Hello and many thanks for all your comments, attention and warm welcome!
:-)
Hoahn, the fact that Daniel was a member on this forum was a nice surprise :-)
We both live in Sweden and now we met on South African forum. Hardly can imagine more distant place, world is small indeed :-)
Thanks for your opinion. I had some troubles understanding most of the questions, though I know I want somewhat longer sword – a katana or tachi.
But most important for me was your very last comment, together with Ken’s advice, it actually helped me realizing what I want! :-)
Mariusz, thanks, interesting reading, makes me feel more certain that I am going to make costly mistakes :-)
Stephen, thank you for your opinion. どうもありがとう
Franco, thanks, I went through some of your recommended reading, I feel I will have a pleasure of learning basics, extended throughout several years :-)
Ken, you made my day and I will try to explain what I mean later!
Daniel, I am very glad to see you are a member on this forum and I am looking forward to meeting you in Partille! :-)
Joe, thanks! Btw, now after reading many of your posts I feel like I know you :-)
So, again I was thinking why I am doing this and I realized that main reason is because I do really enjoy it! I mean what could be the point of most hobbies – owning special and rare pieces of art, buying and selling, celebrating successes and learning from failures – living through all these experiences and enjoying different feelings - all this process might be the answer.
This sounds simple, but this was such a great eye opener for me today :-)
Plus of course Japanese swords, there is something magical about them - in the steel and beautiful curves and details of the blades, plus all the history and hard work behind them :-)
Well, then another interesting learning for me was that I am going to make costly mistakes. Yes, I do understand that reading and learning from the books before buying my first blade is a very healthy, right and logical thing to do, but I am not there yet. I believe my way of finding the “truth” will be by making mistakes and by learning from them. And most likely there will be a second sword, and then maybe a third :-)
It became much better when I admitted and acknowledged this for myself! What I need is to focus on turning mistakes into an enjoyable journey :-) And hopefully with your help number of my mistakes will be least possible :-)
I actually have an interesting theory, I think there is simply no “right” first blade. It actually needs to be “wrong” in order for me to see what I will like about it and what I would like to be different. It will shape a picture of my next sword and features that I will more likely to enjoy in that next sword. Yes, my risk is to lose some money. But money is something more of a measure, not the point in themselves – while feelings are what really matter. Then, this might also give me a further push to read books, travel somewhere, meet new people with similar interests and whatever else - gradual learnings, new findings and all the great exciting experiences! Fantastic, that is what I want :-)
Now I also know that by making a mistake and learning from it I will only become a closer to the enjoyment of the future success – this idea makes me feel good, it brings piece and balance to my mind :-)
So, coming back to my first sword, as I now see one of its purposes is in setting a baseline, and thus additional selection criteria becomes simply an attractiveness and speed when I later decide to resell it, plus with least possible loss of money.
Kindly share your opinion on above, would you think this makes sense?
With best regards,
Aleksandr B.
