Hunter S. Thompson once said "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."
I would like you to keep that quote in mind as I talk for the next few minutes. In as much as I don’t advocate this, but it’s always worked for me.
There are people who ask me, “Weirdo, why do you own 97 knives and 36 swords.” And I tell them the same thing, over and over again. That it’s only 56 knives and 27 swords. As with many things, there are multiple answers, and all of them are true to an extent. I like the look of blades as pieces of functional art. I enjoy swinging swords and knives around as aerobic weights. The knives are often useful, and many of them have been used for perfectly practical things like opening boxes or cutting down trees. I cut down a sapling with my kukri once, which is what the damn thing is for. The fact that I sometimes use a two foot long short sword to open envelopes is my own damn business and I don’t see what it has to do with you.
These are true answers, there is nothing wrong with those answers. However, there is a secret answer that you must unlock like a playable character in a video game after scoring 10,000 points. Do video games still have points? Fuck, it’s been a long time since I played a video game.
The secret answer is that I keep the knives around because they prevent me from self harming or killing myself. Does that sound counter productive? Does that sound like leaving a loaded handgun, a couple of cyanide capsules and a noose around just in case? Maybe. I can’t say about the other things, they don’t hold the power or the allure of the blades for me, which is probably why I don’t keep them around.
See, I know about blades. I know how to fight with them, how to use them peacefully, how to store them and how to keep them in good condition. I also know how they can hurt, and being someone who learned how to fight I know that cutting oneself is against the rules of the game. In fact, the entire point of that game is that you remain uncut. It got into my head, makes me do things to avoid being cut, makes me feel I’ve lost the game when I do get cut. Kitchen accidents are more about me swearing in frustration than in pain.
And I know what blood does to a knife. It corrodes the steel, it dulls the edge, it can really screw up a good knife if you do it properly. I have too much respect for my knives to want them damaged. These are works of art after all. Like books and paintings, it would go against something inside me to deliberately damage one, or leave it in a state where it could get damaged. Some things, a person simply does not do.
However, if I were going to do it… if I were going to engage on an escapade of self destruction, I would have to use a blade to do it. Where did this rule come from? I don’t know. Perhaps ego, that I would only take that sort of thing from an object I respect and admire. Maybe I’ve got some old warrior idea in my head that it can only be done right with a blade. I don’t know, but I try not to poke too many holes in a rule that’s saved my life more than a few times. All I know is that with the knives around, they present a dare that I don’t take. It’s almost as if the knife is saying “Yeah, you wanna do it? Well, you’ve gotta use me. Only you won’t, because you don’t want to cut yourself and you don’t want to damage the blade.” and I know the knife is right and it’s okay that it talks in a Bronx accent because that’s what it’s like in my head.
Example
When we were on vacation recently, I crashed hard and bad. Probably the worst dip into depression I’ve had in years. One of the problems, at least from my standpoint, was that I didn’t have a pocket knife with me. I didn’t want the hassle on the flight, it would get confiscated even in checked baggage, blah blah blah. But not having it made me edgy and miserable. Now, this isn’t a self defense thing. I don’t need a knife in case thugs decide to attack. I don’t see thugs around every corner, and even when walking in downtown Detroit, the thugs tend to keep a respectful distance and look for an easier mark than me. When deprived of a knife, I can fuck someone up with my keys, or my belt, or a Bic pen, or a magazine, or a chopstick, or even my hands if the situation goes that way. No, the person I needed to defend from was myself, and for than I needed a knife. I realized how dire the situation was when I found myself wondering if the fall from the balcony to the street would be sufficient. See without a knife there, to insist that it had first refusal on any self-destructive behavior, other options began to crop up.
It was so bad that on the second or third day, on the first shopping excursion I took, the first thing I did was look for a knife. I didn’t even get a particularly good knife. It was $10, and probably worth half that. It’s a tanto point, which I hate and it’s a widish tactical blade, which I’ve never liked. I like a nice thin stiletto like blade, something that can fit into the gap of an envelope and slit it open neatly. Hence why I love the Laguiole style so much. None of that is the point though, what is the point is that it was a knife and I felt better for having the knife The ledge stopped looking inviting and I was able to relax… for a given value of relaxation. I was able to not become so argumentative that I made Syd cry, and that was something.
The rest of the trip wasn’t exactly enjoyable, but it was at least tolerable. Going into a funk when you board the plane and only starting to shake things after you’ve been back at work for a couple of days makes me feel like we’ve missed the point of our vacation. It was hard to enjoy anything while that weight was on my shoulders and colored everything that happened that week. However, the victory so tiny you need an electron microscope to see it is that I did come back.
And that’s REALLY why all the knives and all the swords. I need talismans, and these are mine. Well, that and a steady influx of sugar and caffeine. They seem to steady my mood a bit and keep me from wanting to enter into danger. The knives really do help though. They focus my attention, and keep me thinking about being careful and not cutting myself rather than the opposite.
I can’t recommend these things to you, because blades and Red Bull might be just the thing that sets you off. However, there is some power in having some kind of talisman, for whatever reason you have it. Granted, most the people I’ve talked to carry worry stones, or religious icons, or pictures of a loved one. I don’t know of anyone else who carries a dangerous weapon so that if they feel suicidal that weapon will keep them from doing it.
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