Jack Daily Diary

Here it is again.

Yesterday was a good, solid day. Music again. Instrumentation, mixing, listening with fresh ears. I’m feeling confident about the five-song album I want to finish and release over the next couple of weeks. The routine is familiar by now—finish the mixes, make some cover art, maybe a small video for one track, and put it up on Bandcamp for two or three people. I joke about that number, but it’s also true. I don’t play the social media game. I never really did. When I used to post on Facebook, it was almost always to promote my own work, and I didn’t like that feeling—dropping in only when I wanted something, never lingering, never really engaging. So I stopped. The music still goes up. It matters to me. If someone finds it one day, fine. If not, that’s okay too.

The website is essentially done now. Desktop, tablet, phone—everything works. I cleaned up spacing, smoothed a few rough edges, and did another walk-and-talk pass with Julia. She helped tighten the language, cut redundancies, and make a few design suggestions, mostly subtractive ones. That was the key: removing lines, not adding them. The site feels cleaner for it. The only thing I realized afterward was that I’d left out anything about privacy and memory. After thinking it through, we decided that didn’t belong on the main page anyway. It breaks the flow. Instead, it’s better handled in a separate FAQ—along with other practical realities: transcription limits, what to do if Diane responds too soon, how to recover when something goes sideways. That feels right. The main page stays focused; the rest has a home elsewhere.

What really stayed with me today, though, was a visit to a local psychiatrist here in the countryside. A ten-minute walk from my house. He used to treat my son during his worst period, and later I saw him myself for sleep issues and anxiety. He speaks good English, he’s kind, and he’s… generous. Very generous. There’s a running joke between my son and me—we call him Walter White—because he hands out medication freely, directly from the clinic, no pharmacy required. Strong antidepressants for my son when nothing seemed to help. Sleep meds. Anxiety pills. Whatever you ask for, it appears.

When I saw him a few days ago, it had been six months since my last visit. He immediately asked about the antidepressants he’d prescribed me. I told him I’d stopped taking them—quietly, months ago—and that I felt fine. I didn’t explain the writing, or the clarity that came with it. I just said I was okay. He seemed… disappointed. Skeptical, even. As if improvement without medication didn’t quite compute.

That visit folded into a larger realization about doctors here, especially in Japan. When they don’t know what’s going on, everything eventually becomes “stress.” Prostatitis? Stress. Chronic pain? Stress. The word functions as a period at the end of a sentence they don’t know how to finish. And culturally, you’re not supposed to challenge them. You don’t suggest ideas, don’t reference outside information, don’t probe too much. That’s seen as disrespect.

I saw this clearly with my urologists. Months of visits, endless tests, rotating medications. Nothing worked. Finally, out of options, I asked for stronger pain relief. They gave me something barely more effective than Tylenol. Later, after a trip to the U.S., I tried tramadol—a synthetic opioid—and it actually helped. When I returned to Japan and asked for it by name, the doctor immediately prescribed it. Just like that. No discussion. No warning. Later, when I mentioned concerns about addiction, he waved them off. “Not addictive,” he said. Which is simply false.