sharp – From the desk of Adam Thomas

Take away things when you can.

A sword becomes sharper by removing the imperfections, not by adding features. Once a sword is out of the “factory,” you spend your time sharpening it, not adding an additional scabbard.

How do you make a sword sharper? You remove the imperfections.

Remember, nothing is free. When you add, you pay.

Often, there is an urge to “do more,” or deal with its sibling “don’t miss.”

You make an impact magnitudes faster by removing instead of adding.

What is more effective in the field: a sharp sword or a pretty one.

Which would you rather be?

Pain

Pain is interesting to me.

I spent the last few days thinking about pain, and how it affects us.

When pain hits, it usually comes in two flavors – sharp and dull. Both affect you in a different way.

Sharp pain is a quick. Put your hand on a hot stove, that pain is going to hit you in the hand, and its going to sting. Same thing with a bee, stubbing your toe, or getting punched. The pain hits you with a sharp sting.

What follows after is the dullness. That throbbing that just sits there, and sticks around. The burn that happens after putting the hand on the stove, the bruise after the stubbed toe, and the black eye are good representations of dull plain.

What are the effects?

Sharp pain makes you present. It connects the world to you in a, well painful, way. It’s why you instinctively go for a smack to wake someone up(not a great way to wake up a friend). As much as that person won’t like you, it will wake them up.

Dull pain works as a reminder. After a long enough period, its routine. Burned your hand, well, every time you get that dull pain, it reminds you of the stove you ought to avoid.

So whats the point?

Not all things that hurt are bad. Pain isn’t the problem if you turn the perspective. What I used to think was a bad thing, something hurting, just was a lesson I needed to learn.

Pain isn’t weakness leaving the body, as is so often said. What it is though, is a great reminder of what is happening in our lives and who we are. Don’t regret something bad when it happens, look for the lesson,and it you find that the world gives you a ton to learn, it’s just up for you to listen.