The Calligrapher — Mǐ Fú 米芾

Song eccentric genius of dynamic, 'flying' running script.

Song calligrapher (1051–1107), master of running script — Song eccentric genius ('crazy Zhang, idiot Mi') whose running script alternates discipline with glee. Song dynasty

Cultural Story

業 showed a music rack, the wooden frame that held the bells and chime stones in an ancestral hall, the stand of a solemn performance. From the thing set out for the rite it broadened to any undertaking. A family's 家业 was its holdings; a monk's 業 was his karma-work, the deeds that carried forward. The rack became labor, property, and fate all at once.

Common words & phrases

• 事业 cause · career · undertaking · enterprise
• 企业 enterprise · company · business
• 作业 homework · assignment · work · operation
• 业务 business · professional work · operations
• 专业 specialty · major · professional
• 工业 industry · industrial

Read the story behind the character

企业 is the logo on the glass tower; 作业 is the math your kid hates; 业务 is what the sales desk pushes. 事业 is the grand word for a career you are proud of, 工业 the smoke at the city's edge. The character is the backbone of economic speech, every company, homework, and factory. It has left the music rack far behind and now means simply the work you do and the thing you build.

Why this character belongs on skin

Before it meant career or industry, 业 was the shelf of a loom, the uprights that hold the weave together—the frame on which a life's work is threaded. To have 业 is to have something you are for, a deed that outlasts the day. The Buddhists use it for karma, the action that strings one life to the next; the West speaks of a vocation, a calling heard in the bones. To wear 业 is to refuse the cult of the hobby and the excuse of the job, and to name instead the thing you would do if no one paid you. A tattoo of 业 is a quiet monument to the work that made you. Carry it where your hands meet when you labor, and let it mean you built. The loom is yours; the pattern, still being woven, is the only proof you were here.