Gents Journey
Helping Men become the Gentleman they deserve to be. This Podcast is part inspiration part motivation. We discuss what it takes to be a Gentleman in the 21st Century. We also talk about how to deal with the internal and external battles that life throws at us. So come be apart of the Gents Journey!
Gents Journey
The Forgotten Samurai: The Edge of Leaving
What happens when life delivers an unexpected invitation to wake up from the slumber of routine? The Forgotten Samurai takes us on a noir-inspired journey through one man's reluctant awakening when a mysterious crate arrives at his door.
Set against the fog-shrouded backdrop of San Francisco, we meet a protagonist living in the haze of his own diminished existence—cigarettes, whiskey, and regret his only companions. His life has become a series of mechanical motions, devoid of purpose or passion, until the arrival of an ancient mask bearing the weight of forgotten traditions disrupts everything.
The narrative unfolds like a modern myth as the mask, accompanied by cryptic maps and messages, becomes both mirror and catalyst. "Most men sleep through their own calling," reads an unsigned note, challenging not only our protagonist but every listener who has ever felt the quiet desperation of a life half-lived. Through beautiful prose and evocative storytelling, we witness the delicate moment when a man begins to wonder if he's still in there—if the warrior spirit has been dormant rather than dead.
This episode transcends simple storytelling to become a meditation on purpose and possibility. The mask from another time serves as a powerful metaphor for the authentic self we've buried beneath layers of compromise and caution. As our protagonist receives a one-way ticket to an unknown destination, we're reminded that transformation rarely arrives with clear instructions or comfortable guarantees.
What small invitation might you be overlooking in your own life? What ancient part of yourself waits to be remembered? Join me for this first installment of The Forgotten Samurai series, and perhaps discover your own call to adventure hiding in plain sight. Connect with me through the "Let's Chat" link, email anthony@gentsjourney.com, or find me on Instagram @mygentsjourney to share your thoughts on awakening to your own forgotten path.
"True mastery is found in the details. The way you handle the little things defines the way you handle everything."
Hello and welcome to the Gentleman's Journey podcast. My name is Anthony, your host, and today I got a good one for you. This is going to be a good series. I think you guys are really going to like it. This is the Forgotten Samurai, so I'm just going to go ahead and I'm just going to get into it.
Speaker 1:The kettle had boiled over. Steam hissed from the stove top like a ghost being exercised from cheap metal. He didn't move right away, he just sat at the kitchen table. It's tiny and the same shirt he wore yesterday, staring at the floor with eyes that hadn't forgiven him. Yet.
Speaker 1:The room stank of stale whiskey and tobacco. His fedora sat on the counter like a priest waiting for a confession. The brass zippo clicked open with muscle memory Flame kissed the end of his lucky strike and the first drag hit like regret. He poured his coffee too strong, too bitter, and drank it black from a chip mug that used to say something clever. Before time wore off the letters. His head throbbed, not from alcohol, not exactly, more from the weight of everything. He wasn't anymore.
Speaker 1:Then a knock Slow, solid, unrushed, just two dull thuds at the door. He stood groaning, stretching a back that had been punishing him since the war. A quick glance at the hallway mirror told him exactly what he already knew he looked like hell. He didn't care. He opened the door expecting a bell or, worse, a memory. Instead, a man in a tan uniform holding a clipboard Delivery. The man grunted need a signature For what he asked. Squinting, the man shrugged, motioning over his shoulder Beats me some. Big-ass crate, real heavy, marked, fragile. No return address. He signed without thinking.
Speaker 1:The delivery man wheeled the crate into the hallway. Wood stained with travel edge cracked, like it had cross-continents. No label, just a black ink stamp near the top, one Kenji symbol smeared with time. They both stared at it for a second too long. The man in the hat thanked him, though it sounded more like a question than gratitude. The door clicked shut behind him.
Speaker 1:He stood over the crate for a long minute sipping his coffee that's gone cold. Then the phone rang An old rotary unit on the wall. He didn't rush to answer. He picked it up on the third ring. Yeah, a small, tiny, shaky voice. Can you come down a minute? I need your help moving the table. It was Mrs Nakano. If you help me, me I'll make breakfast, she added. Before he could say no, he looked back at the crate, then down at the coffee in his hand, then back of the phone yeah, alright, I'll be right there. The crate waited and so did the mask inside it. The stare creaked under his weight.
Speaker 1:Every step down to Mrs Nakano's apartment felt like a negotiation between gravity and guilt. He hadn't shaved in three days and his collar of his shirt smelled like wet ash. She met him at the door in her house slippers, holding a porcelain bowl chipped with gold leaf along the rim. Thank you, thank you, she said in a voice that sounded like it was made of steam. Table won't move for me today. Back's no good. The place smelled like ginger in old newspapers.
Speaker 1:He stepped in eyes adjusting to the soft yellow light like it always seemed to hang in her apartment like a blessing or a trap. The table wasn't heavy. He moved it six inches to the left, just like she asked. She handed him the bowl Eat, you're thin, I'm not thin, he said. Well, you're not full either. She replied already lading a broth into the second bowl. He sat reluctantly, took a sip. Hot, sharp, honest. They ate without talking much. The radio played something soft and forgettable in the background. Maybe Glenn Miller, maybe not. You sleep at all, she asked. He shook his head Fog's too loud. She nodded like that made sense. You got something in your eyes today, old, something Like maybe you finally remembered something you didn't want to. He didn't answer.
Speaker 1:After breakfast she packed the leftovers into a tin and handed it to him. You got a box waiting upstairs, she said. I felt it come in. He looked at her. I hear things. Old things doesn't mean they speak. He left without a word back in apartment.
Speaker 1:The crate hadn't moved, the mask inside didn't breathe, but the room felt changed. He set the tin on the counter, approached the crate again. It looked older, now wetter, as if it's been waiting longer than it had. Now wetter, as if it's been waiting longer than it had. He touched the top. Dust came off like it was alive. He grabbed a crowbar beneath the sink and worked the nails loose, one by one, each pull, grown like something being exhumed Inside, straw packed, tight, smelling of earth and smoke.
Speaker 1:He pushed it aside. And then he saw it the mask, porcelain, cracked, stained with something too faded to name, too faded to name. The eyes wept thin black streaks. The mouth was open, a frozen scream or a prayer. He didn't touch it, he just stared. Somewhere far off, a train called through the fog, the moment held. He reached in, wrapped it in a towel and placed it on the table. It stared back and for the first time in weeks he didn't feel alone. He lit another cigarette before knowing why. The smoke didn't taste right too bitter, too thick, like something trying to whisper but choking on its own name. The mask sat on the table in front of him, wrapped in its towel, like a body too fragile for a burial. It hadn't moved, of course it hadn't, but he still kept glancing at it, like it might suddenly tell him something important or accuse him of something forgotten. Outside, the fog was holding the street hostage again. A signal car rolled by headlights, cutting the mist in two, then vanishing like a promise that didn't survive.
Speaker 1:The morning he poured himself a fresh cup of coffee, then added a shot of whiskey or whatever was left in the flask. The smell slapped him across the face. With memory, he sat back down, pulled the note from under the ashtray, the one that came earlier, the one with the number. He hadn't called, yet he didn't even know why he kept it. He hadn't called, yet he didn't even know why he kept it. He needed something different. He did. But different usually means dangerous, and dangerous had a way of costing you parts of yourself you didn't know you could lose.
Speaker 1:Still, there was a weight to that crate, to that mask, like something in it had been waiting for him or haunting him, or both. He lit another lucky strike. The phone rang again. He didn't move. He let it ring four times. He let it ring four times five. He picked it up. Silence on the other end. Then a click. He hung up.
Speaker 1:That's when he noticed the map. It hadn't been in the crate, at least he didn't remember it. But now, there it was, folded, tucked under the towel. The mask had been wrapped in A faint crease down the center, like a wound, stitched shut. He unfolded it slowly. Wasn't like any map he'd seen before no country borders, no names, just lines, paths, one red mark, a single dot drawn in pencil or blood. It sat on the table between the mask and the ashtray. He stared at it like it was mocking him, but deep down he knew what it was An invitation. But to what he hadn't yet decided. He didn't sleep. At some point the lights went off. Either he turned them off or the bulb died, like everything else in the room that used to shine. The mask hadn't moved, but neither had he. The map lay open on the table, the strange dots circled in red. No legend, no coordinates, Just a suggestion like somewhere mattered.
Speaker 1:By morning the city had changed clothes, the fog thinned, but the sky was still gray like an old bruise. He stood at the window rubbing the back of his neck, watching people who had places to pretend they knew why he still hadn't touched the mask with his bare hands. Instead, he poured more coffee, stood over the crate and finally reached in again A second compartment. Beneath the straw, buried under the weight of the mask's padding, he found a piece of folded cloth, aged, ceremonial, inked with a symbol he didn't recognize. It was red, like the dot on the map, a circle inside a circle, lines bleeding inward like they'd been drawn. With hesitation or grief, he unwrapped it slowly, letting the texture unfold between his fingers. Inside was something else a tiny carved emblem, maybe jade, maybe bone, etched with the same Kenji symbol that had been stamped on the crate. The edges were smooth, worn by time and ritual. Next to it, tucked just beneath the cloth, was a small envelope, yellowed at the edges, sealed with wax. He broke the seal Inside, a folded note handwritten in dark ink.
Speaker 1:Most men sleep through their own calling. This is your invitation to wake up. The first mark will appear when you remember. No signature, no explanation. He lit a cigarette and stared at the pieces in front of him the cloth, the token, the map and the mask Until the smoke made his eyes sting.
Speaker 1:The phone rang again. He picked it up, this time before the second ring. No silence, a man, a voice, british, dry, like sandpaper across a confession. Like sandpaper across a confession. You've been chosen, it said. For what A pause To begin. The line clicked dead before he could respond. He looked down at the mask and now the cloth and the token beside it. For a second he considered packing them all away, but he didn't. Instead, he considered packing them all away, but he didn't. Instead, he stood there, the smoke from his cigarette rising between them, trying to make sense of all the quiet. And in that moment the mask didn't feel like it was looking back. It felt like it was waiting. He tried to call the number back. It wasn't listed, not in the phone book, not on any service directory, not even the operator Operator said no such number exists. She said in that clipped voice that made everything sound like protocol, not mistake Impossibility. He hung up and let another lucky strike Three.
Speaker 1:That morning already the towel around the mask had dried but now bore a faint outline where the porcelain wept. He folded it carefully, tucked it in the drawer with others, not to protect it, just to delay deciding what to do with it. He looked out the window. San Francisco had turned to wet light and impatient traffic, trolley bells and boots on cement, a world going about its business while something ancient sat on his kitchen table like it knew the truth about his life. He checked the map again that dot, no name, no road. But now something strange A second mark fainter had appeared just above it, like the ink was bleeding outward, or something on the ink was bleeding outward or something on the page was waking up.
Speaker 1:The knock on the door came different this time. Three wraps, measured, intentional. He opened slowly. No one, just an envelope, black, no stamp, no handwriting Inside, a single matchstick and a train ticket One way Oregon, departure tomorrow morning. He held it like it might vanish. Maybe he already had a dozen time and dreams he never remembered. He looked back at the mask. I don't even know who you are, he said to no one. But the mask, for the first time, didn't feel like a thing. It felt like an answer he hasn't earned.
Speaker 1:Yet you don't always notice when life stops being your life. It doesn't happen like they say, it does in the movies, right? There's no explosion, no gunshot, no scream through the night. It's quieter than that, it's slower, almost respectful, like life knows. If it screamed you might actually wake up. So instead it gets dull, comfortable, familiar. And then you're gone.
Speaker 1:The man he used to be still in there somewhere, but now he lives in old coffee mugs and half lit cigarettes. And this and the way you stare out the window longer than you're meant to, that's what I saw in him. He wasn't broken, he wasn't paused, and sometimes that's worse. There's something cruel about being aware enough to know that you're stuck, being too tired to pull the lever, too dumb to call it what it is, too afraid to admit. You're still waiting for something to save you. And then it happens you, and then it happens. Not a miracle, not a revelation, just a knock. Maybe it's a delivery, maybe it's a phone call, maybe it's someone downstairs asking for help with the table. Nothing heroic, nothing with strings, just life offering one more chance to care, one more crack in the glass where the light might get in.
Speaker 1:And if you're lucky and I mean truly lucky you notice, you get up, you open the door and it doesn't feel like a shift. It feels like just another day, another errand, another reason not to think about what you haven't done, the years that you've been given, but inside, something ancient stirs. That's what happened to him. He doesn't know it yet, but the moment he signed for that crate, the war began, not between him and the world, but between him and the man he told himself he would never become. That's how it starts for most of us Not with some grand vision or some epic moment, but with the quiet horror of recognizing your life has become something you've never chosen. We're taught to wait, you know. Wait until you're ready, wait until you have enough money, wait until the timing is right. But the truth is the door won't knock forever, and when it does, it doesn't wait for your permission. What I saw in him, and maybe what I see in you, is the moment a man starts to wonder if he's still in there, because even if the job is strange, even if the crate is ancient, even if the map has no names.
Speaker 1:The heart remembers, somewhere in the fog. You still remember what it feels like to move without asking first. You remember curiosity before caution. You remember the fire before the system trained it out of you. You remember what it meant to believe that you were meant for something more than rinse and repeat. He didn't leave because he was ready. He left because staying felt like a form of death he hadn't earned. And that's the edge we all live in, isn't it? The edge between staying and sinking, the edge between comfort and calling. He didn't know where that ticket led right, he didn't care because the only thing worse than going was staying. And maybe you know exactly what that feels like. Maybe your apartment doesn't have a mask or a map or a ticket waiting, but maybe you got the same ink, the same question, the same flicker of something dangerous or old stirring in the parts of you that never fully died.
Speaker 1:So here's what I'll leave with you. I'm not going to give you a lesson tonight, not yet. These will come. For now I give you this Don't wait for the knock to come with a label. Sometimes the thing that saves you doesn't look like salvation. It looks like inconvenience, like helping someone move a table, like opening a box you didn't order, like saying yes before you have a reason. So tell me this what's the smallest thing you could say yes to this week? That would terrify the version of you who's been settling. That's your beginning, that's your edge and maybe, just maybe, that's where you leave the man you've been. So, guys, I know this is different, this is really different, but I enjoyed this and I hope you did too.
Speaker 1:I want to thank you guys again, especially after the confidence protocols. My gosh, you guys really showed up, so thank you so much for that. And I'm getting a lot of great feedback as I can talk right. But also, too, I'm getting a lot of questions, and if you want me to answer your questions or you have any questions about this episode or this series or the tons of other series we got on Gents Journey, you can reach out to me at any time. There's three ways. First way is going to be through the description. It'll be called let's Chat. You click on that and you and I can have a discussion. Second way is going to be through my email. My email is anthonyatgentsjourneycom, so please feel free to reach out to me there. And, last but not least, you can always go to my Instagram. My Instagram is my gents journey. Feel free to reach out to me there too. Okay so, guys, thank you so very much for listening today. And remember this you create your reality. Take care you.