No.0153：Everyday Life > Festivals
September 25,2026
 
Festivals End. Everyday Life Goes On.
Toward the end of September, when the air begins to feel a little cooler, I naturally find myself remembering the autumn festivals of my childhood. With the sound of drums thundering deep in my belly, I would pull a festival float with my friends along paths through the rice fields, chanting together as crickets chirped around us. Everyone was caught up in the thrill of something out of the ordinary. After all that splendor, though, we were pulled back into everyday life. A sense of loneliness lingered as the season hurried toward winter.
 
I don’t like that drained feeling after a festival. Most people probably feel it to some degree, but the contrast hits me harder than it seems to hit others. Still, if every day were like a festival, I’m sure I’d get bored in about a week. The third beer never feels quite as refreshing as the first. That’s why I feel such a strong desire to cherish everyday life, and why I resist giving festivals too much priority.
 
A Classroom Dressed for Company
The performance put on for classroom observation days at elementary and junior high school always felt deeply strange to me. Those were our “festivals.” Magnetic teaching materials appeared on the blackboard, never to be seen in ordinary lessons. Teachers adopted grandiose turns of phrase and traded their usual tracksuits for formal clothes. Even a child could tell how much everything had been dressed up for the occasion. It was a little like the disappointment you feel when you notice how far the bottom of a champagne bottle is pushed up inside it.
 
Release Is the Beginning, Yet Everyone Disappears
Here’s another example of festivals and everyday life. A software development project doesn’t end with its release, its “festival.” You could even argue that this is where it begins. Bugs that went unnoticed during development need fixing. Usability problems that only emerge through actual use need addressing. Slowdowns caused by growing volumes of data need dealing with. None of this is glamorous, but it takes steady, persistent work. Yet this everyday work after the release rarely earns much recognition, so the winning move is to hold down the B button and sprint away as soon as the software ships. Like a star striker obsessed with attacking but barely interested in defending. Stay behind in everyday life, and you’re the one left holding the bag.
 
Sell and Walk Away: Winning in the Short Term, Losing in the Long Term
Sales often follows a similar pattern. Plenty of salespeople lavish attention on customers right up to the sale, their “festival,” only to turn cold the moment they have the money. They see following up with customers as nothing but the emptiness after the festival, since it brings in no more money. They give no thought to the sales that word of mouth and repeat business can generate over time. It’s like those overpriced, underwhelming wagyu steak skewers sold to tourists who will only ever visit once.
 
A Little “Festival” in Everyday Life
I’d like to keep these extravagant “festivals” in moderation and place more value on everyday life. Some things only reveal themselves through the everyday, through repetition. As you stick with a particular line of work and keep asking questions, things you couldn’t understand the first time gradually become clearer. Insights from different people and books, along with opportunities that come your way, help you see a little more. A typical example is learning to recognize the subtle distance between two kinds of user wishes: “I absolutely want to do this” and “I’d like to do this if possible.” I feel I’ve become much more sympathetic to the question, “Do you really want to go that far to do this? After all...”
 
A “festival” is best as a modest presence that adds a little accent to everyday life. But it can also bring a slightly different perspective into our ordinary days, one that then grows within them. That would be interesting. Like the current AI “festival,” rekindling the excitement of developing apps in a guy past fifty and helping him say goodbye to being a designer who only scratches the surface.