Work Ethic & Personal Growth: A Disconnect in Western Society

It's a problem I've been seeing for some time now - Boomers approaching retirement with a mix of dread and relief. Then, the big event comes. They retire!

And, within months, they are back working. Not because they "need" the money, but because they were bored.

Never mind the thousands of Gen Xers and Millennials who can't get that extra job to actually pay their bills now. Why would an entire generation refuse to be paid to not work? Why would they spend so much time waiting for retirement, only to throw it out the window after barely a long vacation worth of days at home?

Oh, fear not. I have a theory.

The Work Ethic

I've heard about work ethic from the time I was old enough to understand work. I've cared for children, broke donkeys to lead, ridden horses that were "probably" broke to ride, set traps on top of electrical poles, broken ice for animals' water, cleaned homes, and held down jobs while attending school full time.

Apparently, I don't have a very good work ethic.

Why? Because I still fall short on rent. Because I'm tired. Because three shattered bones in my ankle took it's toll on my ability to walk and stand for 8+ hours a day without serious pain. Because two kids robbed me of my flexibility in work schedules. Oh, and because, if I have to deal with all that, I want more than minimum wage.

I get it. My parents and grandparents (Boomers and older) knew that if you sold yourself off to the highest bidder as a young adult, you would be set for life. If you showed loyalty, you would be rewarded by the corporations. If you put in the time, you would get your dime.

Unfortunately, they forgot the songs of their own times.

This song has become the reality for an entire country. This is what the work ethic mentality has given us - angry, struggling people who bust their butts for a corporation that will never let them be free of debt and obligation.

But what does that have to do with people who actually did get retirement pensions and won't use them?

When Work Ethic replaces Personal Growth

I think that the Work Ethic concept was pushed so hard onto the Boomer generation, as well as older Gen Xers (though younger Xers, or Xennials, seem to have snapped out of it), that the general trend of those groups has been the fear of dystopian novels. We have people who are effectively nothing more than worker bees for the great machine of the Economy.

I know, I know. Them's fighting words. But think about it this way - if you never develop a rich personal life outside of working for a paycheck, and if that work doesn't happen to be creative or crafty but is routine, and this continues for 40+ years, what do you do with yourself once that work is gone?

If your self-worth and self-identity are associated with being a good employee for decades, can TV and movies, books and even travel fill that within you? What if you don't even know what the problem is? What if you just feel the need to work again? What if you feel unmoored without the Timeclock God telling you when to eat lunch?

If you never exist as an adult outside of the framework of employment, how do you tackle that at 60+ years old?

The Blessing and Curse of Younger Workers

In many ways, the problems caused by this work-centric, economy-as-god lifestyle of older generations has SAVED younger generations. Without the illusion that corporations care about us, we've never sold ourselves into the loyalty-based, indentured servitude that is the hallmark of the Work Ethic Problem.

Without the confidence that our jobs would take care of us for life, we've been forced to find meaning and self-confidence in ourselves, even when unemployed and underemployed. Without living wages, we've had no other choice than to engage with the world of gig-jobs at a creative level that would (and still does) break many people's wills - cuz it's hard to live with that kind of stress, always jumping from rock to rock to avoid the lava of personal economic destruction.

#NotAllBoomers

Look, I'm not saying all Boomers fell into this trap. In fact, I know many who didn't. Most of them are denigrated by their peers for being "hippies" or the like. But they know how to retire, even if many of them can't because they didn't buy into the corporate machine.

It is a weird and vicious trap where success is given at the expense of being able to claim the reward for that success. It is the original Hunger Games, where those who win still lose themselves.

The Solution

Ha!

If anyone has any ideas on this, I'm open. As far as I can see, the system is so built in with this lose-lose scenario (unless you are rich, of course - sometimes), that only a radical re-imagining of the economic system will actually fix the problem.

Honestly, I think the saddest part of this is that many people who can't get the same work-til-you-retire pipe dream would actually love to have that. But those who have, cannot appreciate. Those who could appreciate it, will never have the chance.

We have been put into the untenable and non-consensual position of exchanging servitude in a work-ethic society for forced personal growth, while watching those in servitude stumble over their own lack of personal growth. We need to work better on balancing bills paying with enjoyable hobbies, or there is no happy ending for any of us.

Mistakes, Guilt & Forgiveness: the Tragedy of Error

Content Warnings: infidelity, sexual abuse

I have explored a certain kind of meditation in depth. Some call it Dark Night of the Soul; some call it the Inner Child or Inner Monster meditation. Regardless of the name you know it by, it is that frightening experience in which we face the dark, ugly truth of our own actions and pasts. If we stay the course, it can be a life-altering experience each time it is done.

I am also a follower of the Dark Goddesses: Kali, Skadi, Hela, Erishkigel, Baba Yaga, Sekhmet, Medb, Hecate, Persephone (the Queen), the Morrigan, Coatlicue. I explore the mysteries of life - not the happy verdant plants. I seek the mysteries of the mud in which the primordial soup was mixed, the blood that comes with both life and death, the body wastes that carry away toxins that could kill us and still might if we don't keep them buried or somehow taken away from our homes, the snot that keeps our delicate tissues from breaking down, the tears that cleanse our eyes of physical and emotional hurts. I embrace the stench of death and the crap of life.

So when I came across this situation, it intrigued me. (Names and details have been changed.) This is roughly how the tale was told to me by a friend, Victoria Pendler, a Welsh hedgewitch.

Brent is a big guy, the kind who prides himself on his strength. He is Heathen, antifa, and listens to his wife when she talks about feminism. With three kids, his family is his life.

Lauryn, the wife, had initiated several discussions about them becoming polyamorous, which ended when Brent changed careers drastically and Lauryn suggested their life was already too chaotic to pursue something as serious as the kind of poly relationships they'd been talking about. Brent agreed.

A few years later, Lauryn offered to let a friend of Brent (and acquaintance of hers) to stay at their home when she left her husband over emotional abuse. Within a few weeks, the other woman left, nearly destroying Lauryn and Brent's marriage, and making threats against the couple.

When I came in to help, I first listened to the story as they presented it. Brent was devastated. He'd believed he was pursuing a poly relationship possibility, but had made several mistakes along the way, including engaging in sexual activity before telling his wife that there were even feelings.

Lauryn felt betrayed because she had always talked about needing to discuss relationships beforehand due to being cheated on in the past. She believed Brent simply couldn't love her if he would so easily dismiss her and her needs in the situation, but she also couldn't believe that he was capable of such behavior. She said several times that she'd never once thought he could do this because of his own history with being cheated on. 

I spoke to Brent about the situation in detail, and several things raised flags for me. When I asked him to describe the sexual encounter, he spoke of "freezing up," feeling pressured and desperate. When he explained that he had felt so guilty he'd immediately showered in very hot water, I asked him if the encounter had reminded him of his childhood sexual abuse. 

At that point the floodgates opened. Brent had been molested by a family friend as a child, and the way that the other woman had approached him had been in the exact same, passive-aggressive, emotionally wheedling way that he had experienced decades before. In a nutshell, he had felt raped again.

Once we'd explored that, I pointed out that Brent's past did not excuse his behavior. It only gave us something to work with to restore his wife's trust in him, as well as something to address to prevent a similar situation from ever occurring, which seemed very important to him. He agreed that the realization didn't excuse him, and he vowed to work on his relationship and on his inner child issues.

Several weeks later, I followed up with Lauryn and Brent. They were doing well, communicating thoroughly. Brent had asked Lauryn to outline specific actions he could take for werguild (restitution) to her, and she had given him some assignments that focused on him getting to know her more deeply and taking on more of a controlling role in his own life, which I felt was an insightful move on her part.
However, Brent still spoke of the incident with a great deal of self-loathing and guilt.

I realized that he was stuck, blaming himself for not being strong enough to overcome his childhood trauma and stop the whole thing from happening. Having worked with childhood trauma and inner child situations before, I could see that his approach, while understandable, was sabotaging his ability to grow past his behavior as his wife and family needed him to do. He was trapped in endless loops of understanding but being afraid to take charge and change his behavior in a meaningful way.

Right now, we are working on getting him to the point where he can forgive himself. Since he is such a big fellow, he is seen as masculine, manly, and the like. He has internalized this perception, and feels that he should not be able to be victimized in any way. He seemed a bit shocked when I pointed out that his actions during and after the sexual encounter stemmed from him being almost desperate to not be seen as a victim, and that it had lead to the majority of the lies that Lauryn had been hurt by.

Brent's inability to forgive himself for being weak, traumatized, and only human is actually impeding his ability to NOT be weak and traumatized. While I had been concerned he might use his childhood as a get-out-of-jail-free card, instead he considered his trauma to be a sign of his failure as a man.

Brent has a long way to go, and Lauryn is still struggling with her own feelings about things, but they both need to forgive themselves for being effected by their pasts in order to move on in a healthy way.

I hope this story helps others going through similar situations. We cannot use our pasts as an excuse, but we also can't act like we are capable of dismissing any effects our pasts might have on us, how we react to situations, or how we feel about things. The emotional situation is ALWAYS valid. How we deal with it determines how healthy it is.

What You Do: Orlog vs Prosecution

Once again, a woman is in the news for making an accusation against a man.

I say "in the news," but I mean "dragged through the mud." Statistics are difficult to get - how do you prove the consent of someone other than by self-reporting? - but generally fall between 2-10% unfounded. This is VERY low for false reporting of a crime, and isn't even restricted to intentional false reporting. "Unfounded" is a pretty vague definition that could mean anything from "not a legal rape" to "not enough evidence to pursue" to "the victim is not sure anything even actually happened."

So we are, again, having the discussion of how many women it takes to screw in a light bulb. The answer is, of course, dependent on whether the man's reputation might be besmirched rather than how such an action may have harmed the woman or women.

Many protests on the man's side revolve around the same old crap of "why did she wait?" This from people who hide spending sprees, gambling addictions, and even affairs from their spouses. People who keep hush-hush about seeing a therapist, wrecking their car while drunk, or having a kid that got busted for joy-riding.

Gee, I dunno. Why aren't you facing up the nasty parts of your life? Answer: Because it's uncomfortable and makes us feel weak or out of control. Compound a woman's choice to make an accusation like this with the sheer numbers that show that even reporting doesn't get much done and is likely to ruin the victim's life even more than the perpetrator's.

But, that's all nitpicking, because the war cry has been sounded: Innocent until proven guilty!

And I sigh, pick myself up and ready the same old tired explanation that is used in all of these situations, as well as when someone gets fired for being racist and the war cry is "free speech."

THOU SHALT NOT CONFLATE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

Free speech and the mandate of innocent until proven guilty are both intended to prevent the government, government entities, and tyrants/supervillains puppet-mastering the government from using the collective power of the government (specifically the executive branch) to oppress dissenting voices or violate freedoms with tissue-paper claims of criminal activity.

Neither free speech nor innocent until proven guilty is applicable to one's public reputation or how the free and individual citizens and businesses choose to react to that reputation, ie, örlög.

Quite frankly, it is frustrating that "I know they did this thing" isn't always enough. In fact, there are entire plots based on the loopholes that it can create (anyone remember "Double Jeopardy" with Ashley Judd?). But it is good that the word of a single person and no evidence is not enough to put someone in prison (theoretically).

However, your public reputation is not dictated by the rules of the US Constitution. And, as I've had to explain to my hubby recently, you don't get to pick what your örlög is. Your behavior and OTHER PEOPLE'S INTERPRETATION OF THAT BEHAVIOR is your örlög, for better or worse, fair or not.

Fair is when people accused of crimes, often by dozens of victims, are put out of positions of power, influence, etc. Not is when the victims are blamed and dragged through the mud, and the perpetrators get to resume their fame-based lifestyles after a few months off. Looking at you CK and company.

And who ever said life was fair?

Secrets and Sorrows

Like most people, I have secrets, things I don't tell others, things about myself, my motives and madness. These are things that I don't talk about, but I'm lucky. I do a lot of introspection & self-analysis, perhaps more then most in Western society. I keep secrets from others, but not myself.

And now I'm sharing some of them here.

1. I'm often afraid that people don't like me. In fact, I'm more often convinced they don't then that they do like me.
2. I go through periods of time where I am deeply ashamed of things that make me "not mainstream."
3. I often wonder if I'm not just crazy when I do spell casting, energy work, or divination. 
4. I sometimes think I am a legitimately horrible person. This is especially when I've been hurt/betrayed, and especially ironic because people often tell me I'm one of the nicest, most honest people they've known.
   
5. I sometimes remember and fret over past transgressions - that I have done to others. It can be as simple as accidentally cutting someone off in traffic.
6. I have no idea what I'm doing sometimes, and most people can't tell the difference between those times and the times when I totally know what I'm doing. Occasionally, I use that to my advantage, such as it is.
7. I'm pretty sure I'm messing up my kids. I try, but I often feel like I'm just never going to be good at being a parent. And if you say I am a good parent, I immediately think of at least ten examples of why you are wrong, but you will never know about them.
8. I'm also pretty sure I suck at being a daughter and sister. I just can't go all in like my family seems to expect. I don't have enough for that. It makes me sad.
9. Sometimes I hate my life. I have things I regret not doing, including being the good Midwest Catholic girl I was supposed to be. I wonder what would have happened if I'd stayed with what's his name from the Christian group instead of dating the evil ex who tried to convince me he'd sold my soul to a demon.
10. I have had some weird things happen to me. I know I come across as a normal person with a normal background, but I've had psychologists in shock over some of the things that have happened to me.
11. I actually don't start much drama in my life. Instead, I seem to be a kind of energetic catalyst. Once I show up, things start to change. I swear, I was just sitting there playing solitaire.
12. I've never practiced my energy work. I've never "worked up" to a skill in energy work. I decide to try things and, most of the time, I just manage to do them. I usually tweak some things to fine-tune the process, then I move on. So, no, I don't know how to show you how to do that.
    
13. I feel sad sometimes, about what people are doing to each other. Not anyone specific, necessarily. Just in general. It feels like disappointment, like being let down. It started when I was in high school.
14. I once was a cutter. I was also thought to be bipolar. Most people thought I would end up self-medicating when I was in my very early 20s.
15. I don't like pot or alcohol. I have enough trouble keeping my head on straight, and those substances knock me askew. However, I don't judge people who do enjoy it.
16. My greatest desire is to have someone else be in charge. Unfortunately, I am often put in charge because I am really quite good at it. But I hate it. But I also have a strong sense of responsibility. I hate that, too.
17. I feel really self-conscious about how people might read this post. Will I be seen as egotistical? Narcissistic? Whiny? I don't know. I should go hyperventilate now.

Feel free to share your secrets in the comments, or message me. No judgment, I promise. Pinky swear.

The Nine Noble Virtues: a Modern Take - Self-Reliance

The Nine Noble Virtues are a modern invention, so it seems my title is redundant. However, little seems to have been done to bring the concepts themselves from the past into the present.

I do not consider the NNV to be a historical reference. I do consider them to be a modern way of understanding cultural and even subconscious values that were stressed, if not perfectly, by those peoples lumped together as Norsemen.

This series will explore my thoughts on these values and, hopefully, start conversations about them in a modern context.

Self-reliance may be one of the most misunderstood concepts, in my oh-so humble opinion. We look at it from the highly individualist perspective of western culture, rather than the tribal lifestyle that the Norse peoples lived.

This means that we like to take the Libertarian road, where we would all do just fine so long as we were left to our own devices. But that's not how humanity has ever survived. We are horrible at being on our own.

Did you know that the top two factors in surviving in the wilderness are 1) being able to create fire, and 2) having someone with you? Even one other person can be the difference between life and death. So why would we need self-reliance?

Because self-reliance doesn't mean going through life alone. It has more to do with not being what is often referred to as a "sheeple." (Read Ralph Waldo Emerson for more.)

That's right. This isn't about growing your own food and building your own homes. Barn-raisings were a thing, and for good reason. That's a lot of work, and many hands make it better.

But if you don't think for yourself - understanding the group's mindset, but still looking at it critically - you are just a mindless body for the society. Mindless bodies don't make history. Mindless bodies don't make a society grow. Mindless bodies don't call out injustices and point out logic holes.

Thinking for yourself, being able to use your mind as an individual, makes you an invaluable part of any group. It doesn't replace the group, and the group doesn't replace it. Society isn't a machine, needing virtually identical cogs to function. It is a living, growing - dare I say enlightening - structure that should be promoting growth from all of its members.

Growth doesn't come from conformity. It comes from being slightly different. Small mutations in genes lead to new species. Small mutations in thought lead to new ideas, inventions, better ways of living... and, of course, STORIES!

Because stories feed us in ways that cannot be explained by biology. Stories feed our souls, and new stories are not created from static thinking.

So be self-reliant, not in some crazy, build-your-own-roads kind of way (unless that's what you really want...). Be self-reliant in that you consider ideas in your own way, you look at messages from the media and political propaganda with a critical eye. Those things that you've been fed by social conditioning? Think about them again, and be your own self in your beliefs.

The Self-Satisfaction of Social Failure

Nothing feels quite as good as doing good. And we love to see the stories of good-doing on social media. But these feel-good stories have a darker side to them.

Cop with Cancer Refuses to Stop Working; Dozens Donate their Sick Days
Radio Station Buys and Forgives Medical Debt
Cop Buys Interview Outfit Shoplifter Tried to Steal
Cop Buys Groceries for Hungry Shoplifter

People raising money for a family who lost their home. People raising money to help someone with medical bills. People doing good things for people... who should never be in need in the first place.

There is something to be said for going out of your way to help people. But there is more to be said for a society that allows so many to be in distress in the first place, particularly when it is stuff that isn't really their fault.

If someone's house burns down due to a forest fire, if a person gets cancer or heart disease, this does not mean they somehow deserve their situation. We are really good at looking at this people as somehow causing their own problems when it comes to making policy and creating social structures, but they are unfortunate victims when we can participate in saving them.

And that's the problem. We have created a society where it is encouraged to be charitable, but shameful to need charity. We have created a situation where our system makes victims for us to help and save. Just hope you don't end up as one of them, which is far more about luck than effort.

I have spoken before about Hospitality from a Heathen perspective, and I feel that it is as much a value to our social interactions to give others the opportunity to be charitable as it is to be charitable.

First, we need to get past, as a society, this self-congratulating perception we have of "help" and "charity". While heroes are nice, wouldn't it be better to create a world with less need for heroes?

Lammas: Settling Down and Celebrating Self

This post is also available HERE.

Each Sabbat brings with it a special meaning as part of the wheel of the year. The journey through the seasons is not just a physical one, but also mental and spiritual.

As we approach each Sabbat, we can grow with the seasons when we know the lessons each one brings us. This series explores the Sabbats' spiritual meaning in the context of modern Pagans.

Lammas is the time of year when we stop pushing the gas pedal. We aren't really slowing down, but we stop the energetic acceleration that began in the spring.

We begin to look forward to the more relaxed and introspective schedule of the dark half of the year, but we know we have some loose ends to tie up first.

This first harvest of three is a good time to look at what is growing in your life, what has borne fruit, and what needs to be pruned or cut out to keep the rest of the harvest healthy. It is also the time to begin celebrating your successes and gains. You've worked hard to make a plan and carry it out.

When those first grains give you a taste of the benefit of your efforts, you need to celebrate for it. Celebrate yourself for your work. Celebrate the gods for their aide. And celebrate the world we live in for everything we manage to accomplish.

It is important for us to celebrate, and even congratulate ourselves for, our accomplishments. We sweep so much of our work and efforts under the rug because it is just doing what is expected. But that minimizes us as effective and active participants in our own lives, and minimizes the energy we expend to improve our lives and the world around us.

This Lammas, take the time to celebrate you and what you have done. You deserve it.