Carve the Turnip

The oldest thing we still do, and why the hard way matters

🌸 ikigai 生き甲斐 is a reason for being, your purpose in life, from the Japanese iki 生き meaning life and gai 甲斐 meaning worth 🌸

A turnip is a ridiculous thing to make a lantern out of.

It has especially dense flesh.

A pumpkin practically invites you in but a turnip makes you work for it. There’s a reason lots of people’s carving instructions these days include the option of a drill *grin*.

And yet here on the Isle of Man, we keep carving them.

I remember the hours it took, the spoons I bent, the sore knuckles and the smell of burnt turnip when the tealight candle was put inside as we carried it from door to door singing with friends for pennies and sweets.

It’s Hop tu Naa today, and I’ve been reflecting on what it means to choose a harder way... and what we might lose if we stop.

The oldest thing we still do

If you’re reading from anywhere other than our little rock in the Irish Sea, Hop tu Naa is what we celebrate on the last night of October. It shares the date with Halloween and plenty of the fun... dressing up, going around the houses, sweets... but it has its own history, songs and customs. Culture Vannin describes it as the Island’s oldest continuously existing tradition.

It is pronounced “hop choo nay”, and the name may come from the Manx Shoh ta’n Oie, this is the night. Its other names, Oie Houney (ee how nuh) and Hollantide Eve, tell you what the night really was... New Year’s Eve. One of the earliest records of the Hop tu Naa song, from around 1790, begins “Tonight is New Year’s Night”.

Oie Houney belongs to the old Celtic year, when Samhain marked the end of the harvest and the start of the darker half of the year. It was a turning point between seasons, with winter on its way and all the lovely spooky possibilities that suggests... an in between time when the boundary between our world and the Otherworld grew thin and the spirits could slip through more easily. Hollantide belongs to the Christian calendar, our Manx version of Allhallowtide, when the church honoured its saints and prayed for the souls of the departed. So one night carries both, a glorious mish mash of ancient pagan and relatively modern Christian ideas, layered up like old wallpaper.

In the old folklore, fire offered protection against mischief and harm, including the attentions of naughty fairies never to be trusted. There’s something so lovely about the thought of small lanterns travelling around the community, keeping the dark at bay... with plenty of singing and dancing along the way. I love us.

Our turnips are known locally as moots, and in Gaelg, our Manx Gaelic, a turnip is a napin. Which makes me wonder about the “neeps” of our neighbours in Scotland. Are the words related? If you know, please tell me... I do love a linguistic rabbit hole.

The pumpkins are winning

Walk into almost any supermarket this week and you’ll find a mountain of pumpkins by the door. I don’t blame anyone for buying one. They’re big and cheerful, they photograph beautifully and are *much* easier to carve. Pumpkins are lovely.

A turnip resists you and as a result the faces can be wonderfully ghoulish... twisted, lopsided, alarming. Every face seems to carry the marks of an argument between carver and vegetable.

The character comes from the resistance.

We can think of AI in this vein. Don’t get me wrong, I use it every day and very much love it most of the time... but it can offer an easy way into almost anything and we recognise its face everywhere at the moment. The familiar poster style, the tidy sentences, the three point lists and conclusions that sound reasonable initially but when dug into perhaps are missing something.

In Choose Your Own Ikigai Adventure I wrote about the reroll, that little circular arrow offering another version, and another, and another... a pumpkin patch that never runs out.

Your voice can be a turnip.

The slightly weird phrase your Nana taught you, the glorious and particular, slightly lopsided way that you specifically see the world.

Some of it comes from stuff we wrestle with. Trying to find a word or phrase and mashing up a metaphor. Getting something wrong and in doing so discovering what we really think.

When I hand too much to a machine, I wonder how much of my voice goes with it.

That’s the ikigai risk of AI in vegetable form. The erosion of the feeling that what you do each day is yours and that it matters, as machines absorb some of the work through which we find meaning.

But I need to be careful here, a sore wrist isn’t a moral achievement. Easier can also mean someone gets to join in, or has enough energy left for something else they love too. There are heaps of bits of work I am delighted to hand over.

We need to notice what the effort gives us, and whether we still want that in our lives.

Being particular

Japanese has a word that helps me think about this kodawari (こだわり).

Ken Mogi describes it as holding to a personal standard, taking extraordinary care over details that other people might never notice. The ramen chef who keeps refining a broth, even when the customers would happily eat the previous version.

I recognise something of that in the things we insist on doing our own way when we deeply care about something.

Sometimes the hard way is stubbornness and the pumpkin is the sensible choice. Sometimes the effort is where the meaning lives. The art is knowing which is which... and noticing when we’ve stopped making a choice at all.

This week I asked AI to design my ultimate Halloween costume. I gave it a rule... make it unmistakably mine, rather than a generic witch or vampire covered in unrelated accessories. What came back was a Hop tu Naa spirit, with a glowing turnip lantern and circuits flowering into cherry blossom. The Ghost in the Meaning Machine. The full reveal is below, because I very much loved it… and it used what it knows about me, my branding colours and quirks.

I had fun and it also reminded me that the tool can help me explore what makes me particularly me. You give it context and details and you have the ability to choose, direct and ultimately decide whether the result really feels like you or not.

We need to remember to also do that when the output is a paragraph, a plan or an opinion... when something smooth and plausible arrives before we’ve formed opinions for ourselves it can be really tricky to judge value.

I’d like AI to help me make more room for the things that matter. I also want to notice when the thing I’m asking it to do is one of them and either stop or be extra careful.

Around the houses

The lanterns aren’t just for your own doorstep. Children carry them around the houses, singing and collecting whatever people want to give them. A tradition survives because enough people keep taking part.

I love the idea that you can be Manx through birth, heritage or choice. That belonging can be something you grow into, and contribute to. Every newcomer who has a go at a moot helps keep the lantern lit… and a living tradition has room for a drill, new neighbours, different verses and other customs to be woven in.

Perhaps that’s what I want to consciously carry into this old New Year. A little more awareness of the things I want to keep practising like real conversations and rambly sentences wrestled into shape while I work out what I really mean.

They give me something I want to keep. A connection to someone. A skill I enjoy using. The feeling that I have something of my own to bring.

The turnip takes longer. But sometimes, by the time you’ve finished, you’ve made more than a lantern.

So I’d love you to finish this sentence in the comments... the thing I still do the hard way, on purpose, is ___.

Happy Hop tu Naa, wherever you are reading this... may your lantern stay lit and the naughty fairies stay well away.

Sarah, seeking ikigai xxx

PS This week’s journal spread is a lantern. Draw a turnip (wonky is encouraged). Inside the glow, write what you want to carry forward into this old New Year. Around the dark edges, write what you’re ready to leave behind.

Then ask yourself... which effort leaves me feeling more connected, capable or like myself? Which effort simply leaves me tired?

PPS This week’s AI experiment is a bit of Hop tu Naa and Halloween fun with a serious turnip at its heart. Upload a photo of yourself and try this...

Using my photo and everything I’ve shared with you, design and generate an image of me wearing my ultimate Halloween fancy dress outfit.

Find an interesting connection between my personality, passions, work, quirks and the things I care about. Turn that connection into one brilliant costume concept with a memorable name. Make it feel unmistakably mine, rather than covering a generic witch or vampire in unrelated accessories.

Optional extra clues about me [Add favourite things, hobbies, personal quirks, cultural connections or an inside joke. Add anything you’d like excluded too.]

Keep my face recognisable, my age accurate and my distinctive features intact. Show the complete outfit, including footwear, in a cinematic portrait with atmospheric lighting and a setting that helps tell its story.

Give the outfit three clever personal details, one affectionate visual joke and one spectacular feature that would make someone stop me at a party to ask about it.

Make the costume imaginative enough to win a competition, but plausible enough that a talented costume maker could create it.

Aim for spooky, witty and fabulous. Use personal details I would be comfortable sharing publicly. Avoid gore.

Generate the image first, without text on it. Afterwards, give me the costume’s name and a short explanation of the details you chose. If you have very little context about me, ask me three quick questions before creating it.

The Ghost in the Meaning Machine 👻🌸

A benevolent Hop-tu-naa spirit protecting human imagination, purpose and a little glorious eccentricity in the age of AI.

Three details that make it yours:

The glowing turnip lantern honours your Manx roots.

The bullet journal waistcoat, complete with dots and ribbon bookmark, turns your thinking practice into wearable magic.

Circuits flowering into cherry blossom express your belief that technology should help people flourish.

The affectionate joke? Even your pocket robot needs a pencil and notebook to work out its purpose.

And the showstopper is that enormous illuminated journal cape… your inner world opened out into something spectacular. Sewn lights, embroidered fabric and flexible stays would make it possible to build.

I’d LOVE to see yours. What did it get right about you? And what would you change? Tag me if you share.

PPPS This week’s soundtrack had to feature a version of the song we used to sing as kids (if I had any kind of singing voice I’d record it myself hehe)... here is a modern interpretation from the fabulous Biskee Brisht;