門前の小僧習わぬ経を読む AND 十人十色

The Japanese have always had great sense of design without the pollution of big and better ideas like the United States. Not to say bigger and better is so bad, but not everyone's style, especially someone who weighs less than 160lbs. A minimalistic idea leads to interesting ways to design and shape. Less is more and efficiency is king.

The environment makes our characters. And different strokes for different folks. The Japanese sayings for the day. In good old US of A our lands seem endless and so do the possibilities. We build things to be bigger and better than the last builder. V8, V10,W12. I'm not saying having one of the biggest motorcycles in the world is a bad thing, just not my style.

But a country that has ideas based on efficiency and minimalism is more my style. Because of Japans size and limits in area the Japanese have learned to live with what is enough not what is best. Harvey Levenstein, author of Paradox of Plenty made very compelling observations about American and there need for greed. The idea of Paradox for Plenty is also know as a resource curse. It states that a country with an abundance of natural resources tends to have less economic growth and and worse development outcomes than a country with less resources. All I need to do is look at my own habits. When I am broke I spend way less of things I don't really need. But when money is in my hand, its over, eBay, eBay, eBay.

When suburbia overwhelmed America, these things really started to take over. As we moved further away from or stores and walking became less of a routine we started making our big weekly trips to the supermarkets. Things in general started getting bigger. So did our ideas.

Japan is 4% the size of America, which makes Japan about the size of California. They have to live within every means possible. A couple companies in Japan have seen this and are doing the right things to make this normal in Japan. Muji says: We would like our customers to feel the rational sense of satisfaction that comes not with "this is the best," but with "this is enough." "Best" becomes "enough".

Well I think my point comes down to lifestyles equal design styles. So I might start buying more Japanese motorcycle mags. Thanks Tyson.

No Harleys here

The girl on the bike kind of makes you want to read this lengthy post:)