Wednesday, May 28, 2014

What is Kleinod Reflections?

Hello, you beautiful person, you.

What is Kleinod Reflections, you may be asking. I hope you're asking. Because that's what you're going to find out if you keep reading. And it has a lot to do with you.


The obvious answer is that it's the name of my blog. Woo! I could have put all kinds of words instead of Reflections, like "musings" or "wonderings" or "thoughts." But it just so happens that Kleinod Reflections is the happily dual-purpose name of my little jewelry business, too. And since the meat of this blog is to share with you the passion behind my little business, it feels appropriate for them to share a name.

Well then, Reflections you understand, but Kleinod? Yes, that's a little more complicated. You see, I needed a new name for my business. I had used my own name until I realized that it was a very self-centered name for what I want to be an others-centered business. I have a very deep love for words and languages, two of my favorites being Japanese and German, so I wanted to find a unique word that would spark conversations about the name.

If you're familiar with German or Japanese, you'll realize they can be quite complicated languages, with very difficult pronunciations. And I say that even with a semester of Japanese and two of German under my belt. But what you'll come to find out about me is that I'm stubborn when I get an idea that I really like! So I started searching.

Now, to understand why I chose Kleinod, you will of course need to know what it means. But to understand why the meaning has importance to my business, you need to first understand my passion. Hm. The most important things are sometimes the hardest to say. I think this is because I want to be careful not to mess it up, to fail in getting my idea across (ironically, this is one of the reasons I love words so much: I can say so many important things!).

I firmly, passionately believe that every single human life, without exception, is infinitely valuable. This is not an original idea, but it is also true that there are many, many people who do not believe in their own value outside of the opinions of other people, or their actions or possessions. Even if you agree that other people are valuable, it can be very difficult to apply that same idea to yourself. I understand from personal experience; this is the idea that drives me. 

I don't claim to make jewelry that can fix your life, but I hope to give a new purpose to the jewelry you wear by making into a reminder of how much you are worth. A necklace or bracelet or earrings cannot increase your value: nothing can do that, because you are already priceless. It can be hard to remember and believe that, so I want to provide little reminders that you can keep with you throughout the day. I hope that you can see the jewelry you choose to wear as a reflection of your strong, beautiful, unique self. 

With that thought, I wanted to search for a word that meant something like "value" or "worth." I checked a few online translators, but I didn't really like the results. They were either not close enough in meaning, or far too difficult to pronounce! I decided to try searching a blog about words with interesting meanings, and stumbled across "kleinod." The only reason I even found it because the definition had the word "value" in it, but not in the way I expected. It's really a good thing I can speed-read, because I almost left the page before I realized what I had read:

Do you see it? Now, I made sure to do more research about the word,, because I'm careful like that. Literally, it actually just means "gem" or "jewel," but I loved this definition because it was exactly what I was hoping my jewelry could become. If each piece only has a secret significance to the owner because of how it reminds them of their personal worth, I will consider myself a success.

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