focus

Having a strong dose of OCD isn't all bad.
Except when it's not fed.

It's become clear that focus is perhaps the most important element with regards to what I do, and also the hardest element to retain through the day. Getting distracted from the task at hand is exceptionally easy.
I make things with my hands, and I try to make a living that way. So immediately, the pressure is on. If it's not really really good, clean and tight, symetrical, flowing, in proportion, then why would anyone want it? Even as a swordsmith, which would seem to be a fairly unique vocation, the competition is there. There is so much factory-made junk out there, with millions of dollars of marketing, and zero morality in that marketing, that it's hard to stand out.
So it's got to be really good.

I don't use the milling machines or investment cast all my parts and pieces on an assembly line, not that there is anything particularly wrong with that, but a lot of the folks doing exactly that really go out of thier way to make sure thier marketing bark implies that it's all one-off hand-crafted stuff.
My machine, is me, the human machine.
It's hard to compete when they can afford a much larger squeeky wheel.

So, I don't anymore really.
I've lately gotten into "self-isolationism", which works good for me. I'm just not at all going out of my way to worry about or watch what other companies are importing and peddling or even what other makers are making, for the most part. This is good for me, it clears out head-space that's better used for the task at hand.

And that's what a huge part of all of this is about, for me, the Human Machine. We forget about it in this age; what wonderous things this biological construction is really capable of. And that there is seemingly little limit when you really get the focus happening. Some amazing things can be done with no more than a few simple hand-tools, time, and the commitment to see it through. The Focus.

It's the focus that really makes one particular aspect flip around for craftsmen sometimes, after a time, and lots of practice, eventually you come to realize that it's the process that really matters most. The product is nothing more than what happens at the end of a process, and to really make the machine hum, it's the process that's everything. When that was pointed out to me a long time ago by one of my favorite craftsmen, it was like a 1000 w halogen going off in my head.

I think maybe that's why I so much like the term "craftsman", and really hate the term "artist".
Maybe it's because I havn't been around that much, but a lot of the "artists" I've met have thier focus entirely on the product... right from the start. Seems very superficial, and a lot of work, I think, that comes from that view is technically deficient, showing lots of vision perhaps, but very little skill, dedication to thier chosen craft.
Vision, or "the muse" as they like to call it, is fine, it's nessecary, it's wonderfull, it reflects on the hard-drive of the machine and what a wonderfull computer THAT is. No question. But I've seen SO many "sculptures", for example, that consisted of bits of scrap stuck together, with a crappy welder, with all of the spatter and ugliness of the fusing left in place to be seen. Shows no pride in the process, only a drive to create product.
Would it kill ya to push a file or a grinder around a little and make it smooth?
Hell yeah, might hurt the bottom line.

I think the world is lacking pride in it's work, as a whole.

One of the things I like the most about smithing is the immediate feedback of wandering focus.
I get hurt.
Pretty hard to ignore a second or third-degree wake-up call. Smashed finger, terrible cuts. The pain of the craft is just an exclamation point.

So lots of pressure from a lot of different angles. Maybe it's imagined, but I'm cool with that too, because it all serves to increase the focus regardless. At the bench today I'll be making every file stroke, of the hundreds I'll be doing, an individual singular act. Each one will have a rythym that belongs only to it, that adds to the whole as a part of the process. Each stroke will have a beginning, and an end, and it's own purpose, and be counted in my mind as something special, all on it's own.

A machine will never know that joy.