Matthew's Blog
Habits, Memory, and New Book Smell
I have an odd habit. Whenever I buy a new book—such as Folk-Tales of the Coast Salish, shown above, which I am using for research in my RAVEN books—the first thing I do is open them up wide, take a deep sniff, and smell the fresh print on paper. But why? Well, we all...
Venn Diagrams, Ikigai, And Engineering
One benefit of studying physics and engineering is that it gives me some insight into the difference between the theoretical and the practical. For example, although quantum physics and general relativity give a better theoretical description of the universe than...
Writing And My Kit-Cat Klock
One place I enjoy writing, especially in the early morning, is at my kitchen counter. And one reason I enjoy writing here is that a few feet away, facing me, is my classic Kit-Cat Klock, with its rhythmic eye movement and tail wagging, coupled with a gently mechanical...
Ikigai is not Happiness
Ikigai is not equivalent to happiness. (There is an excellent Ancient Greek word for happiness: εὐδαιμονία [eudaimonia], which has a complicated relationship with its cousin ἀρετή [arete, or excellence].) Nor do I think ikigai is essential to happiness. There are...
Excellence and Equilibrium
I don’t think the pursuit of excellence is linear, like this: beginner’s mind → journeyman → mastery Rather, I think it is a continuous, cyclic, equilibrium: beginner’s mind ⇄ journeyman ⇄ mastery ⇄ beginner’s mind
Ikigai and Cultural Appropriation
Is studying the concept of ikigai, and then trying to apply it to one’s own life, a form of cultural appropriation? To answer this question, let’s first take a look at a few definitions of cultural appropriation. Here is a very small sampling of some of the various...
Ikigai and Other Japanese “Loanwords”
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a loanword as “a word adopted or borrowed from another language.” Although I don’t quite see how one language-speaking people can borrow a word (after all, how do you give back a word?), certainly ikigai is a word that in certain...
Breaking Down Ikigai’s Kanji
The word ikigai (pronounced “eeky-guy”) is a loanword from Japanese, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as: ikigai: a motivating force; something or someone that gives a person a sense of purpose or a reason for living.OED In kanji, it is represented as 生き甲斐....
Wordsmiths Love Words
I ran across a word I wasn’t familiar with the other day: lapidary. After a leisurely journey with the Oxford English Dictionary, here are some of the definitions I found: Concerned with stones. rare.Of an inscription, etc.: Engraved on stone, esp. monumental stones....