Gedo Senki (Tales from Earthsea)

2nd February 2006

Number 29 - EIG

Whether it's animation or colour selection, after working every day on the job with the professionals in those fields, I think that these things can't be learned from studying books.
Rather, it's about keeping your eyes and ears open, and not missing anything. It's not studying the skills, it's stealing them.

Knowledge acquired from study is, in fact, totally useless for making the on the spot decisions required in real life.

At the planning office I worked at before, there was an old veteran engineer, who specialized in planning sewers and he always used to say, "Construction is EIG."
E = Experience, I = Instinct, G = Guts[1]

Real world situations are usually complex.

For example, I was designing a U-shaped gutter for this road.
If it was just carrying water, a 20 centimetre width would be enough, but it's easy for dirt and mud to build up there.
So widening it to 30 centimetres, wide enough for a shovel, while it would cost more, was more effective when you considered ongoing maintenance.

Knowledge alone isn't enough to respond effectively to real situations.
When confronting a specific situation, you need the experience to visualize the paths that lead to a solution.
Choosing which solution to adopt depends on instinct.
Finally, you need the guts to make the decision.

Translator's Notes

[1]: Actually this was KKD: K = Keiken 経 験 (Experience), K = Kan 勘 (Instinct/intuition/sixth sense), D = Dokyou 庆 胸 (Nerve/courage/guts).