The Nine Noble Virtues: a Modern Take - Discipline

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I do not consider the NNV to be a historical reference.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

Oh, great irony, that I am talking about discipline now. I've put off working on this post for a week now, and I'm working on it now to avoid my editing work. But now that I've acknowledged my own procrastination, it's only fair to point out that procrastination is a self-esteem issue, not a discipline issue.

But what is discipline in this modern world? Is it something of a military structuring of one's life? Is it punishing children until they behave? Is it that ethereal concept of Will? I don't believe it is any of those. Or maybe it is connected to all of them, or they are connected to it.

Discipline in the world of the ancient Norse lands would not be any of those rather solid concepts. I think the best way of translating the idea into modern lingo would be the word "adulting."

I know, I know, but bear with me. In the past, being disciplined would have consisted of self-starting, often at or before the crack of dawn, to take care of a variety of animals and domesticated plant-life. It would have meant that you had to be aware of your environment to avoid dangers and to actually see what needs to be done - no drifting through life half-aware. It would have meant troubleshooting issues as they came up, using practical solutions rather than the disposable, throw-money-at-it methods we often use today.

It would have meant crawling up on the roof to replace thatching, even if you just didn't feel like it that day. And you had to pre-plan for that to have the thatching ready to put in place. It would have meant that even when you thought you had done enough work, you still had more to do.

Got kids? You still need to clean house and cook food. Got a sore foot? Too bad the fields won't plow themselves. Toothache? Doesn't change the fact that goats gotta eat, too. Tired? Well, a nap here and there isn't too bad, but best not get a reputation for sleeping half the day away.

To put it into a modern perspective, we are a bit spoiled, though I argue that we do deserve the benefits we have. We go to a job that is often laid out for us. We are told what to do and how to do it, and we get compensated for that. Then we go home, and therein lies the problem.

See the 8-hour workday, 7-day workweek was NEVER intended to be lay-about time for us. It was specifically so we would have time to do the work of family instead of putting in 18 hours for a boss. But now, we forget to do the work of family. We need to be disciplined.

That discipline can mean so many things. Perhaps it is taking the time to save and invest money wisely to allow for the future prosperity of your family. Perhaps it is doing repair work around the house, or paying someone else to do that (both are equally valid as money represents time and effort that you've already put in, plus you economically lift another in their job as a plumber, etc.).

Perhaps it means going to a food bank or filling out forms for benefits that your family is eligible for but you don't desperately need. We tend to wait until we desperately need "charity" before we use it, but that increases the chances you will need it longer because you fell farther into need before making changes. If we looked at these things more as a parachute and less as the ambulance waiting for us to hit the ground, we could recover from life's little hiccoughs faster. (Check out my post on Hospitality for more on this!)

Discipline means that your wants and wannas, your feelings and hurts, all take a backseat to the reality of what needs to be done for the betterment of the family. Discipline is doing things in spite of your immediate desires in order to meet long-term goals.

Downgrading from a smartphone to a flip-phone for two years to save money is discipline. Making a budget is discipline. Learning to cook so you can cut food costs is discipline. Even consciously making a choice that has an immediate negative effect on your family's finances so that someone can get a degree or certification that will have a long-term positive effect on those finances is discipline.

And, today, discipline is getting back to my editing.

What do you think of my assessment of this virtue?

Emotional Labor: Power and Energy

There's been a lot of discussion in regards to emotional labor lately. I figured I would put in my two cents.

Emotional labor is a situation in which one person is regularly aware of and responsible for dealing with the mood and behavior patterns of another person. Now, in most cases, this ends up simply being aware of whether somebody is in a bad mood and probably needs to talk.

This is what happens when you have a relationship and the (usually) woman ends up dealing with most of the emotional burden in terms of communication. And more extreme situations this is a major confluence of both societal pressures and intersectionality.

Let me explain. Women tend to bear the burden of emotional labor. This is not because men are not capable of doing so. This is because women are socialized to this behavior. However, I believe that it is less likely that it was decided somehow that it is a woman's job to deal with emotions and more that it is a result of the power differential between women and men.

Extreme cases emotional labor is a is a form of hyper-vigilance. Hyper-vigilance is one of the most common results or symptoms of abusive situations. This isn't to say extremely abusive situations. Any abusive situation will result in hyper-vigilance. Things such as bullying, harassment at the workplace, any kind of hostile power differential situation will result in hyper-vigilance.

Hyper-vigilance in this case is when a person becomes focused on and extremely aware of another person's micro-expressions, body language, mood changes, behavior patterns, etc.

In the vast majority of the population, you have white hetero, cis-gendered people. Roughly half of this group has a significant historical and societal power differential over the other half; that is, men have had social power over women. Because of this, women in general are a huge, often suppressed or abused group. The level of suppression or abuse is, of course, widely variable.

It would make a lot of sense that the general power over women creates a general feel of being abused within women, which would lead to a general hyper-vigilance among women towards men. This is a really long way of saying women bear the burden of emotional work because of our minority status. We are trained by our historic suppression, oppression and abuse.

This is observable in other groups with major power differentials. You see it in LGBTQ+ when encountering heterosexual or unknown identifying people, and there is a period of feeling them out before they feel comfortable revealing any clues about their sexuality. Essentially they become hyper-vigilant unless and until the person that they have encountered shows themselves to be safe.

You also see this in terms of racial groups. Many people of color have tried to explain that they become extremely vigilant, extremely aware of the underlying moods and energy, when they're in white spaces.

In many ways, we see the same thing in terms of religious groups as well. Pagans and other minority religions are far less likely to discuss their religion, their religious practices, etc. in a public space and in front of Christians who have not shown themselves to be safe.

Christians on the other hand literally feel comfortable throwing religious language around to the point where, if somebody calls them on it, they consider that to be an attack on them. I can't tell you how often I've been told that someone will pray for me or that they hope that God blesses me etc. in a non-religious situation simply because the Christian and question was comfortable expressing their religion. In fact, they're so comfortable discussing their religion, they go  door-to-door to actually do just that.

In a lot of ways. this explains why so many of these conversations about discrimination, prejudice, and other abuses are so difficult. One group tends to be so hyper-vigilant that they tend to immerse themselves in the situation. The other group never actually even has to think about it.

The major issue doesn't arise, however, until the group that doesn't have to think about it reacts with the topic even just being mentioned with denial, defensiveness, or "counter attacks." They become so blind to their own social power that they consider anything but superiority to be an attack.

What does this all mean for Pagans?

If you find yourself in a situation where you are the majority group, take a moment to evaluate the emotions and energy around you. What is it like? Can you feel the tensions around certain people? In relation to certain people?

Are you supporting minority groups when they have to do the extremely uncomfortable work of calling people on things or are you one of the defenders of the majority? Why have you aligned yourself with the group you are supporting?

Remember, we wouldn't attack a rabbit for being afraid of wolves. We wouldn't say, "but I'm a good wolf, not like the others." We wouldn't "#NotAllWolves". We acknowledge that there is a reason the rabbit is afraid. If we want the rabbit and the wolf to be friends, we support the rabbit in taking smalls steps of trust. We don't shout down the rabbit for being "racist" towards wolves. And we don't hold the rabbit responsible for the wolf's feelings.

So why do we do that for people?