The Calligrapher — Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之

The 'Sage of Calligraphy'; his running script has set the standard for 1,700 years.

Eastern Jin calligrapher (303–361), master of running script/cursive script/regular script — the Sage of Calligraphy; his Orchid Pavilion Preface is the most celebrated work in the tradition, and nearly every later master traces lineage to his hand. Eastern Jin dynasty

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.

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.