2025-11-27

The year is 750 AD. It's central Japan, the Nara Period, the tail end of winter. The cold is biting.

It's early in the morning. The sun has just started to peak over the mountains and through the trees. You're outside, wrapped in multiple layers, shivering. But you don't think about the cold. There are tens of other people around you doing the same. Everyone is facing a single person standing before everyone else. Let's call him the foreman. The foreman is giving out the instructions for the day. People will split into teams and go here and there. Everyone's general task is to cut down trees and prepare planks from them for carpenters to further refine.

You pick up your tools, hands hardened from all the work you've done up until now. You move with your team to your designated area. You self-organize into smaller units, some working in tandem to cut trees, others cutting fallen trees into logs, stripping bark and branches off of them. You get stuck in the group that has to chop the trees down. You and your partners gather around various trees with axes, each chopping away. You had an idea to create a long sawblade that two people could hold, one on each end, and you could fell trees faster with less work individually. It'll have to wait, though, as you can't create that on the spot. You wished you were in the team stripping logs or hauling them back to camp. Chopping down trees is hard work, and your team is the bottleneck. The others are resting while waiting for another tree to log and haul.

As you work, your body heats up, and you start to sweat. You remove a layer. It's uncomfortable, and you can smell the odor of your teammates as well. But these trees aren't going to fell themselves, and you can't let everyone else down. You try not to think about tomorrow, but you know you'll be back to do the same thing all over again. At least you'll get to rotate to a different responsibility.

6 months pass. You haven't always been felling trees for this time, but you've been doing similar manual labor otherwise. You think about the nobles who have come through town while you work. Ah, to be like them and not have to work so hard. Whatever, どうでも良い.

It's the middle of summer now, and its sweltering hot. You sit on cool stone in the middle of the day, unlike your days prior toiling away when it was colder. You're shaded from the midday sun by a large wooden overhang that is just one part of a large castle-temple complex. Last year this overhang wasn't here, and everyone felt its lack literally. You remember getting caught in the summer rain brought by the typhoons. It wasn't even refreshing. The air was so humid, and the rain was somehow warm. You were hot and miserable, and everyone smelled.

But this year is different. You sit under a tangible structure protecting you from the elements. Many others do the same. You weren't the carpenter, you weren't the architect, you aren't a noble, but everyone knows that you pitched in and is thankful for that. It starts to rain. You and your buddies look out into the damp heat and then look at each other, smile, and give a sigh of relief.

Summer transitions into fall. It's cooler now, and you're back to work, moving large stones from a quarry to a mason's workshop. The mason does his thing, and then you move shaped stones elsewhere around the castle-temple complex. It's monotonous drudgery. You wish you could be out helping your parents plant or pick rice like you did when you were 8 years old, daydreaming about goofing off with your friends later on or listening to some bizarre stories and wondering about the world. Whatever, どうでも良い. These stones aren't going to move themselves.

The next winter comes, and the cold is once again biting. The town doesn't need as much wood this time around, so you've moved on to other tasks, doing grunt work on farms, for smiths, for masons. This year the cold is more pronounced, though, since you have something to compare it to. You and your buddies look out into the snow falling around you, recalling simultaneously freezing and sweating this time last year. You're a little too hot, so you lift yourself out of the onsen, and steam billows from your body like you're some sort of deity. You feel like one, at least, knowing that the blood and sweat you put into all that work with wood and stone has provided for everyone around you, and everyone else knows it too. You built something that has measurably improved your own life and the lives of people around you, and you presumably get to enjoy it for the rest of your days.

The year is 2025 AD. It's Tokyo, the Reiwa Period, the tail end of winter. The cold is biting.

It's early in the morning. The sun has just started to peak over the mountains and through the trees. You're outside, wrapped in multiple layers, shivering. You think about the cold. There are tens of other people around you doing the same. Everyone is facing a single person standing before everyone else. Let's call it the crossing signal. The signal is giving out the instructions for when to walk. At work, people are split into teams. Everyone's general task is to move information from one service the company pays for to another service the company pays for.

You unlock your computer, heart hardened from all the work you've done up until now. You check-in with your team on your designated Slack channel. You self-organize into smaller units, some working in tandem to address this problem, others essentially creating new problems. You get stuck in the group that has to fix problems. You and your partners gather around various documents, each cross-checking, debugging. You had an idea to create an automated test barrage, so you could catch issues earlier, faster, with less work individually. It'll have to wait, though, as you can't create that on the spot. Thankfully they run the heater late into the night, so you can stay late and develop it on your own time. You wished you were in the team creating new problems for everyone else. At least they get to create puzzles for themselves and then code up solutions. Fixing problems is hard work, and your team is the bottleneck. Management is waiting for another fix to send to the customer.

As you work, your body heats up, and you start to sweat. You remove a layer. It's uncomfortable, and you can smell the odor of your teammates as well. But these tasks aren't going to finish themselves, and you can't let everyone else down. You try not to think about tomorrow, but you know you'll be back to do the same thing all over again. At least next quarter you'll get to rotate to a different responsibility.

6 months pass. You haven't always been fixing problems for this time, but you've been doing similar labor otherwise. You think about the managers who have come through the org while you work. Ah, to be like them and not have to work so hard. Whatever, しようがない.

It's the middle of summer now, and its sweltering hot. You sit in a climate-controlled office in the middle of the day, just like your days prior toiling away when it was colder. You're shaded from the midday sun by a large, sterile ceiling that's just one part of your company's massive office. Last year this ceiling was there, and you didn't even think about it. You were caught in the summer rain brought by the typhoons on your way in. It wasn't even refreshing. The air was so humid, and the rain was somehow warm. You were hot and miserable, and everyone smelled.

This year is no different. You sit under a tangible structure protecting you from the elements. Many others do the same. You weren't the carpenter, you weren't the architect, you aren't a manager, and you didn't pitch in. No one even takes a moment to be thankful for the structure. It starts to rain. You and your buddies don't even look out into the damp heat, are fixated on meeting deadlines for people they don't care about, building something they'll never use, for people that will never know them, if the product isn't scrapped on the whim of someone entirely disconnected from the work.

Summer transitions into fall. It's cooler now, and you're on a different project. The teams around you do their thing, and then you integrate it. It's monotonous drudgery. You wish you could be out helping your parents garden like you did when you were 8 years old, daydreaming about goofing off with your friends later on or playing some fantasy RPG and wondering about that world. Whatever, どうでも良い. These tasks aren't going to complete themselves.

The next winter comes, and the cold is once again biting. Your org didn't need as many people this time around, so you've moved on to other tasks, doing grunt work for the next project. This year the cold is no more pronounced. You look out the window into the snow falling, recalling nothing. You're a little too hot so you take your jacket off. Steam billows from your coffee like some sort of demon. It feels like one, at least, knowing that you depend on it to keep you going, pouring sweat and life into all that thankless work you have to do. Everyone knows it, so you tell yourself its okay, but they don't care, because that's just life, isn't it? You built something that has measurably improved nothing, and you don't even get to enjoy it, because you never really needed it anyway. And you never will for the rest of your days.