意志堅固

いしけんご
ishikengo

My apologies to all of you for the long delay between posts(except for you, Sash the Red. I'm the prettiest thing on this website!). Now that school is back in session and I am looking for a job for the summer, finding time to write yo-ji's is getting more and more difficult. Hopefully things will calm down a little bit, and Jeff will get his internet back, so he can start carrying us again.

Now you see, that last sentence is an example of the EXACT OPPOSITE of what today's yo-ji is. If I were a better person, I would have said, ok, I'm going to keep to a schedule of x posts/week, no matter what! And then I would keep to it. That's the essence of 意志堅固 as I see it.

意 should be familiar to you from, if nothing else, the word 意味　(imi), which means... meaning or definition. 意 here, though, rather means desire, especially when added to 志, which means ambition. Fun fact: 志 is read in kun-yomi as kokorozashi. Break that into its components and you get 心 and 指す（さす）. Note that this is the same sort of construction as you see in the word 目指す, which means to aim for something as your goal. The two words are similar, although I would say that 志 is more serious. Anyway, put them together and you get 意志, which means "will or desire."

Both 堅 and 固 can be read in kun-yomi as kata(i). That's because, yes, they both mean "hard." The former has a connotation of "reliable;"　the latter means more along the lines of "stiff." That really does only hold to a point, though. Here, however, we don't have to worry about it, because this word contains both of them, although not their cousin 硬. One of these days I swear I will write out all of the differences....

Which brings us to our:

Definition
物事をなすに当たってのこころざしが、しっかりとしていること.

Translation
1) Strong-willed
2) With a solid sense of purpose

and....

例文：彼は勉強に関しては意志堅固で、その志が彼の真面目さで伝わるが、ブログのほうはもう少ししっかりしていただきたい。
He's got a good sense of purpose when it comes to studying, and you can see that in his seriousness, but I wish he'd take the blog a little more seriously.

Here I am, studying hard!