Life philosophy
In the interview with Master Kuo, we not only learnt the knowledge about casting swords from him, but the words and sentences he told us during the interview has become precious lessons and valuable experiences for us as well. The Taiwanese slangs he had told us were not only the realization he had throughout his life, but the beautiful interpretation of his own life experiences.
“There are three kinds of hardworking people, the first are farmers, second are people who live in the countryside, and third are blacksmiths. The blacksmiths work so hard yet they never know when to become successful”
To Master Kuo, the sentence has already been told many times by his dear father. People who worked as a blacksmith were often living scraped by, and most of the time, it wasn’t easy for them to become successful. However, Master Kuo still chose this career and began to struggle for it. Because of Master Kuo’s stern determination and perseverance, he had changed the way which iron business supposed to be, helping all the blacksmiths to find their way out.
Chien-Shiun: “Blacksmith is a tiring occupation, but Master Kuo’s perseverance truly surprises me.”
“Eyebrows are in born, and the mustache grows later in our life, yet eyebrows would never be longer than our mustache”
The eyebrows indicate the inborn aptitude, while the mustache means the endeavor later in our life. Although the inherent talent is an advantage, yet it’s the endeavor that truly matters. Even if a person has a great talent, but he never works hard, he’ll never success. Thomas Eddison also once said, “Genius is one percent of aptitude plus ninety nine percent of hard work”.
Chia-Ling: “The sentence he said was simple yet motivating, even if a person is inferior to the others at the very start, he’ll still reach the success with endeavor.”
“There’s nothing we can’t buy in our society, except for experiences”
The sentence means that we could only learnt from the lessons on our own, and it’s never an easy job to complete within a day. Also, we can’t steal the experiences from other people. Only by experiencing on our own can we truly create our own value. Although Master Kuo hadn’t graduated from the elementary school, he never stopped moving forward in order to succeed. With countless and precious experiences he learnt from his job, he had created lots of art crafts, even it took him years to complete his work, he never regretted.
Cheng-You: I think it’s surreal! It clearly illustrates that money can’t buy anything, and that experiences can’t be taken away from others!
“One’s status is all about one’s endeavor”
One’s value is viewed by how hard one works and what perspective one uses to view the thing. It’s not about the title that other people give us, because there’s no difference in every occupation, and everyone could be successful.
Yu-Cheng: “I often hear from the elders that it’s the attitude that decide the our own status, and after this interview with Master Kuo, I was deeply impressed.”
“The fortune out of where can’t save the poor, and the best medicine can’t relief
the burden of sin”
A person who is doomed to be a poor guy won’t be rich even if he gets a large amount of money, and that the best medicine won’t be able to cure a person’s disease if he has too much burden of sin. These two sentences remind people to work diligently and honestly. The sentences written in calligraphy were hung in front of the artistic weapon museum, where the public could invariably see it.
Yu-Huei: “Things that aren’t belonged to you won’t stay with you, and people who do bad things will get the retribution.”
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