The thousand-folded sword
crisispoint
Registrant
I made this in response to another post, but it was an insight that I got yesterday, and it speaks VOLUMES for why none of us has an ounce of quit in them.
I took a day off from everything (don't ask!) and was pondering the imponderable, much like you were, my friend. Why does this crap happen to us? I was thinking selfishly, "why don't I break? Lord knows, some days I want to. Why not now?"
And then, from a documentary on "The Last Samurai" DVD, some new take on it.
Has anyone had the chance to actually handle a real, genuine, 500+ year old katana (Japanese samurai longsword)? It's truly a pleasure, if one grooves on that sort of thing. Scary too. It's razor-sharp and I had the pleasure (!) of learning the Iajutsu (fast draw) method, having this yard of metal just a scant INCH from my naked belly when I drew it as fast as possible!
While learning to use it, I noticed how flexible, yet strong, the blade is. It can bend, it can stretch (somewhat), but it's damn near impossible to break. This particular sword had been in hundreds of campaigns and cut through many suits of armor (in addition to quite a many heads), and apart from a ding here and scratch there, she was still fresh.
The secret, this documentary told me, was the forging process. The steel is exposed to a fire that is incredibly hot, even by today's standards, and then folded, bent, hammered, and shaped 1,000 times. The end result is a blade that is impossible (damn near, really!) to break.
Everyone here has been exposed to the fires of Hell, literally and figuratively, and beaten down by the evils of man and the quirks of fate, as well as biology. Now, if there's any good that comes of this, it's that we are immeasurably strong. Stomp on us, kick us, throw some truly bad luck and unfortunate circumstance our way, and we won't break. Bend a little, bend a LOT, chip, ding, whatever, yes, we'll do that. But we cannot break because we have become stronger than steel. Even when we want to.
Imagine, a thousand plus honor swords, and not a broken blade in them.
We can't quit, even when we want to. And in a perverse sense, I have everyone who ever beat me down, taken advantage of me, hurt me, belittled me, or degraded me for their own amusement to thank for that. Because they forged the strength I have in me into a hard-cased steel weapon that will put them to shame. I could've become an ugly, sharp-but-crude shank that they are, ripping and gouging a mark into the world, feared, dreaded, loathed, but never respected.
Instead, I'm a katana, fearsome because of what happened to me and the strength it's given, but beautiful, eternal, and never to be dulled by time or wear.
We are all this, my friends and brothers and sisters, and for nothing else we should be proud of ourselves.
Today, carry yourself like the katana you are. You are a treasure of time.
Peace and love,
Scot
I took a day off from everything (don't ask!) and was pondering the imponderable, much like you were, my friend. Why does this crap happen to us? I was thinking selfishly, "why don't I break? Lord knows, some days I want to. Why not now?"
And then, from a documentary on "The Last Samurai" DVD, some new take on it.
Has anyone had the chance to actually handle a real, genuine, 500+ year old katana (Japanese samurai longsword)? It's truly a pleasure, if one grooves on that sort of thing. Scary too. It's razor-sharp and I had the pleasure (!) of learning the Iajutsu (fast draw) method, having this yard of metal just a scant INCH from my naked belly when I drew it as fast as possible!
While learning to use it, I noticed how flexible, yet strong, the blade is. It can bend, it can stretch (somewhat), but it's damn near impossible to break. This particular sword had been in hundreds of campaigns and cut through many suits of armor (in addition to quite a many heads), and apart from a ding here and scratch there, she was still fresh.
The secret, this documentary told me, was the forging process. The steel is exposed to a fire that is incredibly hot, even by today's standards, and then folded, bent, hammered, and shaped 1,000 times. The end result is a blade that is impossible (damn near, really!) to break.
Everyone here has been exposed to the fires of Hell, literally and figuratively, and beaten down by the evils of man and the quirks of fate, as well as biology. Now, if there's any good that comes of this, it's that we are immeasurably strong. Stomp on us, kick us, throw some truly bad luck and unfortunate circumstance our way, and we won't break. Bend a little, bend a LOT, chip, ding, whatever, yes, we'll do that. But we cannot break because we have become stronger than steel. Even when we want to.
Imagine, a thousand plus honor swords, and not a broken blade in them.
We can't quit, even when we want to. And in a perverse sense, I have everyone who ever beat me down, taken advantage of me, hurt me, belittled me, or degraded me for their own amusement to thank for that. Because they forged the strength I have in me into a hard-cased steel weapon that will put them to shame. I could've become an ugly, sharp-but-crude shank that they are, ripping and gouging a mark into the world, feared, dreaded, loathed, but never respected.
Instead, I'm a katana, fearsome because of what happened to me and the strength it's given, but beautiful, eternal, and never to be dulled by time or wear.
We are all this, my friends and brothers and sisters, and for nothing else we should be proud of ourselves.
Today, carry yourself like the katana you are. You are a treasure of time.
Peace and love,
Scot