The Calligrapher — Wú Dàchéng 吴大澂

Qing scholar-official famed for refined seal script.

Qing calligrapher (), master of seal script — known for 金文书法家. Qing dynasty

Etymology & Meaning · 字义溯源

2 · The Character: 今 今 (jīn, 1st tone) is, in Xu Shen, the present seized: 是時也。从亼从乁 — 'this time; from 亼 (collect) and 乁 (reach),' i.e., the now that is arrived at. The classics set it against the past: the Shijing (召南·摽有梅) '迨其今兮' (hasten while it is now); the Yuanjue Jing '無去來今' (no going, no coming, no past-present-future); the Shijing (周颂) '匪今斯今' (not only now, but now); the Yilin '追古傷今' (pursue the ancient, grieve the present). As a free morpheme 今 means 'now, this, modern,' and is benign in 今朝, 今生, 古今. Honest disclosure: 今 is a time-word and on skin is a small, plain character; it wants a partner (今生, 今朝) to mean 'seize the now' rather than just 'today.' Pair it deliberately, or wear it as a minimalist carpe-diem mark. In Japanese it is ima. The Wuxing attribution is confident: 今 is Wood (木), the present growth.

Cultural Story

今 is the mouth under a lid, the present spoken into being, now as opposed to the 古 of the ancients. The 論語, 古之學者為己, 今之學者為人, the men of old studied for self, those of now for show. The character is the moment's mouth, the breath that marks this single day against all the days before.

Where a Western reader can stand: Where a Western reader can stand: picture the word 'now' carved in the heavy, pictographic capital of an inscribed bronze vessel — the present tense drawn as archaeology, a small modern word given the weight of antiquity. Wear it and you wear the now as the ancients might have written it; pair it, for alone it is just 'today.'

Common words & phrases

• 今天 today
• 今年 this year
• 如今 now · nowadays
• 今后 from now on
• 当今 present · now
• 至今 until now

Read the story behind the character

今天 is the only day that matters; 今年 the resolution and the tax. 如今 is the nowadays of complaint; 今后 the promise, from now on I will. 当今 is the reigning and the current; 至今 the until now of a grudge. The character is the present tense of Chinese, the word that pins a statement to this day. You use it to separate what is from what was, the mouth under the lid still speaking.

Why this character belongs on skin

Now. Not yesterday's ash, not tomorrow's rumor — this breath, this minute, the only ground you are certain to stand on. 今 is the present, the today, the character that some say shows a tongue shaped to speak the living moment. We are forever elsewhere — rehearsing, regretting, scrolling toward a life that hasn't arrived. To wear 今 is to tattoo presence itself, the decision to be where your feet are. The West sells perpetual deferral; this mark refuses it. A small, calm character near the pulse becomes a bell you ring on yourself: here. The now is the only scripture that never lies, the only country that never revokes your citizenship. You do not need a mountain or a year abroad to find it. You need only this mark, and the willingness to look down at it and remember: the life is happening, right here, in the small warm animal of the present. Stay.