今を生きる ima wo ikiru Live the Moment

Not to live in the present but to live it. The now is the thing lived, not the time one lives in, and the particle を is what makes it so. It is carpe diem in plain modern Japanese, seize the day. It also says to live wholly in the present. A person who chooses it for a fresh start has the first. A person who chooses it for attention to the present has the second. The phrase holds both, and which is yours.

It is the phrase for a fresh start.

The phrase was in Japanese print by 1914, when the critic Sōma Gyofū wrote of how to live the now, and in 1990 it was the title under which Japan saw the film Dead Poets Society, a title rendering Horace's carpe diem, which the film's teacher glosses as "seize the day."

We want you to be as happy with the meaning as you are with Master Takase's art. To learn more, visit Philology of 今を生きる.

Each design is Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's hand-brushed calligraphy of the word or phrase on this page, delivered as a PDF you can print. Every PDF includes the line art, so a tattoo artist or a craftsperson can work from the outline as well as the brushed image.

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