Notes on 2026
2026-01-02
Happy New Year.
2025 was a year in which I came to understand the world a little. The principles I can see now felt almost within reach, yet at the same time the sense that "there's still something more" further in grew stronger.
2025 in Brief
Sowed seeds
In January 2025, I had just switched industries and technologies wholesale, and I had almost no resources to work with.
Considering that I started with not even a seed of a company or business, I think I sowed as many seeds as I could. There was a real sense of traction, but I can't deny that I fell short in the final push. I regret it quite a bit.
At least the bare minimum is in place to lead into what comes next.
Blessed with connections
Easily more than 80 percent of my days ran on introductions from other people. With gratitude, I felt firsthand that this is what engi — dependent origination, the web of connections — really is.
Whatever I received, I have to pay back to the next generation at least twice over, or I'll practically be a sinner.
Responsibility also came into how I keep company, and I spent far less time with people I couldn't hold a real conversation with or have constructive discussions with. I felt this was a good choice for both sides.
Moved my hands and feet
In 2025, I took more than 30 business trips, in Japan and abroad. I moved my feet — I went places in person.
On the other hand, I moved my hands too much — I did too much of the hands-on work myself. The more I did, the duller my thinking about the future felt. What came into view in the second half of the year was not the limit of possibility but physical limits — of my body and my hours. From November on it was especially bad, and for the first time in a long while I thought, "So limits do exist!" Limits are perfectly real.
Sought out teachers
If you lack knowledge of an industry, you have no choice but to be taught by someone. The important information you truly need and want to know is not on the internet or in books. So you ask to be taught.
If you are serious about wanting to know, the other person answers you seriously too. In the end, you just have to go into the field.
And I was reminded again that the label "cutting-edge" alone does not guarantee the value of practice.
Returned to the East
From the second half of the year, I took up Eastern philosophy again for the first time in two years. The landscape changed completely.
I also read broadly and shallowly through Western philosophy, from ancient Greek philosophy to modern and contemporary thought: Hegel, Nietzsche, Levinas, and others. After all that, what remained as the answer I wanted right now was the thought of Eastern philosophers.
The thought of the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Bodhidharma, Laozi, Zhuangzi, Kūkai, and others was far ahead of my own thinking. They stood on the far side of the very walls I had been struggling against and running into. When the way you see things changes, even the quality of your daily judgments changes. I got to witness the moment of getting over a wall.
Course for 2026
Move my feet more
There is no new information or inspiration in the usual places. So this year, too, I'll move my feet. Go to new places, go meet new people. Go abroad more.
Travel is not just gathering information; it is renewing the senses.
Touching culture and history, feeling with the body the air that exists only in that place. Seeing with the ears, hearing with the eyes. That sensibility has become more and more important.
Use my luck to the fullest
I won't save my luck. I intend to use it the moment I can.
No need to worry about "running out of luck." In most cases, there is more luck left than you could ever use up.
I've come to realize that if you decide "99% of it is my own fault," the very concept of "bad luck" never even arises. When it counts, it's fine to spend it all without hesitation.
Face people and education
Rather than saying I'm interested in education, honestly, I feel there's nothing else left for me to do.
Looking back, what I'm always doing is discussion, learning from one another, and creating environments to deepen mutual understanding. Unconsciously. While it feels as if we're all educating one another, I also wonder what education even is in the first place.
When it comes to education, there's nothing but what I don't know. I need to spend time facing it. It's also time to revisit my plan for a small private academy, which has been left half-done.
I want to face the inside of beings who are similar to me but not identical — not outside, not inside, but "inside the other."
Build systems
Come to think of it, I've never seriously worked on building systems. I'm the type who believes being a hands-on player, not a manager, is what's right. That hasn't changed, even now.
But no one is going to build the systems for me.
Know the field without getting too deep into it. That balance is necessary, yet before I know it I'm the one running everything and I'm the one causing the bottleneck. This year I won't put it off; I'll properly learn it by doing.
There's no point if I fill my schedule and cut into my time to think. Having free time isn't slacking off. It's the precondition for raising the quality of judgment. This year, I'll build systems to create breathing room.
Consume creative works
I was about to write "Hone how I put things into words, and my sensibility," and then I stopped. Putting things into words can now be outsourced to AI. True, it's still weak at deep discussion. Even so, ChatGPT 5.2 and Gemini 3 give my thinking a running start and offer plenty of hints.
The problem is sensibility. In 2025, I could hardly make time for it at all. My daily activities drained my resources, and there was no room left in my head.
So I'll consume creative works. Engage with expression. Books, manga, anime — I'll get a bit more of them back. If the input of creative works is combined with language and time in the field, I feel I can dive deeper.
That's all.
I'll go see the people I can see. I'll make this a year of jumping, without holding back, into new places and new themes. I'll bring in interesting work and create interesting value.
I look forward to another year with you.