Tom dropped a skateboard down a covered drain today. He had rolled it down a steep road on the instructions of a friend and by the time I caught them up, it was a metre below the roadway and hemmed in by a sealed metal grid. Stern reprimand and home I go thinking about how I might fish it out.

Thirty minutes later I held the unimprisoned skateboard aloft. I had fashioned a recovery device from a wire coat-hanger lashed to a length of cut and stripped bamboo. It had worked (to my considerable amazement) on the first try!

I write this only because in the past I might have sought the help of others, if only to borrow something. Problem solving is genuinely fun and helps with developing autonomy. So I recommend it. We can all do with a dose of self-reliance, now and then.

On a different (though related) topic, I am introducing myself to Ikigai.

Ikigai (生き甲斐, pronounced [ikiɡai]) is a Japanese concept meaning "a reason for being". Everyone, according to the Japanese, has an ikigai. Finding it requires a deep and often lengthy search of self.