been travelling for two days, across the globe and across time zones. I started this piece above the clouds, sitting at the top of the world, not knowing what to do but knowing that I should probably write something—anything—within the 10 hours I was strapped into 53A. I told myself that I would write in Japan, and technically I have, as I promised. It has come to be somewhat amusing how I have suddenly built up the courage to put my thoughts onto paper on the last day of this trip and not at the beginning or the middle. As if it were the end of a book, the last chapter of who I was in Tokyo. Maybe that means something; maybe it doesn’t.

Walking to the infamous 7-Eleven in Tokyo, where no unique snack is in drought, I had said something to a friend. This thought had been swarming around my mind for so long, and I had felt a little reluctant to say it out loud due to my own insecurities—but I did. I said it to her. Through the silence, I had finally said it.

“I do actually believe that I am a good writer.” I know that I constantly and most frequently talk about how I do not like my writing, though there is a part of me that actually believes I am a good writer. Forgive me for lying, but no matter how much I doubt my abilities, I know that I am in fact good at this.

I really appreciate the time and effort we give to each other. The grace that serves one another within one another. One of the many friends I had made in Japan—I had told him how the messages I get about my writing must take courage, or maybe none at all. How that individual did not need to write a lengthy message about how much they love what I write and how I write—but evidently, they did. The time and effort to do something like that is huge to me.

Disregard my ego for one second and put it to one side, as the virtual exchange between strangers is a lot, especially at this stage of living. I guess it does wonders for my writing too. My willingness to sound both loving and naïve in my writing comes sort of natural to me, and perhaps that is a reason why some may resonate with it. I do try as much as possible when it comes to writing, though there may have been periods of neglect. To consistently do what you love or feel as though you love takes the right amount of courage.

Confession: I do not want to spend the majority of my life chasing something that isn’t for me, and even worse—that by the time I come to the discovery of feeling as if I have wasted so many years, it will be well over the age of return, and those around me will stop the encouragement they once gave me as a young adult.

Perhaps my vulnerability will save me from a life of what if. Perhaps my writing will save me from a life of despair—for my writing to not be just a canvas of my inner feelings, but a catalogue of my life and who I am. Because that is what this is. My Substack is who I am. It is what my interests are. It is what I am sad about and what I am happy about. You are scrolling through my catalogue—well, the first twenty-three years of my life and the first twenty-three chapters of it.

“Always sat on a plane,” Hooyo tells me, and then she asks me the question I am not sure the answer to: “Will you be sat on a plane for the rest of your life?” I hope I can travel forever, but I also hope that the places I go to hold a very special place in my heart—so much so that it changes me. There is so much beauty in this world to experience. I am constantly asking myself, “Where to next?” I have lived in London my whole life; it is a duty of mine to experience every corner of this Earth, whether that be just across cities or halfway across the world. I owe it to myself, but I also owe it to everyone that I might meet one day who has lived so differently from how I have lived.

I have been writing in my journal on this plane for about three hours now, and I am proud. Writing is not my only passion. As I said in my last piece, it would not be something I would do as a profession forever. I will not be a journalist forever, but I am savouring every part of it right now.

“How can one respect, let alone adopt, the values of a people who do not, on any level whatever, live the way they say they do or say they should?”

At Beijing airport, with not one soul around—as it happens to be three in the morning—and I am transiting for what seems like days on end. I call my mother for a little catch-up but also to complain about how long I will be stuck in this tiny airport. She gives me great news—such great news, in fact, that it felt like a glimmer of hope for me in such a moment of weakness. My mother had told me how she had finalised a contract for her very own store, where she will sell her clothes. Suddenly, there was a spring in my voice, and I had forgotten about everything that had made me upset ever. I knew that this had been a dream of hers for a lifetime—but, of course, there had been things stopping her along the way, like raising five children and surviving living in the UK. She told me on the phone how this was her dream, and I told her, “I know, and you’re finally living your dream and doing it.” What a huge moment in her life—and to achieve it in her 50s is even more glorious. She tells me to pick a name for her store, and I am honoured.

This whole interaction has made me wonder about my own dreams and when I will achieve them—or if I will ever achieve them.

“I would much rather fail gloriously than not venture. Not try.”

I want to film. I would like to film interviews of people I find interesting and people I admire a lot—whether that be of friends, family, or artists from around the world. This is something I really want to do, and I want to write scripts for it. I want to venture out to this, and I do not mind if I fail gloriously, because at least, like my mother, I did what I said I was going to do.

I have a film camera that was gifted to me in Tokyo by someone who told me how much they believed in my goals and wanted me to start. I have no other obligation but to do it. It is my responsibility now to film—even if it’s just something I keep to myself and never post. I must do it, like how I write on here. There is no harm in trying something that has been lingering in my mind for the longest. Meeting individuals who have had the guts to pursue their dreams, regardless of the noise of doubt, is admirable. Shame should never be the essence of my dreams but a feeling due to the absence of trying. My mother inspires me, as I have inspired her from the moment I was born. It is then my duty to carry on inspiring her, as she has continuously done.

My mother’s win may have just changed the trajectory of my life.