By: Nick Kacher
Recently my father began teaching my son how to forge his own knives; a hobby that my dad picked up sometime after I left his regular tutelage. I really enjoy watching them work together and seeing my dad patiently and carefully teach my son the precision skill of forging. It is not an easy skill to master; it requires experience, and you can improve only through a great deal of trial and error. With forging you can put in hours and hours only to have it all go wrong during the very last step. This is extremely frustrating, and it happens to everyone.
In the simplest terms, to begin making a knife you take a piece of metal and heat it up until it becomes malleable. Once the metal hits the right temperature, you hammer it in order to shape it. You continue this process of heating, hammering and shaping until you have made your vision come to life. When you make a mistake at this stage you always have the ability to reheat the metal and make it right. When finally satisfied, you quench the metal by plunging it into water. If the metal is still too hot when you do this, the metal might become too brittle. Wait too long and the metal may be too soft and not hold its shape. The process is not necessarily complicated, but doing it well takes creativity, patience, attention to detail and just good old-fashioned hard work. I realized when watching the two of them the other day that forging knives holds close parallels to our own lives. After watching my son hammer and shape an old railroad spike the other day, I took the opportunity to see if I could maybe pass along a little life lesson.
As we go through our lives, we are being forged in the “fires” of our life’s trials and tribulations. Life throws things at us that we never expect (say a global pandemic). We take on and overcome challenges. We are tested and pushed to our limits, and it will be up to you to figure out a way to “improvise, adapt and overcome.” When you come out on the other side, you will not be the same person. You will be shaped and sharpened. You will be wiser, tougher, kinder and more experienced. And when you make mistakes, that is ok, because as in forging knives, nothing has to be permanent. You can re-forge yourself into a better shape. Next time you find yourself in a phase where you are being “hammered” remember that you are being shaped, molded and refined. The key is to be very careful about “quenching” yourself. Lock in the good, but not the bad. You will make frustrating mistakes, sometimes be left brittle, sometimes misshapen – but now you know you can always start up a fire yourself. You can re-forge yourself in the aftermath of a previous bad choice or external fire that left you less than satisfied. Embrace the process; stay malleable, quench prudently, and welcome the growth.