I'm a bit lost. The older (wiser ?) I get the more I realize how everything in life is so unstable and relative.
Most things are what we make of them. You could be stupid and become the president of a big country, start a few wars, change history for better or for worse. People then may or may not realize how stupid you are.. but it will still be a bit win for chaos. Chaos rules modern civilizations, big time.

At work things are going well.. relationships with coworkers improve everyday. As a senior employee, I feel that younger coworkers have certain expectations towards me.. which makes sense, but at the same time one could be wrong on something at any age.
Some people will challenge the status quo more than others. Sometimes I'm challenged myself, though I'm a person that challenges things... challenge the challenger !

You can challenge something, demonstrate the opposite and possibly be successful in your job. Or you can go along and still be successful.

Basically I think that nothing is really well defined. I can see how I could take a path at work and focus on something or focus on something else.. there is a lot of potential everywhere. I could be rich and famous if I cared for that more than other things.. then people complain that they are not rich, but I can't see how it's not their fault.

Same is with personal relationships. A recurring pattern:

10 find a girlfriend
20 take her for granted and get tired of her
30 break up
40 regret for a while
50 find a new girlfriend
60 stay in limbo for a while
70 lose interest for the previous girlfriend
80 goto 20

.. in the meantime there is this ghost.. the ghost of the "M" word.
My opinion is that if I didn't leave Italy, I'd be "M" by now ("M" is pronounced: "fucked !") .. because life would have been much more static. I'm not a wild adventurer, but you don't move to California and then to Tokyo only to get stuck in some gear.
I sometimes wonder how fashion and female customs affect economy. With all those cute girls wearing sexy clothes everyday.. perhaps affects how men think and behave. Perhaps men would be less motivated at work if there wasn't so much "fish in the sea" (though not easy to catch !) constantly teasing the hungry worker.. work harder, get richer, buy me an expensive bag !
And those sexy girls definitely influence other girls.. it's like a race to who's cuter.. or at least it's a reminder that if you don't act cute or dress sexy, then some other girl will and she'll take the better man.

Basically a competitive environment..
Of course all this has to be taken with a grain of salt. I think I see the general rule to get people going and working. It's true everywhere, but perhaps slightly accentuated in Japan. To what degree and to what extent I don't know, but I can definitely see why women in Rome and in Los Angeles dress a lot more casual than their Japanese counterparts.

..but where does all this lead ? I'm supposed to feel arrived, to want to settle, to want to go home early. Instead I want to do my programming, I want to code graphics, mostly, but anything else.. I like the freedom to go about projects at work or at home.. and I find it hard to believe that I will ever want to get into a relationship that is destined to become affection and little or no passion in the best case. But more like fighting, cheating, separation in the more common case.

Every time the "program counter" gets to 50 I'm glad that I'm still in the loop, because every cycle is a bit different, every time I learn something new and I fear the day when I will have to break that cycle.

ummmmmmmmm !!!!