A year in review - 2025
It's been over seven years now of running the Damn Blog - for my friends, my family, my loved ones - but most importantly for myself. The last couple years have been an absolute whirlwind - and no matter how much I tried to make space for it, I never managed to find the energy and time to give a life update in blog form. Matter of fact, I procrastinated my 2024 update until, well, 2026.
But the year has now drawn to a close, and my life has deviated to such a degree from the last update in 2023 (and the previous editions in 22, 21, 20, 19, 18), that I felt it's time to write again, to pick up some of the usual threads and see how the world, and my own world, have changed since.
It's time for (two) years in review. Usual rankings apply:
My job
When I started writing in 2018, I put 'my job' as the very first category in my year in review. Ironically, I never explained why in writing - so my thinking is now lost in time, but I can imagine it was about three things I cared about then:
Time. For a typical person, work represents roughly 30% of the time they spend awake. Back when I started working, I was extremely passionate and likely spent more than half my time at work or thinking about work, so it did make sense that this would be the primary category of a year in review.
Growth. For many people (me included), work is where we get challenged the most. There's real problems to solve, with real consequences, and real opportunities for growth. Tangential to this is the feeling of self-realization and self-improvement, which a great job carries on top of the typical benefits such as pay, career advancement etc.
I'm a very different person compared to when I started working a decade ago - a more pleasant, well-rounded, and more effective person - and I have largely my job to thank for it. My job forced me to work with others, let me discover my issues, and allowed me to iterate on the type of person I am and the type of person I want to be.
Passion. "do what you love and you won't have to work a single day in your life". I have been lucky enough to find a job - product management - that I actually do enjoy on a day to day basis. By putting extra passion into it year-in, year-out, I got a career that has been more rewarding, financially and personally, than anything I could have hoped for a decade ago.
For years now, the Year in Review 'job' section has focused on whether my job is a lifelong calling, or a way to pay rent - I think almost a decade in, the answer is clear to me: it's a way to pay rent, but that does not mean I am not passionate about the stuff I do. Being passionate and caring about what you do goes hand in hand, and caring at work has arguably been the one thing that truly turbocharged my career.
This year I was lucky to be able to take a "sabbatical" - two months off, fully paid for by my employer, to think about my life and my career while getting paid to not work. During this time of reflection I met many people - in Tokyo and elsewhere - that answered this question differently. For them, work is a calling, and not a way towards financial independence. They do what they love.
All of these people I met have a few things in common. They are not making significant money from their work, but they are able to live off it. They all have a 'gamble' - be it a remote bookstore, a coffee roastery, a printing press, design consultancy, motorcycle shop, or an arts practice - that I would characterize as "high risk, low reward". All of them are, I would say, significantly more happy and fulfilled than my friends and peers working in a traditional white collar career. Meeting them was enriching and really made me think.
Where does that leave me? Earlier I wrote that 'I enjoy my day to day job', that's true - but I don't love it; not to the extent these people love theirs. The way I went into my career was to optimize for a financially sensible line of work, get real skills I could not get otherwise, and not lose my identity in the process - three things at which I succeeded.
When I picked my job in 2018, I was broke. I used my first salary to pay my rent arrears. Pragmatically speaking, if I had opened a printing press, continued my design consultancy, or started doing black and white fine art - I would have lasted about 30 days before getting evicted. Not just that, but I had no obvious skills or talent that would set me apart, nor a network of connections that would have helped in acquiring those skills. To this day, I still don't know what my calling is.
Fast forward almost a decade, and I'm essentially financially independent. I am still quite young, and I feel now is the time to truly answer that question. Over the years, I have discovered many things I love and I'm good at - things I have been steadily placing in the 'hobby' category of my Year in Review.
Is it time to move them to the 'job' section - and leave my actual line of work? I'm not convinced, and I'm frankly quite scared to take the plunge. Compared to the people I met during my sabbatical, my opportunity cost is immense. In my job I enjoy freedom, happiness, growth; I get to meet and collaborate with people - and sometimes friends - just like me. My job gives me comfort and stability in the foreign country I live. Financially, it's made me comfortable - if I keep at it for a few more years, it will make me rich.
But I just can't keep but wonder how it would feel to do something I truly love.
Five damns out of five
Friends
Twenty years ago I watched "Into the wild" with my father. One thing that stood out to me is a quote the protagonist wrote in his notebook: "happiness only real when shared".
I wrote in the past how making friends is hard when you're an adult, as friendships need time, repeated interactions, and shared interests. After living in Japan for two+ years, I would add a fourth dimension: language.
For thirty years I have relied on language as my primary means of communication. A conversation is like a symphony that starts slow and progressively builds on shared themes and tones; and friendships are a bit like that.
In 2025, I spent significant time going 'into the wild' to remote places - meeting people for which I might very well be the first non-Japanese in their life. In Japan, my bag of words is still limited, and I find myself unable to express the concepts I want, having to take detours or worse not fully understanding what my counterpart is trying to say; these lapses are like a loud ringtone going off in the middle of a concert hall - they are frustrating and disruptive. It's hard to build a symphony of mutual sharing and understanding.
But every word I learn to read, speak and write is like a little hole in a massive wall. Beyond that wall are culture, society, history, people, connections, friendship - happiness only real when shared, shared on the other side of this massive wall. In 2023 I ignored the wall altogether focusing on what was on my side. In 2024 I first got a feeling there's stuff on the other side - this year I have been chipping away, carving holes - any difficult word I finally memorize, any frustrating ending to a conversation, any sudden 'click' weeks later when I finally realize what someone really wanted to say, a hurtful bash in the structure of this wall that separates me from the country I live in.
Expats in Japan like to rehash concepts like 内・外 (inside/outside) to explain away why years spent in Japan yield no sense of belonging into the culture; they raise points that reek of racism (on both sides) to explain what, in my experience, is simply a communication failure. Whenever I have been able to communicate thanks to a language breakthrough, by communicating visually, or by building a shared understanding in a different way - such as working on common projects or on shared things - I have made friends.
Most people spend their life in one place, mastering one specific style of friendship. I still believe for them it's easiest to share their happiness, and be happy in return. That's not the path my life took: I have now lived in 9 different countries, moved many times more, and made friends in many places.
Japan is by far the hardest place, both in terms of language and in terms of connecting with others. When you do, it's also the most rewarding.
In 2025 I kept most of the friendships I had, and made a few more ones. Most importantly, I can see where to go from here. As my language skills expand, the time required for friendships shrinks, and most importantly - the shared interactions and interests widen. This makes me grow along my friendships, which is more than I could ever ask for. Sooner or later, I'll chip one last hole in that wall and that wall is coming down for good. That day, I believe, is not far away.
Five damns out of five
Financials
When I moved from Singapore to Japan, I took a 50% effective pay cut along with a significant reduction in career opportunities - both because Japan's office is smaller, and because there's less competition here and therefore less opportunities to make more by jumping jobs to another company.
I have no regrets.
There's this monologue in "The Gambler" that goes like this:
you get a house, an indestructible Japanese car, you put the rest into the system at 3 to 5 percent to pay your taxes and that's your base, get me? That's your fortress of fu***ng solitude. That puts you, for the rest of your life, at a level of f**k you. Somebody wants you to do something, f**k you. Boss pisses you off - f**k - you.
Own your house. Have a couple bucks in the bank. Don't drink. A wise man's life is based around f**k you.
2025 is the first year I can, if I choose to, immediately retire on that wise man's life. I am not wealthy, and I don't particularly like money. But I have enough saved to build my fortress, if I feel like. Having started my career with a subzero bank account, I'm often amazed that I even got here and I will forever be grateful for the luck and opportunities I got financially, while leading an interesting life that's now also f**k-you-proof.
Five+ damns out of five
Love
2025 is the year where many of my friends got engaged, got married, or got a baby. As for me, I got told by some granny in the street I'm very handsome, and that's pretty much my most romantic moment of 2025.
My dating life was pretty good up until the point I moved to Tokyo, but has essentially died in 2025 - and I believe this is due to a combination of factors.
One, is that we've all gotten older - it's not just my friends who're getting engaged and married; it's everyone my age. In Asia there's a strong bias towards 30 as a significant deadline by which people should be settling down, and that means the dating pool in my age range is shrinking rapidly.
Second, is that there are some misalignments between what Japan generally looks for someone to settle down with, and me. I don't have a deep network of friends and acquaintances to vouch for me, I am a foreigner that has moved around a lot (and so more likely to leave again), I am ethnically and culturally not Japanese, and I don't speak fluent Japanese.
So that's the market. But in my line of work I've learned only incompetent product managers blame the market rather than the product - and this Year in Review is a space for introspection - so let's focus on the product here (me), which certainly has a few glaring issues.
First and foremost I have a positioning issue: what and who is this product for? My job, the way I dress and talk, my background and my identity would squarely place me in the "techbro" category - a privileged white male with a big ego and even bigger self-confidence. That was certainly the case when I graduated, but over the years I spent too much time introspecting, travelling and living - and too little time following our oligarch's views on Twitter. As a result I now live in this odd twilight zone where I'm employed at a large public financial technology company, yet I despise what the tech world has become and certainly don't want to be part of it beyond my 9 to 5 - nor date people that conform to these views. This has progressively changed my lifestyle, my sense of humor and my beliefs - all things that people only discover after spending time with me. It's a bit like purchasing an iPhone Pro Max, opening the box and finding a Nokia N900 covered in no-global stickers. Not everyone would appreciate that, certainly when looking for 'a man in finance'.
What about artists, alternative people, activists then? Am I the right fit for them? Even less so, as the art world is extremely nitpicky about who fits and who doesn't, and someone like me who, god forbid, has a stable career and regards things like printing or taking photos as a hobby or a passion rather than (as my artsy dates usually refer to) 'a practice' is not necessarily someone to be excited about.
In a sense, this branding issue: what do I stand for? Most people will tell you their partner is "the funniest man they know", or "feels like my best friend" - those are true feelings, but they simplify a set of more complex calculations about what we are really looking for in a partner: stability, support, happiness, someone who's hot, someone who wants a large dog, someone my parents would approve of, and so on. Everyone has negotiables and non-negotiables on this list - and rightfully so. From the outside I would struggle to qualify which of these boxes I check, myself, as a potential partner; sometimes that becomes extremely important when trying to build a serious relationship.
That's not to say I don't have good traits - on the contrary, this is a branding issue: I am bitingly funny, highly educated, I have lived many lives, which brings good stories and good experiences, I'm kind, I have passions and things I'm good at, I respect others but without being a pushover, I have an open world view and am always ready for discussions and for changing my point of view. It's just that those traits are hard to market compared to more straightforward ones, and I don't have much ability, opportunities, or interest to show these off - I'm a good product in a bland box.
The final problem is an acquisition issue: for over a decade now I have met people to go out with through my hobbies, in school, through work, at parties, through friends, online, you name it. This entire time I was wondering - will there be a time when this steady stream of potential partners will no longer be as effortless or full of as many interesting people? The answer is yes, and that time is now. I'm now at a point in my life where I absolute despise online dating, but I'm also not meeting people organically either - and so the product sits on a shelf, unsold for now, with no interested customers.
Does looking at love as a product help? Maybe - in a sense, it's a way to structure what's essentially a matching problem, understand the issues at hand, and maybe fix them. Some people are more romantic than this, and may object that relationships are often irrational - and maybe they can be for some people.
But for me, I'm really happy with my life, with who I am and with what I do. If I'm going to be with someone, it needs to be someone that will enrich my life - not just fill the time I have with excitement or infatuation. I don't want to be in love; nor do I need to be loved. I want someone that I can be with for years, to build something meaningful together; someone I can understand and that can understand me - and I'm sure this person is out there: I've been with them before. I just need to find them once more.
Zero damns out of five
Health
In my 20s I spent no time caring for my body. Little sleep, overwork, long walks, mountains without prep or equipment, no rehab after injuries, no attention to posture or strain. My motto was “drive fast while the car is new.” In hindsight, that was stupid.
I'm now in my early 30s, that abuse—plus lack of sports growing up and probably genetics—has turned into constant pain when standing or walking. My hobbies and lifestyle are based around walking. I live in one of the most walkable countries on earth, with amazing public transport, lots of nature, and lots to explore; but my ability to actually walk though has been declining in the last couple years to the point where some days I just can't move.
I have tried everything to fix this. Orthopedic shoes, inserts, shockwave therapy, cortisone, university hospitals, 3D scans, barefoot shoes, you name it. The only thing that has somewhat worked is a 5 dollars stretching board and balance board from Aliexpress.
Last year I was optimistic still, but this year I'm upset, tired, and just often sad about this. I am conscious these are comparatively small health problems. Many of my loved ones have had issues in the past couple years that are much more debilitating than knee pain. I am still young and generally healthy, and this is manageable suffering.
On the other hand, I am worried at how fast my body has become old, and I wish I could go back in time and change the bad decisions that led to this.
Zero damns out of five
Hobbies
One of the main reasons I left Singapore was the lack of a sense of discovery in my everyday life. In may countries it's easy to buy things, but hard to create things and that filled me with a constant sense of emptiness.
To create things requires a place that lets you discover new ideas and techniques; open and friendly people to learn from or collaborate with; political and economical will to support this kind of endeavors, a tradition of creativity, and interest from the majority of the population to ultimately support this financially. Japan has them all: the country is bursting with opportunities to make things and passionate people to work with - be it as a professional or simply, like me, as a hobby.
In 2025 I made risograph and silk screen prints, took thousands of film pictures, I was able to learn in color and black and white dark rooms, I repaired and built things, read and discovered books, visited exhibitions and fairs, met with hundreds of creative people which led to so many new thoughts that will be mine forever. I am so lucky.
Through my photography I met a large number of new people in 2025. On top of taking the kind of pictures I like, I also started exploring other photographers' works, and spent a lot of time in libraries and museums. I was able to connect with lots of photographers both in Japan and abroad. Most importantly, photography was my bridge with everyday people I meet on the street, and gave me a chance to strike up a conversation, get technical, get a community, and just generally grow as a person.
As my actual job is mostly done digitally, I was also looking for something more practical in my life. In 2025, I started an apprenticeship repairing old mechanical cameras. Once a week, I get to lean into my photography passion from another angle, and learn complex skills from one of the most talented artisans I have ever met - and all of this in Japanese.
Indeed, the last hobby I worked on in 2025 is learning Japanese. In 2023 I wrote "I know about 30% of the symbols it takes to read Wikipedia, which is not nearly enough". In 2025 that number has climbed to 93%. I can read traffic signs and labels at a middle school level, I can do phone calls, I can read comics and I have started buying books again. Most of all, I have started to (roughly) understand conversations, which is the most important milestone in the flywheel of learning.
In my 'friends' section I talked about language as one of the most important elements to connect in Japan. In 2025 I watched the cryptic pictograms of Japanese progressively morph into meaning, opportunities, ideas and directions for me and for others. Language is the way we label the world, and to learn this language has been the best and most important choice I made in 2023.
Five+ damns out of five
Places
The 'places' section of the Year in Review has often focused on places I traveled or moved to - but throughout 2024 and 2025 I mostly just stayed in Japan. It's ironic that after looking for two decades for a place to call Home, I found it in a place that has an insular culture, a difficult language, and a hugely homogeneous population that doesn't always take kindly to outsiders.
I never had any ambition to move to Japan. I moved here for one reason, and one reason only - as I eloquently put in 2022: "I'm moving out to Tokyo: a place that is everything that Singapore isn't. Or at least, that's what I hope: like a man running out of a burning building, I haven't really stopped to consider all the variables - all I know is, I need to get out of here."
Tokyo was simply the closest landing after two years in Singapore's cultural wasteland, and now that I have spent more time exploring Asia, I can only say - this is the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me.
Japan's real traditions (not the manga, anime, videogames export) go back for generations, and are incredibly deep. There's enough to explore for years to come, and it will take even longer to master the language and the culture - if I ever can. And the people I have met so far are wonderful humans: they are slow in their interactions, deliberate in their thoughts, yet with a wicked drive and sense of humor that just floors me all the time. Like a stern professor playing hilarious pranks, Japan is a place for both learning and grinning - deeply humbling but highly supportive at once.
In 2023 I applied for permanent residency - a visa that would give me the ability to stay in Japan forever even if I left my job. In October 2025, I got it. This expands the range of things I can do in Japan enormously: I can now buy a house, start a business, go work in a farm or any other job, be unemployed, and generally live whatever life I want, in the place I want.
Freedom.
Five+ damns out of Five
Wrapping up
I don't think I could have imagined my life this year back when I started writing the Damn Blog. That's both a worry and a relief at once.
It's a worry, because over time some of the things I took for granted - things like my health, having a romantic partner, or living in places I love - unexpectedly disappeared from my life. Life being unpredictable can be interesting in certain phases of your life, but having entered my thirties I now feel like adventure should take a backseat to building meaningful, intricate, long-term projects. The turbulence my life experiences year-in, year-out (as exemplified by the swinging Damn Graphs under each section) is something I have valued in the past, but it does feel like now is the right time to invest less on discovery and more on doubling down on the many things I already know I enjoy.
On the other hand, that's the relief part. The fact my life has been unpredictable has led me to so many discoveries, to meeting so many interesting people and living in so many wonderful places, that I can actually compare things. I can say, hey - this place fits me better than this other one. Wait, I think me and this person would get along well. Damn, I think this is something worth investing time into.
Three years ago I wrote: "I am not carried by the world changing around me, but I react to it. I'm not floating, I'm swimming.". The ability to do so is not something I was born with - it's something I built over the years by constantly thinking about what I was doing, taking bets, sometimes failing, but always continuing to swim. Like a fish looking for the ocean, I now realize I was in it all along.
So swim on.