That said, when there was a proposal to increase standard work hours in South Korea recently, the people rejected it loudly. There is a desire in SK by many to achieve work life balance, which would be something of a slur in Japan.
Everything I’ve ever seen of Japanese culture would indicate so much as speaking against something like that would get you ostracized by the vast majority.
I take pity on Japan as the only nation on Earth to fully internalize grind culture as their source of existential meaning to an even more toxic degree than the United States.
If they didn’t exist, I probably would deem such a thing unsustainably improbable, but there it is.
To be clear, I’m not referring to places where the poor are exploited to work even longer hours at more physically brutal jobs for basic survival, I’m talking about self proclaimed “developed” nations whose citizens are indoctrinated to proudly jump into the productivity volcano as some kind of honor/life’s purpose/sense of identity in itself, and who wouldn’t have it any other way.
Im not in the minority of acknowledging it being canon, I’m in the minority calling it essential canon. A lot of people hated it for its B story that I personally thought was fine.
I think they missed the Disney shows which are of course canon.
I’m in the minority here, but I consider Obi-wan especially to be primary canon, as necessary as Movies 1-6. They retconned in the emotional core of the whole damn saga with Obi-wan and fully realized Vader’s confrontation and resolution. That moment truly bridged the OT and prequels for me like nothing else had.
It’s very important for one’s mental health to remember that everything humans do is fleeting and ultimately unimportant on a long enough time scale. The idea of meeting accomplishment metrics society imposes is just a manipulation to get you to do stuff you otherwise wouldn’t to benefit people that have never and will never care about you. You’ll only find fleeting, shallow, false purpose falling into the trap of chasing their approval.
Find connections that give you bliss if you can, beyond that, to hell with not meeting the standards of the sociopaths in charge. Dictate your own purpose, and don’t fill it with unnecessary pressure.