We discussed the history of postwar Japan and how Japan had missed an opportunity to build a more functional democracy because of the focus on fighting communism driven in large part by the American occupation.

Money creates a power relationship between the payer and the payee.

The most important thing I learned in school was how to touch type.

If we destroy human rights and rule of law in response to terrorism, they have won.

I noticed that democracy was broken and tried to work on fixing that in Japan. Then I realized that it was broken all over the place and decided to work on that too.

Question authority; think for yourself. Talk to people, do things unrelated to school - to come up with your own framework for living. The world is too complex and people are too different to be overly prescriptive about the details.

When there is a huge force pressing down on freedoms, sub-cultures with more creativity and power are likely to form.