warrior

“He who conquers himself is the mightiest warrior.”

-Confucious

Warrior, Merchant, Artisan, Farmer. These are the four classical occupational archetypes of Feudal China. These archetypes still ring true today. There are variances and nuances but in the way we go through life, many of us find ourselves in all four of these occupations, even if only briefly:

-The Farmer understands the value of labor. He is master of working within the seasons to sow his crop.

-The Artisan understands how different mediums and materials go together, and how to craft his goods within that understanding. He is master of his tools.

-The Merchant understands business- buying low, selling high, and having a good product. Business at it’s core level is the art of profit and the Merchant is master of this.

-The Warrior understands the above three archetypes. He is master of himself and carries the weaponry of his choosing. He serves society.

I have found myself, at various points in life, in all four occupations. The Warrior intrigues me most. Speaking as a man, I feel that most of us want to master ourselves, and the things that try to enslave us- our fears, our desires, and our insecurities. In our occupations and work, obsessions and compulsions can develop, our fears can play out, and we can become consumed. We can become obsessed with trying to squeeze the seasons dry, or maximizing profits, or with crafting a better and more beautiful mousetrap. When these things become all that we see, we have failed to master ourselves and aren’t really serving anything except for what we are trying to achieve. At this point, all the things that really matter get left in the dust. We lose sight of the world we live in and are not present in our lives.

In order to master yourself you must know yourself. Sometimes the best way to know yourself is to know others. And sometimes the best way to do that is in service to others.

I was working a large arena rock and roll show, one of the largest I’ve ever worked. The headliners had been around for decades, on the top of the charts, and darlings of video-era MTV. They have recently been selling out arenas around the world.

I strolled into the production office to get my assignments for the day. There was laundry, grocery shopping for the tour busses, FedEx and post office runs, prescriptions to be filled, and other bits of housekeeping errands that keep a massive touring operation on the road. Not everything gets done. Touring is a practice, not a science. The most successful touring operations are predicated upon this notion. My job is to take care of as many of these things as possible based on what the tour needs and the priorities of the show. This doesn’t leave time for anything that may be superfluous or unnecessary.

After the day was laid out and I had my assignments, the tour manager asked if I could add another thing to my list. There was a very large basket of toiletries- soaps, shampoos, and lotions- that had been collected from God knows how many swanky hotels. The tour manager asked me if, time permitting, I could find a Women’s Shelter or a shelter for families in transition and drop them off there. The band and the crew collect them from every place they stay for that explicit purpose.

I didn’t give it too much thought. I had a lot of things to do and honestly this little task wasn’t real high on my list. But the tour manager kept asking me about it and so I decided to make it a priority. After all, I was in a position to take care of this. I got on the internet and found a facility nearby. It was a shelter for women leaving bad domestic situations- in many instances they showed up with nothing but the clothes on their back.

I called them and told them who I was and who I was with and asked if they accepted donations. Yes we do, they said, please come by.

So I went by, even though I really didn’t have the time. The people at this organization were really happy to get these things. They wanted to take a picture for their social media page. All smiles. They thanked me for thinking of them and to remember them in the future because funding is always tight and every bit helps.

This was all really special to be a part of, even though it was a pretty small thing. I wasn’t really expecting that and it was nice. I don’t normally find myself in these sort of situations. I’m usually wrapped up in my own affairs, serving the things I am trying to achieve rather than broadening my gaze. I noticed a lightness in me and the rest of the day felt easier.

There’s a lot of talk about privilege- white privilege, gender privilege, and a myriad of others. When all of the social justice orthodoxy is stripped away, I find privilege to be a form of power. There’s nothing wrong with being privileged but it’s important to be aware of it. Many of us aren’t aware that we have that power within ourselves. It’s a noble thing to use that privilege, that power (which, honestly, many of us take for granted) to help those who may need it. It’s a really special thing to give or share of your time and talents when it’s within you power to do so. This type of service can help you to become more familiar and intimate with yourself, and also help to make the world around you a better place. That is the mark of a Warrior, and the lesson of the Sir.

O1 tool steel, thin stock

Profiled:

Rough grinding:

This is how to heat up your quench oil on a cold day:

Hardened and tempered:

Handfinishing, at around 220 grit:

Hand finishing at around 320 grit:

Ebony wood:

Clamped:

Shaped:

The Sir:

Don’t be afraid to look out for others every so often. This is part of the path toward mastering oneself.

Just a Bunch of Roadies– This is an organization of Music Industry Professionals that use their time and talents to make a difference. They facilitate larger operations, but also smaller projects, like the one written about in this story. Be sure to check out their website if you would like to help.

“The sword has to be more than a simple weapon; it has to be an answer to life’s questions.”

Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

(you can read about the crafting of the original Operator here)

I’ve always been drawn to people who do things. The people who speak through their work and translate knowledge and mastery through their particular skill set without having to say much. This is a day and age where anyone can broadcast claims of mastery and experience to a large audience and it can be difficult to discern who has done the work to back up these claims and who is just trying to get to the bank.

In today’s vernacular, ‘operator’ commonly refers to military personnel who are at the pointy-end of things. They are the ones who are taking the orders and quietly (or not so) doing the work out of a sense of duty and service. ‘Operator’ is a title that gets tossed around and claimed where it doesn’t always belong, very similar to ‘genius’. The ones who actually fit the bill generally eschew such titles. This is usually a symptom that you are doing the work.

This blade was a commission for a military serviceman doing Ops work. I wanted to build him a tool that would serve him in the work he was doing.

There was a summer about ten years ago where I was between semesters of study. I had decided that I wanted to learn how to fix things. Many of my friends were working at Blockbusters or car washes but I liked the idea of being able to take care of things myself. I took a really awful job doing apartment maintenance for three and a half months and did just that.

It was not very satisfying. The job I took was for a rental company who owned properties in my neighborhood so I could walk to work. It was a pretty slummish company that rented to a lot of college kids. I ended up having keys to half the apartments of what was called ‘Hell Block’ of a street close by to me. The summer was when a lot of leases ended so there were many people moving in and out. As a result the streets and alleys were full of discarded furniture for most of the summer, a lot of which was set ablaze by some of the rowdier tenants. Sometimes my days started with cleaning up the ashes of incinerated love seats.

Other days started with hauling four-burner stoves up three flights of a fire escape. Most of the time was spent flipping apartments from where someone had moved out so that someone else could move in. There was a lot of painting. Flat antique white for the walls and ceilings and semi-gloss eggshell white for the trim and kitchens. The apartments weren’t very nice to begin with and after three days of work they still didn’t look very nice. I tried to remind myself to just make it about the work.

I would spend hours gutting bathrooms- ripping out drywall, removing tiling, and replacing subflooring before redoing everything. The best days were when I could work by myself and keep my own company. Bathrooms were a bit more satisfying to do because they would actually look nice when you finished them.

There was one time when a new tenant couldn’t move into her apartment because a homeless person had moved in after we had flipped it. We went in the apartment after the police took him away and found no less than eight bicycles, some smelly furniture, and a plethora of bizarre pornography. There were also footprints all over the wall. We had to repaint that one.

My boss was a middle-aged anomaly with claims of ties to the trash hauling unions of New York City. I didn’t really believe anything he said. There were four of us handling most of the work orders:

-Mark was in art school, a bit cranky, and liked to smoke a lot of pot. Oftentimes it was hard to tell whether he was stoned or not. I liked him.

-Scott had gotten back from several tours of Iraq, most recently Abu Ghraib. He was a good guy but wouldn’t get anything done unless he was told exactly what to do.

-Mario was in his late thirties and from Guatemala. He worked 7 days a week and sent most of his money home to his family. He didn’t say much but I think he missed home. The man could eat faster than anyone I’d ever met. He said that in the Guatemalan Army they only gave you three minutes for lunch.

There was also a rotating cast of derelicts who would come in and work for a week and then disappear. I never learned their names.

One of the happiest days I had was telling my jackass boss that I quit. I gave myself a two week vacation before I went back to school.

What I learned at this job was that in order to get through many uncomfortable situations with a modicum of success you have to make it about the work. It helps to find something bigger than yourself in what you are doing. The skills I was learning would serve me well much later down the line, and the money would help me buy books and live through the school year and work on my education. Everything else was just bullshit that came with the job.

To let yourself speak through the work you do, whether you are toppling Marxist empires or replacing toilets in shitty tenements- this is the lesson of the Operator. In these situations our work speaks through us but also teaches us our lessons.

The recipient of this blade may find himself in harms way and needed a blade that would serve in such situations:

Rough cutting:

Bevels profiled:

Hardened:

Hand sanding:

This is G10, a commercially manufactured synthetic material. Normally I prefer to make my own handle material but in this instance I opted for something consistently fabricated that would be failsafe in a potentially tactical situation: