It might be because I’m in the same line of work as them; many of my classmates from when I was younger, whom I somehow pay attention to or care about, are working at universities.

I think it’s probably because the freedom of a university place makes people full of life.Mr. Yamada Kenta of Senshu University, who will be writing a column entitled “Reading the Times” for the Tokyo Shimbun from July, has a keen eye for an always instructive society. Yoshiki Mori, a doctor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo, works on language semantics and has exciting things to say. Shinya Aoki, director of the Yukawa Hideki Research Institute at Kyoto University, is a cool guy I only see once in a while. I feel that he has transparent eyes that can see everything. Physics and linguistics are also philosophies, and I guess one of my interests lies in that area.