journal features

mountain pass

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Kokubunji, 2022.07.18

Recently I've been rebuilding a study tool for kanji that I accidentally nuked several months ago. I re-built the database and then improved on the original quiz/flash tool. Because not one person on the entire Internet signed up to use it, I've made it private again.

One of the first kanji my new tool tried to teach me was that for the expression "mountain pass".

峠

Interestingly, it's three constituent components are mountain (山), up (上), and down (下). Which is about as clear a way of depicting a mountain pass short of drawing a saddle point.

rand()m quote

One day you will take a fork in the road, and you're going to have to make a decision about which direction you want to go. If you go one way, you can be somebody. You will have to make compromises and you will have to turn your back on your friends. But you will be a member of the club and you will get promoted and get good assignments. Or you can go the other way and you can do something [...] for yourself. If you decide to do something, you may not get promoted and get good assignments and you certainly will not be a favorite of your superiors. But you won't have to compromise yourself. To be somebody or to do something. In life there is often a roll call. That's when you have to make a decision. To be or to do.

—John Boyd, US Air Force