“Here is a master smith casting his metal.
If the metal were to leap up and say,
‘I want to be made into Moye!”*
he would think it is wrong.

If I, after having already received the human form,
were to say, ‘I must become a man, I must become a man!’
the creator would certainly think it is wrong.

When we regard heaven and earth as a great furnace
and the creator as a master smith,
what place will not be right for him to send me?

We are formed as in a quiet sleep,
and we die
to a calm awakening.”

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou trans. by Hyun Hochmann, Yang Guorong, The Great and Honored Teacher.

*A famous sword of the ruler Wu, circa 500 BCE

A confession is due. I can easily watch the Forged In Fire History Channel for several hours at a time. The series features blade smiths, blacksmiths, farriers competing for a cash prize by forging a blade from a designated piece of raw steel. The series continued for eleven seasons. Clearly I am not the only one captivated by the elemental and judgment-rich process of forging a billet of steel into a functional (and sometimes beautiful) tool. The ancient art demanded physical stamina, with a seeming exotic ability to indwell with understanding the effect of hammer blows to push hot metal.

The industrial revolution transformed society, the advent of machines making machines. From the beginnings of civilization until around the mid 18th century a skilled artisan shaped metal by hand. The intimacy between the mind, body, and hand expressed by a hammer nudging glowing metal against an anvil, was a common sight for our ancestors.  I am mesmerized when I witness the forging process.

Consider along with Zhuang Zhou that you and I are billets, – a malleable work. Each of us is born into a complex of circumstances, the given of family, neighborhood, class, etc.. Circumstances are the anvil and hammer. You had no say, that is, to pick your parents did you? I didn’t either.

What is to be the result of the arc of a lifetime, the constraining force of circumstance, and of our response?

No one can say, least of all you or I, as we are simply too close, entirely too close to the work. 

I do not think that it unreasonable though to believe something elegant, something beautiful will be the result…

Who would not say the final lines describing the process of formation are not gorgeous!

You and I are aptly suited for who we already are.

Do not fear being who you are.