A blade above the heart

The character 忍 (nin) looks like a small frame from a drama that plays out in every human being: 刃 (yaiba) — a blade suspended above 心 (kokoro) — the heart. The blade is concrete and cold, like a decision that lasts a fraction of a second — yet the consequences of its “cut” can last for years. The heart is soft, alive, and full of movement, like breath. When you look at this arrangement, you don’t need any legends to understand the meaning: there is pressure — and there is an interior that must not crack. And yet what you see on paper is only the beginning: in old definitions, 忍 (nin) does not sound like lofty heroism, but like an “ability” — the skill of carrying pressure without handing the helm to impulse.

That is precisely why 忍 (nin) is so strongly linked to the world of 忍者 (ninja) and 忍術 (ninjutsu). Because in that tradition, “to endure” is not a slogan — it is a technique — the greatest noise is made by impulse. A twitch betrays you, a breath, a word spoken too early — and anger that pulls you out of the shadows. The key is the verb 忍ぶ (shinobu): one word, three layers of the same art — to hide, to endure, and sometimes simply to carry absence within oneself. Suddenly it turns out that 忍 (nin) is not only the steel of character; it is also a quiet lesson in living in balance with pain — an art of moving through life so as not to fall apart from the inside, and at the same time not to become cold like metal.

And then everyday life arrives: school, work, open space — and 忍 (nin) returns in its most contemporary form as 忍耐 (nintai), the ideal of “endurance,” which can be beautiful and dangerous at once. Beautiful when it gives freedom from impulse: that moment of pause in which you choose a response aligned with your goals and values instead of a reaction to a short-lived emotion. Dangerous when it turns into consent to injustice, into learning to tolerate things that should be repaired — when the word “virtue” covers the real message: “put up with it and keep quiet.” And we learn not to hear the heart — the heart grows quieter, falls silent — until one day it explodes in a scream. In today’s text, we will get to know the structure, the history, and above all the rich psychological world of the kanji 忍 (nin). We will also try to read from this character how to distinguish whether our “heart under the blade” in a given situation is steel discipline, thanks to which we will bear hardships in order to grow — or yet another set of shackles whispering “that’s just how it has to be,” “that’s just how I am.”

The anatomy of the character 忍 (nin)

At first glance, this character tells a certain story: a blade at the top, a heart at the bottom. There is tension. 刃 (yaiba) is the blade of a knife. 心 (kokoro) beneath it is soft and alive — it is the heart and mind of a human being. And it is precisely this juxtaposition — metal above the interior — that makes 忍 (nin) read like a mini-story even before one manages to think, “this must be a metaphor.”

The breakdown into components is therefore clear: at the bottom you have 心 (kokoro), and above it 刃 (yaiba). In classical dictionary descriptions, the character is sometimes treated as 形声 — “from the heart” (that is: it concerns the inner sphere, reaction, affect), and the blade element serves as the phonetic part, while at the same time it “pulls” the meaning toward pressure, cutting, pain. In other words: formally it is a lexicographic construction, but for the reader something else matters more — that the composition is psychologically legible. You don’t need to know the terminology to feel what is going on: something sharp and dangerous is close to something sensitive, soft, and crucial to human life. A difficult, risky situation, full of tension.

That is why the vertical arrangement works so powerfully. The top in kanji often carries the weight of an “external factor”: a situation, fate, pressure, a rule, a threat. The bottom is the place where that pressure is received and processed. In 忍 (nin) there is no shield, no escape, no hand pushing the blade away. There is only a heart that does not step aside. This character does not tell a story of romantic heroism. It tells a story of the mechanics of self-control: the moment in which we stand face to face with danger.

It is also worth seeing that in the lexicographic tradition, alongside meanings such as “to bear, to patiently endure, to tolerate,” there appear definitions that speak directly about ability (“能也”) — as if the essence were not suffering itself, but the skill of keeping oneself whole despite pressure. This is a subtle but important difference: not “suffer because you must,” but “you are able to carry what hurts you.”

And now something surprisingly “alive”: how you write it. In the canonical tradition, 忍 is given as 7 strokes (in the Kangxi classification: 7 within the character, with the heart radical as the base). This is not about having the reader count strokes like an accountant — it is about the fact that the movement of the hand teaches meaning.

First comes 刃: three quick, decisive strokes — like stating a fact, like a cut. Only then do you go down to 心. And that “descent” matters: after the blade there is no counterattack, only entry into the interior. The heart in kanji is written so that the hand makes short, flowing, soft gestures — as if something inside wanted to move, but is being kept in check. In calligraphy you can even “perform” it: make the top hard, the bottom calmer; or the opposite — the blade even, the heart tense — and then the character looks as if something inside truly had to remain unmoved.

Etymology and basic meaning: from “to endure” to “to be capable”

If at first glance the character 忍 looks like a frame from a short film — a blade suspended above the heart — then the old definitions do something interesting: they extinguish the romanticism and leave pure function. In classical dictionaries, the core is sometimes summarized in a single austere word: “ability.” Not “courage,” not “heroism,” not “the warrior’s virtue,” but precisely “the skill of carrying something (psychologically)” — as if the essence were that a person can keep themselves whole when life presses down. This is an important twist: the “heart under the blade” is not a story about having to suffer, but about being able to govern one’s reaction, and thus — in a very ancient sense — to be “competent.”

And from here two basic fields of meaning branch out, returning in the next sections like a refrain.

The first is to endure and restrain expression. It is not only about physical pain (though the image of the blade almost begs for it), but about a whole range of impulses: anger, fear, shame, resentment, the desire for an immediate retort. In the oldest understanding this is not a moral pose, but a technique: not to say something in the one second in which words do the greatest harm; not to reveal emotion before one understands what it is actually saying; not to be provoked. This sense is extremely primal: “I endure” means “I do not hand over the helm.” I control myself and my emotions; I am composed.

The second field is more relational: to put up with someone / to tolerate / to forgive. This is no longer an inner scene, but a social one. 忍 (nin) can mean the ability to endure what is difficult, irritating, ill-timed, not to one’s liking in another person. And here the character suddenly becomes very everyday, very “interpersonal”: not the endurance of an ascetic in the wilderness, but patience in a crowd, at home, at work, in a long conversation, in a relationship that has its “thorns.” In this sense, “nin” is not hardness against the world — it is a brake that saves shared life from immediate collapse into grudges and reflexive attacks. When the language acquires the shade of “to let it pass,” “to pardon,” it is as if the blade above were also the blade of my own judgment — and one must be able to lift it for a moment so as not to cut.

But every virtue has a shadow, and in the case of 忍 (nin) that shadow is exceptionally logical — because it arises from the same mechanics. A third branch of meanings leads toward ruthlessness, cruelty, a “hard heart.” If you can clench your heart for a long time (not express what you feel), if for years you practice “not letting it show,” if you learn to cut off reaction… you can also reach a place where you are not so much governing emotion as severing it. And then “nin” turns into something icy: the ability to endure not only your own pain, but also the pain of others — without a twitch. That is why the language knows compounds with this kanji meaning “cruel” or “merciless,” and in the character itself, like in a negative, you can see how easily “strength” becomes “insensitivity.” The blade above the heart does not always mean “ability.” Sometimes it means: “a heart pressed so tightly that it no longer feels.”

And this is a good moment to remember the simplest, historically most honest conclusion for the road ahead: 忍 (nin) is not about heroic suffering. It is about inner competence. This competence can build dignity and calm, but it can also — if exaggerated or forced — produce a person who is “brave” only because they have become as severe to themselves as a blade. In the next section we will go deeper: how this original “ability” splits in language and history into whole families of meanings (from “shinobu” to “nintai”), and why the Japanese can see in 忍 (nin) both discipline and a subtle, quiet feeling.

The heart under the blade as a psychological model: what exactly does “under” mean?

The easiest mistake to make here — one that for a time was quite common on the Internet (including the Japanese one) — is to see in the character 刃 (jin/yaiba) and 心 (kokoro) a simple torture scene and immediately add a moral lesson: “suffer in silence.” Meanwhile, “under” in this arrangement does not mean “destroyed.” “Under” means rather: pressed down, held, controlled. The blade does not fall. It hangs — like pressure that does not have to materialize, yet is enough to force a stance.

This is a very Japanese kind of tension: not so much the drama of spilled pain as discipline in the face of a stimulus. The character 忍 (nin), in this sense, is like a diagram: it shows the moment “just before.” Someone provokes you, the situation is unjust, the body tightens — and then this “under” appears: the heart is already in reaction, but it has not yet released it.

It is worth separating three things, because without this, the whole “nin” becomes either too sentimental or cruel:

1. Suffering as a stimulus: pain, pressure, discomfort, threat, tension (social). What “comes from above” — like that blade.
2. Suffering as interpretation: everything the mind adds in a second: “this is humiliation,” “this is the end,” “they don’t respect me,” “it’s always like this for me.” This is not “falsehood” — it is commentary that can double or triple tension.
3. Endurance as work on the boundary between the two: the skill of neither denying the stimulus (“nothing happened”) nor handing it the entire helm through interpretation (“this is a catastrophe”). In this sense, 忍 (nin) is not a call to suffer, but to agency within suffering: “I see the blade, I feel the heart — and I do not allow one to crush the other.”

This approach is crucial, because it prepares the ground for the next thing: in Japanese, 忍 (nin) does not live alone. This character forms a family of concepts — and each of them emphasizes a different aspect of this “under.”

A conceptual knot: from the character to a family of concepts

At a certain point, the character 忍 (nin) stops being only an image. It begins to function like a core to which language attaches further lenses: one “technical,” another social, a third emotional. And then you can see that the Japanese do not have one word for “endurance.” They have several, and the differences among them are like different focus settings on a camera.

忍耐 (nintai): endurance as a mechanism

忍耐 (nintai) is a word that in translations often sounds like a simple moral poster: “patience, perseverance.” But inside it is a more “engineering-like” construction. 耐 (tai) means to endure, to withstand, to have resistance — something like a material that does not crack under pressure. When you combine 忍 (nin) with 耐 (tai), you get not so much an emotion as a system:

 - the object of endurance (what exactly you are bearing: pain, time, frustration, hunger, pressure, humiliation?),
- and the tool of endurance (how you do it: a goal, a ritual, meaning, training, a principle, a duty?).

In practice this word is like a label on a box: “this will take time, it will not be comfortable, but it can be survived.” And that is why 忍耐 (nintai) sounds more mature — it is about stability, not endurance for show.

忍辱 (ninniku): enduring humiliation — the hardest “nin”

One of the strongest concepts is 忍辱 (ninniku). The second character 辱 (niku/joku) means insult, humiliation, disgrace. So 忍辱 (ninniku) is not “to endure pain” (that is often easier), but to endure in the face of wounded pride, humiliation, sullied honor.

Psychologically, this is a completely different league: physical pain passes, while humiliation can circle inside a person for years, because it feeds on memory and interpretation. And here you see how precisely the character 忍 (nin) works: the blade does not have to be literal. It can be a word, a look, a public accusation. The heart is “under” that blade — because shame and anger rise first. 忍辱 (ninniku) thus names an art that is morally admired, but can also be dangerous: if a person constantly practices “enduring humiliations,” it is easy to confuse dignity with resignation.

忍苦 (ninku): bearing hardship — not drama, but “enduring discomfort”

Another word, more “earthy,” is 忍苦 (ninku). The second character 苦 (ku) is hardship, suffering, bitterness. 忍苦 (ninku) does not sound like a grand philosophy, rather like a description of a phase: “this is hard, but I will endure it.”

This concept is useful because it cuts through romantic fog: there is no ethos here, only discomfort. Fatigue. A long process. Frustration. No quick results. That is everything that in modern life is more common than dramatic “trials” — and that is why this word is so valuable: it shows that “nin” most often does not work on a battlefield, but in the prose of life.

忍従 (ninjū): “endure and submit” — the boundary where virtue can turn into shackles

Semantically the most risky pair is 忍従 (ninjū). The second character 従 (jū/shitagau) means “to follow,” “to obey,” “to submit.” Combined with 忍 (nin), it creates the concept: to endure in obedience, to “patiently submit.”

Here “nin” ceases to be pure inner strength and begins to touch relations of power: in the family, at work, in an institution, in a culture of hierarchy. Psychologically this is the place where one must be very careful, because 忍従 (ninjū) can describe:

 - a mature ability: “I do not smash everything around me, because the situation is temporary,”
or

 - a dangerous habit: “I endure, though it destroys me and my boundaries.”
This word is like a warning sign: “nin” can be a virtue, but it can also be a mechanism that allows the system to keep functioning, even at the cost of the individual.

忍び泣き (shinobi-naki): quiet weeping — “nin” as an emotion “hidden” in the throat

Something that beautifully connects psychology with language: 忍び泣き (shinobi-naki). Here again we have the root 忍 (nin) in the reading しのび (shinobi) as “in secret / quietly” — here it is pure semantics of “secrecy.” The second element is 泣き (naki) — crying. The whole: quiet crying, suppressed crying, the kind we do not want the world to see.

This matters because it shows that “nin” is not always the triumph of self-control. Sometimes it is its price. Emotion finds an outlet, but in minimal form: through the throat, through breath, through a solitary night, through silence. And suddenly you see what was hidden in the character: that “under” also means compression — the feeling is real, only squeezed into a format that will not disturb the world.

To summarize:

 -  To be resilient (and prepared): 忍耐 (nintai) — “I will endure, because I have a way to do it.”
 -  To bear hardship (and discomfort): 忍苦 (ninku) — “I will endure the weight of the process.”
 -  To swallow (slander): 忍辱 (ninniku) — “I will endure when the ego/pride hurts.”
 -  To endure (humbly): 忍従 (ninjū) — “I will endure by submitting” (a virtue or shackles).
 -  To suppress (within oneself): 忍び泣き (shinobi-naki) — “I feel, but I do not show it.”

忍 (nin) in the world of shinobi and ninja

At this stage it is worth taking a step aside and saying it plainly: nowhere else do language and history “stick” to the character 忍 (nin) as strongly as in the world of shinobi and ninja. Because here “to endure” stops being only a trait of character. It becomes a method of action and a philosophy of existence.

Let us look at the very structure of the words. 忍者 (ninja) is literally “a person of 忍 (nin)” — because 者 (sha) simply means “person, someone.” There is no “fight,” no “sword,” no “mystery” inside. There is competence: not to betray yourself, not to crack, not to leave a trace. And 忍術 (ninjutsu)? The second character 術 (jutsu) is “technique, method, skill” — and that is why this word means not “magical tricks,” but “techniques of 忍 (nin)”: practical ways of acting in shadow, controlling reaction, surviving discomfort, entering and leaving without noise.

But the key to this world is the verb 忍ぶ (shinobu) — because it shows that “nin” is not only hard steel. It is also a soft, very human technique for navigating pain and lack.

In Japanese, 忍ぶ (shinobu) is a layered word. As if it had three doors, and each leads to a different room — and each of these rooms is needed to understand why shinobi/ninja “took” the character 忍 (nin) for themselves at all.

1) To hide / to act quietly / to slip through

The first layer is the most “cinematic,” but also the most literal: 忍ぶ (shinobu) as “to act in such a way as not to be noticed.” In this sense, shinobi is not a “warrior,” but someone who has mastered the art of absence / invisibility.

And now the image of the character returns: if the heart is under the blade, that means every impulse can betray you. The worst thing a person can do in a risky situation is “erupt”: a sudden breath, a nervous movement, a word thrown too quickly, a glance that says too much. 忍ぶ (shinobu) is therefore hiding not only in space, but also within oneself.

2) To endure / to restrain oneself

The second layer is perhaps even more important: 忍ぶ (shinobu) as “to endure and not give in.” This is the same mechanics we saw in the character: the pressure is real, the emotion is real — but the person holds it “under.”

This is a very concrete meaning: to endure hunger, cold, sleeplessness, fatigue, fear; not to show hesitation at the moment when hesitation is information for the opponent; not to betray intention in a power relationship. Here “nin” becomes something like a muscle — the more often it works, the more it is ability, not declaration.

3) To remember / to long / “to carry someone in the heart”

The third layer surprises, because it seems to contradict the rest: 忍ぶ (shinobu) can also mean to remember, to long for, to carry someone in the heart — and thus not only “tightening,” but also emotional endurance.

This is extremely important: in this sense “nin” is not merely the art of suppression. It is the art of surviving in the face of absence. When someone is gone, when something has passed, when a wound no longer bleeds but still weighs — one can fall apart or one can “carry” it within oneself without noise, without theater. It is still “the heart under the blade,” only the blade no longer comes from outside. It is memory.

(more about the meaning and history of ninja you can read in numerous articles on ukiyo-japan.pl, e.g.:
Ninja in Retirement - What Happened to Shinobi During the Peaceful Edo Period?
Iga Province: The Independent Ninja Republic and People's Commune in the Era of the Samurai)

忍 (nin) as an educational virtue and its traps

The character 忍 (nin) begins as a simple graphic: a blade above the heart. But the longer you look at it, the more you see that it is not only an image, but also a cultural instruction. What was first an “arrangement of strokes” over time becomes an ethos: a way a person is supposed to hold themselves in the world. And it is precisely here that a tension is born which in Japan is exceptionally clear: between mature self-control and a mechanism of conditioning, between shaping character and producing obedience.

Most often this ethos speaks to us through the word 忍耐 (nintai). At school, at home, in the company, in everyday stories, 忍耐 (nintai) sounds like an obvious virtue: patience, perseverance, resilience. In this bright version it is something truly valuable: the ability for emotion not to govern behavior. A person may feel anger, fear, shame, or frustration, but does not have to hand them the helm in the same second. They can wait, cool down, finish, move through discomfort without destroying relationships. Understood this way, 忍 (nin) is not clenching one’s teeth “for principle.” It is an elegant form of freedom: I am not an automaton reacting to a stimulus; I can choose a response.

But ideals have a tendency: when they enter a system, they like to turn into tools. And then a question appears that each of us feels intuitively, even if we have never put it into words: when is 忍耐 (nintai) self-development, and when is it tolerating something against oneself for the benefit of a third party? In the mature version, “I endure” because I see meaning, because I have a goal, because I consciously choose effort. In the darker version, “I endure” because it’s not proper, because it’s not allowed, because “that’s how it’s done,” because “don’t make problems.” Then the blade above the heart is not a trial of character, but a mechanism of social pressure: patience turns into silence, perseverance into resignation, self-control into self-censorship.

At this point, the popular word “resilience” enters the conversation. It can be wise, because it reminds us that psychological strength does not have to be a hard shell. That one can learn to return to balance, build resources, regulate emotions, seek support. This is a modern language that can describe the good face of 忍 (nin): not to break immediately, not to fall into pieces at the first blade. And yet this language can also obscure, if it is used like paint to cover cracks. Because when an environment is toxic and the response is: “work on resilience,” it can be an elegant way of saying: “do what I tell you and keep quiet.”

You can see this tension best in two laboratories of the modern world: in catastrophe and in the office. In extreme moments, the world often looks at Japan with admiration: people line up, are polite, there is no chaos and violence, faces remain calm (about the Japanese philosophy of readiness for natural disaster, you can read here: Bōsai. Keep calm, help your neighbours, rebuild the city. How Japan raises children for the event of disaster. ). This is the bright side of 忍 (nin): self-control as a common good. When everything collapses, someone does not add extra suffering to others through their own panic. Outer calm helps us survive together rather than alone. In such a view, “the heart under the blade” looks almost like a mature form of courage.

But the same scene has a second background, shown less often. The blade does not disappear just because a person kept their face. If one operates for a long time in the mode of “hold on,” the body and psyche can come to claim the bill later: cracks arrive with a delay, when “it is already safe,” and tension can finally drop. Emotions that had no right to come out at the moment of crisis return then like a wave: insomnia, irritability, withdrawal, sometimes symptoms of post-traumatic stress, sometimes a sense of emptiness that no one understands, because after all “you held on so bravely” when it was truly bad, and now it is better, so “don’t pretend.” This is the paradox the character 忍 (nin) has carried from the start: a pressed heart can endure for a long time, but that does not mean it does not suffer.

It is easy to find an analogy in work in an open space — in a world where there is no tragedy, and yet there is daily pressure. In the office too you have a blade above the heart, only it does not take the shape of a knife. It takes the shape of a deadline, an evaluation, a hierarchy, a “meeting culture,” constant availability, an atmosphere in which you must be nice and efficient at the same time. Here 忍 (nin) becomes a micro-practice: not to say it, not to show it, to smile though resistance grows inside. And again: sometimes that is maturity — the ability to govern oneself in a social situation. And sometimes it is slow self-destruction: successive pieces of truth, boundaries, and spontaneity cut off so as not to disturb the arrangement.

Shinobi (or ninja) “disappears to act” — invisibility is a tool of effectiveness. The worker increasingly “disappears not to bother” — invisibility becomes a survival strategy in a system. From the outside it looks similar: a calm face, a heart held steadily “under” the knife. But the meaning can be completely different. A very important question, then, is found in the character 忍 (nin): not the question “can you endure it?”, but the question “do you know why you are enduring — and where is the boundary beyond which endurance ceases to be a virtue and becomes shackles?”

Strength of character and dignity

At the end of this road, it is worth returning to the place we began: to the character 忍 (nin) as an image. The blade is at the top. The heart is at the bottom. And this tension does not vanish. It only matures. Because the longer you look, the more clearly you see that the whole dispute about “endurance” is not between weakness and strength, but between strength and dignity.

The most beautiful version of 忍 (nin) is freedom from impulse. Not coldness. Not lack of emotion. Only the moment in which a person has an emotion, but is not its servant. Anger is present, yet it does not dictate words. Fear is present, yet it does not take the helm. Pain is present, yet it does not turn into aggression. This is self-possession: a quiet, very unflashy, but incomparably effective form of power that rarely looks like triumph and more often like ordinary lucidity. In this version, “the heart under the blade” is not submission — it is mastery of oneself.

The most dangerous version of 忍 (nin) is equally logical, only it leads in the opposite direction. It is the moment in which “endurance” becomes consent to injustice. A person can endure for so long that they begin to confuse patience with necessity, and self-control with silence. The blade is no longer a stimulus that passes and fades. It becomes a permanent element of the landscape — and then the heart, instead of being protected, is being trimmed. In this version, the character does not describe virtue, but a mechanism of adapting to harm: “that’s how it is,” “that’s how it has to be,” “better not to stir it.”

Therefore, the final distinction is simple, but honest:

Endure, because I choose to.
Bear it, because I have no way out.

This is not a moral judgment. It is a compass. Because in the first case, 忍 (nin) is a tool of freedom, and in the second — a tool of the system. The first builds dignity. The second can slowly wash it away.

You don’t need great rituals to check how “the heart under the blade” works on an ordinary day. Four small experiments based on the character itself are enough:

The blade’s pause. When you feel an impulse that wants to come out immediately (a retort, a comment, an eye-roll, an email sent in anger), take a brief break. Literally a brief one. In that slit between stimulus and reaction lives the purest 忍 (nin): not suppression, but choice. Similarly, though in other words and without connection to Japan, Bob Proctor said: “React or Respond.” We can react (like an animal, instinctively, letting a momentary emotion lead us), or we can respond (with our ultimate goal in mind, independent of the momentary emotion).

The pressure map. Ask yourself: what is the blade? Is it a fact (something objective), or an interpretation (what we imagine about the world)? This exercise does not invalidate suffering. It only separates metal from the shadow of metal. Sometimes the blade is real. But sometimes the greatest pressure comes from the story we wrote in our head (brilliant teachers of this art are, among others, the Stoics — let me mention at least “my Teacher” from years past — Marcus Aurelius).

The nin test. Check what you truly feel when you don’t have to pretend. Not aloud, not publicly — only for yourself. This is important, because “nin” without contact with feeling easily becomes mechanical clenching. And a heart that is not listened to does not become calmer — it becomes quieter, falls silent, until one day it begins to speak with a scream.

The nin boundary. Learn to recognize the moment when endurance ceases to be a virtue and becomes a cost. How will you know? Usually by the fact that “I endure” leads to no meaning or change, only to an ever tighter constriction inside: bitterness, numbness, cynicism, withdrawal. This is a sign that the blade is no longer a trial — it is the environment. And then what is needed is not to endure more, but to move the blade away: through a conversation, a boundary, a decision, a change.

And at the end, one sentence worth leaving like a seal on paper: 忍 (nin) is not meant to be a monument. It is meant to be a tool that allows us to walk through hardships by which we grow — that is, discipline.

“心のまよふ所なく、朝々時々におこたらず”

(Kokoro no mayou tokoro naku, asaasa toki-doki ni okotarazu.)

“With a tranquil spirit, accumulate practice day by day, hour by hour.”

 - 宮本武蔵 (Miyamoto Musashi),
五輪書 (Gorin no sho),
空の巻 (Kū no maki, “Book of Emptiness”)

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"Strong Japanese Women"

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    未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

  Mike Soray

   (aka Michał Sobieraj)

未開    ソビエライ

 An enthusiast of Asian culture with a deep appreciation for the diverse philosophies of the world. By education, a psychologist and philologist specializing in Korean studies. At heart, a programmer (primarily for Android) and a passionate technology enthusiast, as well as a practitioner of Zen and mono no aware. In moments of tranquility, adheres to a disciplined lifestyle, firmly believing that perseverance, continuous personal growth, and dedication to one's passions are the wisest paths in life. Author of the book "Strong Women of Japan" (>>see more)

Personal motto:

"The most powerful force in the universe is compound interest." - Albert Einstein (probably)

Mike Soray

(aka Michał Sobieraj)

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