The Nine Noble Virtues: a Modern Take - Perseverance

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I do not consider the NNV to be a historical reference.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.

Perseverance is a virtue that has come to mean a lot in the last year. The dictionary defines it as "continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition". The socio-political sphere has set up quite a few oppositions and difficulties for us, in general. But each of us faces our own set of complications in life.

Historically, perseverance had to do with survival in the elements. You kept moving in a blizzard. You kept fighting in a battle. You kept planting on the farm. You kept hunting for your family. No matter what nature and the world tried to do to you, you kept moving or you died.

These days, it's a bit more nuanced, at least in the US. You don't keep moving because you might die. You keep moving because you don't want your kids to be homeless. You don't want the cascading social effects of financial failure to ruin you.

In the past, if you wanted to move, you packed up and you literally moved (walked) to where you wanted to go. The laws against hitchhiking, homelessness, truancy (for minors), and more, plus the financial requirements of crossing borders, makes that much less of an option.

For Fun and Profit

We keep moving so we can enjoy life within the context of the social structure we live in. Yeah, there are cheat codes and work-arounds, but having a bit of cash makes a lot of things possible.

I have a few life mottos to keep me and my loved ones on the path of doin' stuff:

• "Never give up, never surrender!"
• "Just keep swimming..."
• "Honey Badgers, attack!" (My family is the Honey Badgers, particularly the kids. Hubby is Snorlax.)

Aside from the warm fuzzy feeling that these phrases give me, mostly in remembering the movies they are sourced from, they also reinforce this idea that we have to keep moving.

Keep Moving

For some reason, my husband seems more confused about adulting than I ever was. Specifically, about how frustrating it is to clean the house, do the laundry, catch up the dishes, pay the bills... and turn around to find you need to do it all again.

I frequently express sympathy for the kids, who I've just assigned chores to AGAIN, by saying "I know, it just never ends." I do this because it is true. The trash was taken out yesterday and needs taken out again tomorrow. That's just how that works. Four people wearing clothes and taking baths with towels - laundry always needs done. I make my epic meat sauce for spaghetti - pans and plates need cleaning.

And it isn't just that.

Keep Doing Better

We have to keep improving our situation, at least to a point. We want to be able to afford better quality, healthier food. We want to be able to travel for fun and business. We want the kids to be able to go to camps (and not stay home all summer to drive me nuts!). And we want to be able to afford medical bills and insurance, since both of us freelance our work, so insurance will have to be through us.

I keep a mental tally of the bumps and bruises and aches, prioritizing medical treatments like some kind of psychopathic triage. And I know I've had close to my limit of stress in doing this for the last 5 years. So I add my mental health to the list... at the bottom, of course.

The point is, doing okay is just that - okay. And that's just fine, but it isn't where we want to stay. We want to help the kids pay for college so they don't have the burden of 30 years of debt like we do. Maybe we can help them cut it down to 10 years.

Things Fall Apart

We hit our bumps. Hubby's gig ends a week sooner than expected. They don't direct deposit, so checks have to wait another three days. Things get pushed out and pushed back in anticipation of a break that falls through.

We've all had crap happen. It just does. Life isn't fair. Chores never stop. And, in our current social environment, we always need a certain amount of money, so we have to keep working.

That's just how that works. Give up or get it done. It's a marathon, not a sprint. That's perseverance.

Eat the Horse

Hubby is particularly fond of DBZA, and quotes this scene A LOT.

So if you lose your battle, get back up and eat that horse! At least all these quotes will keep you laughing while you persevere.

Goddess Worship and Feminism: a Plague of Hypocrisy

I am disappointed in someone.

That's not much new for me. I have a lot of optimism and hope surrounding the people that I don't hate on sight. The more I get to know them, the more I see the epic awesomeness they could be. This leads to a certain amount of disappointment when they don't live up to their potential, but more often because they don't even try.

This is a very brief description of a very nuanced set of experiences for me, so don't assume you get it from those few sentences. It will be better for everyone involved.

My recent disappointment is but one of a series revolving around a single general concept - Goddess worshipers (ie, Wiccans, many Pagans, etc.) who actively speak out against women's rights and, in particular, the issues surrounding the #MeToo movement. For those of you living in a cave, I'm talking about people who don't support women having more justice in sexual harassment, abuse, assault, etc. cases.

Yeah, I say women, but only because it is disproportionately women. Men get attacked, too. Men also represent 98% of perpetrators, so I'm going to keep this simple and assume that a perpetrator is male.

Skadi got a divorce cuz her
first hubby didn't allow for her needs.

If I get another #NotAllMen comment, my head will blow up. 98% is not a statistic of kinda-sorta. It doesn't even break out of the +/- range of uncertainty. Fortunately for us, this statistic is based on reporting, so it really doesn't have an uncertainty range. 2% of women are douche-canoes, too.

Here's what my issue is.
Many Wiccan (mostly) men (mostly) worship the Goddess (TM). Great! Awesome!

Unfortunately, it ends up being a semi-sexual relationship of holding the ideal feminine as the only feminine with value.

Oh, yes, I said it. I could go into a background and history, but I'm a Midwestern gal, so I'm going full-on redneck with some

You Might Be A Hypocritical Goddess Worshiper If:

• If your default position is that women are likely to lie or exaggerate about being assaulted or attacked or harassed...

  

  Some Goddesses are the Divine Mother;
  some will destroy your world. Both are
  "real women".

• If you are concerned that women having the power to get justice for assaults will negatively affect you or your life...
• If you believe that women are "bad" if they react to an accidental grope/brush/bump "excessively"...
• If you have called a woman a name that implied a sexual or physical judgment of her in a debate or argument*...
• If you feel that apologizing to a woman for an accident is worse than her being the recipient unintentional or accidental touching of her breasts, butt or other "second base" body parts...
• If you feel that apologizing would give a woman power over you...
• If you believe that your intentions for a situation trump any experience a woman has in that situation...
• If you think taking responsibility (ownership) for your actions doesn't include accidental violations of another person...
• If you think taking responsibility (ownership) for your actions will somehow mandate punitive measures...
• If you think that a woman's past experience, whether distant or immediate, MUST be shared and understood by you before it can mitigate whether she has the right to an emotional reaction...
• If you think your intentions in a situation should be more important than a woman's past experience, whether distant or immediate, in how she feels about a situation...

  

  No one ever taught "fuckability
  of subjects" in art history...

• If you think that your intentions in a situation should give you immediate, verbal and enthusiastic forgiveness for any unintentional violation of a woman's body...
• If you have ever said, thought or typed something like "you aren't helping your cause" during a discussion about women's rights, sexual assault, etc...
• If you have ever behaved in action or word as though a woman should not question your trustworthiness because you are connected on social media or through mutual friends...
• If you have ever told a woman "I would never fuck you"** or otherwise reduced a woman with a position/opinion on a topic to having value only if you would be willing to have sex with her...
• If you have ever thought or made a comment about a woman's negligence in preventing her attack/assault/harassment, WITHOUT making a conscious effort to refute or walk-back those thoughts and/or comments AND attempting to derail such thoughts in the future***...
• If you have ever said or thought that someone was not a "real woman" because of their opinions, appearance, sexual preferences or activity, career choice, behavior, gender assignment at birth, or anything other than their own self-identification...

  

  Even the Great Mother isn't always what
  the generic images portray.

• And, perhaps the most controversial one - If you have expressed or behaved in a way that indicated that the sacredness of a woman or the feminine was solely or primarily about their sex, sexuality, reproduction, or appearance in relation to any of these things...

So, what do you do if you suspect you are a hypocritical Goddess worshiper? It's really easy. Shut up and listen to the conversation. Think about what people are saying, and not just from the (white) male perspective. How would you feel if you endured what women are talking about? How would you want it resolved? Work on applying the things you've learned TO YOUR LIFE. The best thing you can do to support women in your life or in this world is to #LearnBetterDoBetter.

Please feel free to comment more "you might be a hypocrite Goddess worshiper if..." items!

* If you think I'm wrong about Universal Healthcare, that still doesn't make me a slut. And, yes, this "clever comeback" is something I literally experience several times a month - it just doesn't happen to me that often.

** I can guarantee that, unless we are on a dating site and actively flirting, having sex with you is not something I'm considering. At all. Your penis is not and will never be the focus of my interactions with you. I would appreciate if you would stop thinking about my vagina.

*** I acknowledge that this is a visceral reaction with a steep learning curve. This only partially excuses it. Victim-blaming is always wrong.

The Problem With Integrity

“With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.” - Zig Ziglar

This quote was waiting for me in my in-box, like a crouching panther about to attack.

I get it. I sometimes look for the simple tales - the one with the black hat bad guys and the white hat good guys. The ones where the good guy always knows what to do and it’s always right. How simple, how pure such tales are.

I can’t write them. It’s not like I don’t know how. That’s how children’s stories go. It’s a basic plot with characters who are iconic. Dare I say, archetypal?

I guess it would be more honest to say I won’t write them. To explain why, I have to unpack everything I find wrong about the quote above.

“With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide.”

First of all, this assumes that hiding something is counter to having integrity. But that’s not the case. I can’t spill my entire life story every time I meet someone. Or even every time I befriend someone. I can’t wear my life on my sleeve. That’s called oversharing.

And it means there will always be things you don’t share about yourself. Some of that may include bad behavior you’ve since grown out of. And sometimes, it just doesn’t mean enough to you to share with other people. That is, you forget about it.

This also assumes that things that you hide are all things you don’t want other people to know about because of nefarious reasons. That’s bunk. Sometimes, I’m just embarrassed, like when I can’t walk on ice because I’m a clutz. Sometimes, it’s an issue that I have that no one needs to know about, like how ice sends fear shooting through me with thoughts of pain and death because I slipped once and shattered my ankle, and sat in the snow screaming for help at 5 am. Life changing, yes. Something everyone needs to know about? Probably not.

Fear isn’t just about what people will think of you or how they will judge you. Sometimes fear is the primal reminder that we are mortal and may have brushed up against death at some point.

“With integrity, you will do the right thing, so you will have no guilt.”

I have got to move to B&W world where these quotes come from. Just because you have integrity, doesn’t mean you automatically know what decisions are right. Gods, that would be awesome! Evil things would never happen by accident. Bad stuff would never be an unintended consequence. It would all be by choice, making those who caused bad things to instantly be the bad guy.

Life doesn’t work like that, and realistic writing plays with the grays. Good people make bad choices, and no amount of integrity can change that.

However, people with ego and a belief in the strength of their own integrity will actually believe that they cannot make a bad choice. If their actions have a negative and unintended consequence, they will blame it on the victim (“she must have deserved it”) or on someone else (“look what you made me do”). To these people, there is no need to feel guilt or apologize for accidental or unintended bad things. If fate put you in the way, you must have earned that negativity somehow.

I could go on, evaluating the way that this quote extends into social mindsets, like meritocracy, and the pros and cons associated. But I should keep this short, and that would be a thesis-sized project.