I noticed that my story lengths had been creeping up a bit, so I challenged myself to do something shorter for this week. It’s really difficult to write something short that still feels worthwhile, and the tendency (at least for me) is to overexplain and go on about everything, so it’s important to balance that with some intentional brevity. Enjoy!
Grandfather’s Blade
The opposite of the Slothful is not the Diligent, for the Diligent know the difficulty of the labor that causes the Sloth to avoid it. They are the same but for their Will. The opposite of the Slothful is the Genius, who Knows without Learning, who Produces without Action, who Succeeds without Effort.
*
Steve was average, and he knew it. He didn’t have any great fate, no world-shaking discovery or culture-changing novel inside of him. He married a girl he went to high school with, took a job managing a sports bar, and played rhythm guitar in a bluegrass band that gigged at parties in the neighborhood and couldn’t seem to keep a bass player around long enough to get tight.
He was happy with this. His wife loved him, and they talked about having children in a few more years. His job was routine and he had a good staff. His wife worked at the state so he got good insurance. They had a few camp sites they liked they he could book last minute for a weekend if it wasn’t the peak season.
When they were sitting out under the stars, Steve liked to whittle. He had a hand-forged knife that had belonged to his grandfather, and he kept it sharp, and when they camped he would find sticks in the woods and carve spoons for friends. People were always suggesting that he learn how to make more complicated things than spoons, but Steve liked that he could sit by a fire and carve a spoon without thinking much about it, while his wife played guitar and sang, and he had no desire for more complex forms.
*
The opposite of Utopia is not Dystopia. The opposite of Utopia is Barbarism, or Chaos, or Isolation. Dystopia, far from being its opposite, is the closest possible state to Utopia that is not actually Utopia. Dystopia is the same as Utopia in every obvious way.
*
For Christmas, Steve’s wife bought him a KeenEdge Professional Whittling Knife. She presented it to him with a card that acknowledged he already seemed happy with his whittling, and that she knew he enjoyed the connection he had to his grandfather’s knife, so if he wanted to return this blade and choose a different present, she would not be offended.
Steve might have wanted to do just that, but his wife’s candor and sensitivity gratified him so much that he decided to set his grandfather’s knife aside and try this new one, even if it meant not being able to return it. He figured at worst, he’d go back to his grandfather’s knife but keep this one as a keepsake of how well his wife had treated him.
But when next he sat beside the fire, listening to his wife’s voice and going at a stick, it became apparent in moments that the KeenEdge was a fundamentally better tool than his grandfather’s blade. As the name promised, it held its edge fine, where his grandfather’s had dulled towards the end of each spoon and needed resharpening. But that was only the start; its curve was sharper for a better draw; its handle was flared so his grip tired slower.
His grandfather’s knife would remain a treasured heirloom, good for memories, but Steve was happy to have this new blade, and figured he would one day pass both down to his own child.
*
The opposite of a Sheriff is not an Outlaw, for an Outlaw still defines himself by reference to the law. The opposite of a Sheriff is an Animal, who knows no laws but Blood and Sinew. An Outlaw commits himself to the terms of the Sheriff in his very rejection of them.
*
Steve began to whittle more often, including when they were not camping, and his wife was gratified that he so enjoyed her gift. As he became more interested, he began to consider deeply the ways in which his new knife was different than his grandfather’s blade. And in doing so, he saw each dimension along which the knife might be different still, from the blade thickness to the handle flare to the quality of the metal itself.
The improvement in his blade also made it easier to realize more complex forms. He had not in fact realized how much his formal imagination had been limited by the deficiencies of his original tool, but now, with this new knife, he began to make first forks and then cups, and bowls, and small toys and sculptures that he gave to the children of friends.
These new forms made urgent the possibility of new dimensions of knife, and so when Steve’s birthday came he asked for more knives, and more knives he received. He would spend his work day in the restaurant carrying trays of food and making server schedules while in the back of his mind planning that evening’s whittling work.
Yet as he progressed in skill and as his knife collection improved, Steve began to long at times for the simplicity of knowing, when he sat down to whittle, exactly what knife he would use and exactly what he would make with it. He was, to be sure, a much more proficient and productive whittler now. But there was, at times, a longing.
The opposite of a Glutton is not an Ascetic, for the Ascetic knows keenly the Glutton’s pain of hunger in his belly. The feelings inside the two are identical. The opposite of a Glutton is a Corpse, which can fathom no desire.
Steve could not find the perfect knife, Or rather, he had possessed the perfect knife, then he had lost not the knife but the idea of perfection. He had a collection of just about every kind of knife that existed, several dozen in all. A good percentage of his whittling time was now devoted to knife selection. But none of them had the right combination of elements to do all of any job. They were sufficient now only in combination.
Despairing, Steve resolved to set his knife collection aside, take only his grandfather’s knife out to the woods on a camping trip with his wife, and make nothing but spoons for an entire weekend. This he did, and the moment came when everything was as before. His wife sang the same songs in the same mellifluous tones. The fire crackled and hissed accompaniment along with her. And Steve sat, and he whittled.
The spoons, however, did not cooperate. He was dissatisfied now with only making spoons, and although the spoons he whittled that night were far better than any spoons he had ever made before he started collecting knives, they seemed clumsy to him, for he was thinking of the spoons that he could have made with his full knife collection at his disposal.
His wife could sense his frustration, and felt guilty. She worried she had caused this dissatisfaction. Christmas was approaching again, and she saw an advertisement for a custom Virtual Reality experience, which gave her a wonderful idea that she began saving up money for.
*
The opposite of Life is not Death, for the Dead can Live, as in Memory, and the Living can be Dead, as in Sleep. The opposite of Life is Simulacrum, or Simulation, from which, once achieved, there is no possibility of certain escape. For how could one be sure one had escaped? And the more like Life the Simulacrum becomes, the more unreachable Certainty becomes.
*
Steve opened the envelope on Christmas morning, but wasn’t sure he understood at first. His wife explained that the V.R. experience was the newest technology, and that she had already designed the scenario for them. They would do it together, she kept assuring him, both of them linked in real time, experiencing it together, just like the real thing.
Their scenario would be a campfire, in one of their favorite spots, and she would sing for him, and he would whittle with a perfect replica of his grandfather’s knife, its appearance and touch indistinguishable from the real thing, except that it could mimic any of the blades in his collection, and would adjust itself on the fly depending on what cut he needed to make next.
Also, while he worked, the system would supplement his visual and kinesthetic brainpower so that he would be better than he had ever been at carving, able to realize any form he could imagine. Simultaneously, a 3D-printer would make an exact replica of whatever he carved inside the simulation, so that when they were finished he could take it home with him. He would, in effect, have carved it himself.
Steve could not think of one thing wrong with that. He thought of his grandfather’s blade, sitting on a shelf in his garage, headed for a display stand as a marker of where his hobby had started. He smiled at his wife, and thanked her, and wanted to cry.
END
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story, please feel free to like, comment, and share. I’ll see you next week for something fun from the world of sci fi!
When you’re a child, you can draw or write or just be creative simply because you want to be. But as you get older and you start taking your artistic skills seriously, that simple joy can easily be lost because it’s no longer good enough for you to have fun. You have to be talented. You have to be marketable. And even if you decide that you want to go back to your child-like but freeing way of being creative, your adult brain may not let you.
thoughtful piece, thanks