A boomerang-like story about how I became addicted to 'ramen mounting' by my peers and now talk about 'addiction'

It has been 20 years now.

For my company's new employee training, 60 of us in the same intake were holed up in a training facility in the countryside for a month, living together while learning what it means to be a working professional.

If it had been just two nights and three days,

"get along with everyone equally"

we might have managed, but

a month is a different story.

People you feel comfortable being yourself around, the degree of company loyalty, how lecherous you are, and your hobbies and tastes.
Depending on how much you liked comedy or women, men naturally formed groups, and as a result, we gradually started spending our free time and sleeping hours with the groups we felt most comfortable in.

Looking back at the people I spent time with, I think they were all the same kind of people who could naturally accept my low character and infinite eccentricity, and now, all of them are working as middle managers in various locations across the country while maintaining a cynical outlook.

Anyway, once you are confined to a training facility like this and start talking to members you weren't necessarily close with to begin with, it starts with a mysterious "my hometown is better than yours" battle.

"In my hometown..."
"The miso soup in my hometown is..."

Each person carries the pride of their hometown as if they were a representative school at Koshien, trying to convey their local love in one way or another.

They become people with such high sense of belonging that you'd think they want to achieve regional revitalization.

"You guys have never really eaten delicious ramen, have you?"

One night after lights out, when the training was halfway through, a big guy from Fukuoka started passionately talking about his love for Hakata ramen.

At first, four peers from Hokkaido, Hiroshima, Toyama, and Yamagata listened quietly.
Everyone was listening with a look of appreciation.

However, they also had their own local ramen pride to carry.

Sapporo miso ramen, Onomichi ramen, Toyama Black ramen, Sakata ramen...

Gradually, each of them started proudly showing off the characteristics of their local ramen, such as the firmness and thickness of the noodles, and the richness or lightness of the soup.

The ones yawning were me, from Yamaguchi, and Oshima, from the udon prefecture of Kagawa.

What I realized at this moment was that there exists something called
"ramen mounting"
in this world.

This is quite intense.
"I am the true ramen connoisseur"
is likely the mysterious self-consciousness that drives it.

Before we knew it, the room that should have been dark was lit up brightly by the sparks of the "ramen talk" duel.

However.
Suddenly, the situation changed completely.
When the Hakata man, believing in himself, crushing his enemies, and seeking strength, announced his recommended ramen shop in a low-pitched voice with an overwhelmingly serious face, silence returned to the room once again.

"It is by far '"

Ichiran'." He spoke with unbelievable smoothness, eloquence, and passion about how Ichiran had overturned the common sense of ramen shops, how delicious the soup was, and what kind of future this Fukuoka soul food would create for the whole country.

Perhaps the people around him were a bit taken aback by his confident words.

Feeling something close to a "conviction," they were awestruck and, unable to hide their agitation, began to agree with the Hakata man one by one.
"O-oh. Ichiran, huh. I've been thinking about going there once."

The Onomichi ramen man, who was closest to the Ichiran hometown, muttered.
*At that time, most Ichiran stores were in Fukuoka, with only two or three scattered in Tokyo.
"It's delicious. It's terrifyingly delicious."

The Toyama Black ramen man, who seemed to have eaten it in Tokyo during his job hunting, actually started praising the enemy camp.
Behind his words, I could even feel his irrepressible anguish and kindness in praising and acknowledging the enemy. It was truly the moment when a solid sense of camaraderie among "ramen connoisseurs" was born.

I see.

Ichiran has that kind of charm.
My brain was completely hacked by Ichiran.

And finally, that moment arrived.

I, whose brain had been hacked to think of ramen as Ichiran.
As soon as I arrived at Hakata Station on my first business trip to Fukuoka, I headed straight for the Ichiran Hakata store, which stood alone at the edge of the underground mall, with all my might.

As soon as I entered, I was surprised by the appearance, which didn't look like a ramen shop at all.

I-is this a ramen shop...

Thinking about it now, the seats were an unexpected "social distance" that could be said to have foreseen and preempted the future of restaurants, with each seat partitioned by boards, and you couldn't even see the staff's faces. It was truly an atmosphere that seemed to say, "Focus only on the ramen without worrying about the eyes of those around you."

The commitment is also amazing.

The menu was not diversified, just one item: "Tonkotsu Ramen."

Alright, this is promising.
And after a while, it was brought to me.

A bowl of ramen.

I mixed the noodles into the soup a few times with my chopsticks, and then slurped them up.

!!

Whoa, it's delicious. It's delicious!!

It far exceeded my imagination.
It's the best. It's delicious to death. I ate it all at once. Extra noodles.

I finished it in the blink of an eye.
Rather than saying I finished it, "devoured it" might be the most appropriate expression.
The soup soaked into my body and soul, bringing supreme satisfaction.

It was the first impact I had ever received from ramen.

Strangely enough, dishes like ramen, which have a violent combination of carbohydrates and lipids with a rich seasoning added, become "addictive." The very troublesome thing about this addictive dish is that you want to eat it regularly.

Ever since then.
Having become completely addicted to ramen, I wandered around looking for ramen of the same quality as Ichiran in Kansai.

I ate ramen for lunch, dinner, and even after going out drinking with everyone.

Huh?
Am I eating too much ramen? Am I eating only ramen and getting unbalanced nutrition?

Even though I thought that and tried to refrain, after a few days, I would suddenly want to eat it again.

The taste my tongue once learned.
I can't forget it. It has a strong adhesive power that grabs my stomach and won't let go.

And 20 years since then...

I am 42 years old. An old man.

Now, if I drink up the soup of a tonkotsu ramen with a lot of back fat, I will definitely have a stomach ache and be in agony that night.

Ichiran, which could only be tasted in Fukuoka at the time, now has stores all over Kansai, and the environment is such that I can go there easily.

But, I'm still afraid of being in agony at night, so I haven't been there for a long time.

Why did my body become like this?

There are no abnormalities in my medical checkup, and I even had a doctor thoroughly examine me to see if there were any abnormalities in my stomach or intestines.

Still, no bad parts were found.
Then what is it?

This must be "aging."

There was also a doctor who said something about accumulated cholesterol.
I can discipline myself by saying that my body can no longer accept it, but the troublesome thing is the withdrawal symptoms.

Even if my body starts to age and I am in agony, the addiction that was ingrained in my brain when I was young is hard to get rid of.

In the end, even now, when I go to eat ramen, even though I know it's bad, a dopamine secretion abnormality occurs, and I lose to my will and drink up the soup completely.

In fact, the ramen I eat after praying hard all day that I shouldn't is the most delicious. The sense of guilt makes me feel wonderfully strange.

Indeed, ramen addiction, like other addictions, is ultimately a matter of will.

What can we learn from this? Finally, I want to conclude this article by forcibly linking it to "addiction."

Curing addiction is troublesome.
To treat addiction, you must isolate the person from the object.

While placing drugs in front of a drug addict,
"You shouldn't do drugs anymore"
there is no way they can quit even if you say that.

I am in front of ramen

"I know I'll suffer later if I drink this up. I know, but... it's such a waste to throw away something so delicious, I can't help but drink it!!"

That's what happens.
I think many people have had such experiences to some extent in their lives, but that is what addiction is.

So, what is bad about addiction or dependency?
The objects often called "bad" in addiction are

alcohol, gambling, SNS (smartphone addiction, notification addiction, reaction addiction, etc.), short-term trading investment, brand shopping, sex, drugs (narcotics and marijuana), etc.

On the other hand,
being a vegetarian, feeling restless if you don't run, not being able to sleep if you don't brush your teeth, reading books if you have free time, etc., these are also a kind of addiction, but they are evaluated as "good habits" to a certain extent.

In the end, what is considered a problem with addiction (dependency) is, first and foremost, harming health. And the other is leading to economic bankruptcy.

These are the two perspectives.

Therefore, in many cases,
the points raised as problems of addiction or dependency,

"destroying personality"
"becoming stupid"

actually do not hold up as problems unless there are propositions such as "living a healthy life" or "not wasting money."


So, what about note?
I can't end my day without updating note.
There may be people who are facing it with a feeling similar to such an addiction (dependency).
Continuing to write articles will surely be evaluated by many people as a "good habit" in the same position as the habit of running.

There, you can improve your writing skills, increase your connections, and become more sensitive to information.
Some amazing people can even earn income like a side job.

It is truly a "habit full of good things."

However, if you are too conscious of others, this changes completely.

If you become a "notification addict" or "reaction addict" common in SNS, and start checking your smartphone even while driving, this is a "bad addiction" even if there is no accident.

People like this often say
"I just looked for a second"
"I'm looking ahead, so it's okay"
but the act of saying "it's okay" to an objectively dangerous act and going out of your way to see "other people's reactions" is a symptom of addiction itself, where you can no longer make sound judgments.

It's long.
Alright, shall we summarize it now?

What I think after living in the blog world for many years is that people who write because they want to write, whether there is a reaction or not, are strong, and people who seek reactions too much are weak.

For an ordinary person like me, in order to make note a "good addiction," it is better to always have the source of motivation within "myself" and do what I want to do without worrying about others.

That is definitely more fun.

It often happens in this world that an article I wrote with great enthusiasm is not read much, while an article I didn't put much effort into and didn't care about gathers popularity as a hot entry.

Furthermore, when you start comparing yourself with others, other notes that started at the same time are now joining the ranks of popular creators, while my note is not doing well.

I have no talent.
Should I quit?

I'm not being forced to do it, so it might be okay to quit decisively rather than doing it out of inertia. I don't even have many followers.

When your source of motivation is
reactions and evaluations from others,
you start to feel that way.

Let's assume you are highly regarded by many people.
But in reality, it is the way of the world that others are not as interested in you as you think they are.

You might tend to think,

'Won't everyone worry if I step away from social media?'

but you don't need to think about that at all.

If you think, 'I want to step away,' you should just step away immediately.

After all, I feel that the real work of note or blogging begins once the act of updating becomes natural—taking breaks, stumbling, falling—and you stop pushing yourself too hard.

As an ultramarathon runner, I can assert that long-distance runners without a finish line are strongest once they stop being conscious of the act of running itself.

That is precisely why you should stop when you want to stop, and start again when you want to start.

Those who survive in this world for a long time in that way are the ones who grasp the achievements they truly wanted. I believe this habit is what 'good note addiction' is all about.

Afterword

Living in Kobe, I have now become a regular at 'Mokkos,' a ramen shop that is relatively light yet incredibly delicious.

On top of the ramen I'm used to eating, I add green onions as a topping, pile on an unimaginable amount of 'garlic chives,' and munch away at it.

Hehehe.
It's fine if I just increase the green onions and garlic chives.

If I eat this much green onion and garlic chives, there shouldn't be any problems regarding vegetables. This forceful attitude of trying to control my entire nutritional balance just with the ingredients on top of the ramen.

The Ramen Health Method.
This is my theory for now.

Ah, this is hopeless.

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I hope to interact with friends interested in child-rearing, marathons, and investing through note. Thank you very much. by Yuzuo