I sit at a table, drinking with an old friend with whom I share a lot, and not just bar tabs. We have both gulped away most of our adult lives in Japan.
Long enough to remember not only the bursting of the economic bubble but also the earnest bubble-pumping of the '70s and '80s.
A time when the economy was doing loop-de-loops like some high-flying trapeze act. And you could look into people's eyes and see actual hope, instead of the reflections from their smartphones.