Axes are almost the holy grail of human history. Their archaeological footprint has taught us a lot about how our ancestors lived, survived, and mastered their world through technology.
There’s a short story in the Bible, set in the 9th century, where a band of student prophets had gone off to build a new house to accommodate their growing numbers. But as they fell timber for construction along the river, the axe head of one student prophet slipped off the handle and slid into the deep, fast-running waters of the river below.
"Oh no, master!" the student cried out. "And it was borrowed!"
Not missing a beat, the Holy Man asked, "Where did it sink?" The student showed him the place, and the Holy Man cut off a small branch and tossed it at the spot. The axe head floated up. ‘"Grab it," he said. The man reached out and took it.’1
Presumably, without further incident, they went on to fell enough timber and build better student lodging for their burgeoning school of prophets.
The 9th century BC is also part of the historical period we call the Iron Age II in the Levant. By this time, iron was no longer a rare, "celestial metal" used only for prestige items, as it had been in the Bronze Age. Iron was a common and essential part of material culture, and iron tools (and weapons) of all sorts were widely forged, traded, and used.
A sharp axehead meant firewood for the family oven and well-cooked meals at night, but also that home repairs were quick, and in wartime, a sharp axehead, which often served as a backup weapon further down in history, could mean the difference between your own decapitation or that of the enemy in close combat. Especially in northern Europe, where the Vikings developed lore around their battle axes and wove warrior-culture legends around the god Thor.
But a sharp axehead is of no use if it's 30 ft deep in fast-rushing water. Or if it's lost in a digital maze that blunts the edges and eats into the handle.
The task before us in 2026, as we enter a new world, where the fast rush of technology and the shifting ground of geopolitics are conspiring to bury our axeheads, is to learn how to swing with precision when you hold the axe, and if the axehead slips off, to make it float on water.
Your axehead
It all starts, of course, with the basics. Your axehead is your primary tool for shaping a life, a career, a technological dream, and a business. Your axehead is your mind, skillset, network, and ingenuity. And the different opportunities to apply or swing it will require different levels of precision. Starting with an overarching Precision Swing that guides and sets the tone for everything else.
My Precision Swing is my faith in Jesus Christ, and a growing, acute sense of how He is guiding me to apply my other swings to things that will matter the most every 24 hours. One small piece of that is the enormous work that it will take to shift the world’s last economic frontier, a.k.a Africa, from subsistence to abundance in a single generation.
Some of the most important swings that will contribute to felling this tree are the swings of belief and story. A little bit of delusion is inevitable when a Man (read human being) faces big things. That delusion is one of the most important ingredients for mastering Big Things, whether felling giant trees with tiny axes or taking flight in a crude (by today’s standards) machine made of spruce and ash wood, unbleached cotton muslin fabric, an aluminum alloy engine, steel fittings, and bicycle spoke wire.
Floating the axehead
Belief, not just the religious kind, and not the hippie-kumbaya kind, but a radical and (a teeny weeny bit delusional) decision to will things that matter into existence, will be the hallmark of the period beginning 2026, for every swinger who is aiming for what counts for the specific part of the continent they find themselves.
In a manner of speaking, the axeheads are already underwater for most of us. You can complain. Or you can cut a branch and make it float.
Axes are almost the holy grail of human history. Their archaeological footprint has taught us a lot about how our ancestors lived, survived, and mastered their world through technology.
There’s a short story in the Bible, set in the 9th century, where a band of student prophets had gone off to build a new house to accommodate their growing numbers. But as they fell timber for construction along the river, the axe head of one student prophet slipped off the handle and slid into the deep, fast-running waters of the river below.
"Oh no, master!" the student cried out. "And it was borrowed!"
Not missing a beat, the Holy Man asked, "Where did it sink?" The student showed him the place, and the Holy Man cut off a small branch and tossed it at the spot. The axe head floated up. ‘"Grab it," he said. The man reached out and took it.’1
Presumably, without further incident, they went on to fell enough timber and build better student lodging for their burgeoning school of prophets.
The 9th century BC is also part of the historical period we call the Iron Age II in the Levant. By this time, iron was no longer a rare, "celestial metal" used only for prestige items, as it had been in the Bronze Age. Iron was a common and essential part of material culture, and iron tools (and weapons) of all sorts were widely forged, traded, and used.
A sharp axehead meant firewood for the family oven and well-cooked meals at night, but also that home repairs were quick, and in wartime, a sharp axehead, which often served as a backup weapon further down in history, could mean the difference between your own decapitation or that of the enemy in close combat. Especially in northern Europe, where the Vikings developed lore around their battle axes and wove warrior-culture legends around the god Thor.
But a sharp axehead is of no use if it's 30 ft deep in fast-rushing water. Or if it's lost in a digital maze that blunts the edges and eats into the handle.
The task before us in 2026, as we enter a new world, where the fast rush of technology and the shifting ground of geopolitics are conspiring to bury our axeheads, is to learn how to swing with precision when you hold the axe, and if the axehead slips off, to make it float on water.
Your axehead
It all starts, of course, with the basics. Your axehead is your primary tool for shaping a life, a career, a technological dream, and a business. Your axehead is your mind, skillset, network, and ingenuity. And the different opportunities to apply or swing it will require different levels of precision. Starting with an overarching Precision Swing that guides and sets the tone for everything else.
My Precision Swing is my faith in Jesus Christ, and a growing, acute sense of how He is guiding me to apply my other swings to things that will matter the most every 24 hours. One small piece of that is the enormous work that it will take to shift the world’s last economic frontier, a.k.a Africa, from subsistence to abundance in a single generation.
Some of the most important swings that will contribute to felling this tree are the swings of belief and story. A little bit of delusion is inevitable when a Man (read human being) faces big things. That delusion is one of the most important ingredients for mastering Big Things, whether felling giant trees with tiny axes or taking flight in a crude (by today’s standards) machine made of spruce and ash wood, unbleached cotton muslin fabric, an aluminum alloy engine, steel fittings, and bicycle spoke wire.
Floating the axehead
Belief, not just the religious kind, and not the hippie-kumbaya kind, but a radical and (a teeny weeny bit delusional) decision to will things that matter into existence, will be the hallmark of the period beginning 2026, for every swinger who is aiming for what counts for the specific part of the continent they find themselves.
In a manner of speaking, the axeheads are already underwater for most of us. You can complain. Or you can cut a branch and make it float.
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Abraham Augustine
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