An interview with one of my favorite authors takes me back to a walk up a seeming never ending ascent with our friend Yoshi and his own Japanese hillside and manages to say what everybody else has been trying to say about the state of the world, effortlessly, yet in reflecting on his own country's disasters and recovery post-disaster. If it is even post yet...

I think many Japanese people think this is a turning point for our country," he said. "It was a nightmare, but still it's a good chance to change. After 1945, we have been working so hard and getting rich. But that kind of thing doesn't continue anymore. We have to change our values. We have to think about how we can get happy. It's not about money. It's not about efficiency. It's about discipline and purpose. What I wanted to say is what I've been saying since 1968: we have to change the system. I think this is a time when we have to be idealistic again.

-via Sam Anderson and The New York Times Magazine, The Underground Man