It's hard to believe it's June already. Time flies by far too quickly. It's hard not to fall into a deep nostalgic depression when I realize this.
I think things are largely going well with me, though I've been entering a period of uncertainty. I'm feeling the spiral, I think, when you go through alternating periods of confidence and insecurity, while still progressing. At least, that's what I hope.
It seems every source of wisdom or clarity I seek is full of contradictions both within and without. I'd like to not have to cherrypick, but it seems this is necessary. Maybe it's the only way to true clarity. Perhaps no one has all the answers, and they must be assembled piecemeal.
This is both reassuring and disheartening. It means there is greater freedom in the truth, but also that it requires more work. Maybe this is a good thing.
Maybe I just need to be happy being a little bit bronze age and a little bit new age.
Today I'm meditating on my personal code of ethics, revisions thereof, and acting with intention.
Acting with intention is perhaps the most powerful tool I know of in personal improvement. Simply not letting yourself get caught up in the current and seizing your own decisive capacity and time is immensely powerful. I am not always able to do this, but I have improved massively with regards to my executive function.
As for my code of ethics, while many of my axia have not changed, I'm re-thinking some of my definitions. For example, I'm re-thinking concepts like “doesn't hurt anyone.” If I'm wasting time I could instead be spending on something more useful, am I not hurting myself and those around me? Perhaps there are too many variables to truly calculate this. Maybe that leads to a place where I never let myself rest or do anything fun. Maybe the answer is simply to temper this with the aforementioned commitment to acting with intention.
I've been reading Julius Evola's Revolt Against the Modern World, and while I am a perennialist and maybe even something of a traditionalist myself, I find myself taking issues with some of his hypotheses. Much of this work makes a lot of sense, especially his criticisms of modernity. However, I disagree with one of his core ideas: that Indo-European spirituality natively consists entirely of “solar” and transcendent Sky-Father cults, and that the “lunar,” cthonic Earth-Mother cults are impositions from without, mostly from the pre-Indo-European substrate, be it in Europe or India.
Firstly, his solar/lunar dichotomy falls apart simply by examining it through a Germanic lens, where the Moon is regarded as the masculine of the pair, while the Sun is the feminine. However, I digress.
Indo-European spirituality (and indeed many spiritualities Evola would describe as “traditional”) often emphasizes the importance of balance, and this applies to these two poles as well. Even the aristocrats of Viking Age Scandinavia worshipped primarily the gods Odin, Thor and Freyr. Freyr is in fact one of the Vanir, these cthonic, earthly deities Evola insists came from without.
Personally, I think balance is the key here, as with so many things. This is central to our native Indo-European spiritualities, from India to Iceland. Frankly I think Evola's over-emphasis on the transcendant heavenly force is latent Christianity.
The universe tends to unfold as it should. This too shall pass. These sound like clichés, and they are, but they are also profoundly true.
In many places, physics confirm what ancient people already knew about the universe. For example, neither energy or matter may ever be destroyed or created out of nothing. In some cases matter and energy may be converted one from the orher, but the universe's ledger must remain balanced at all times. We can see that sometimes the balancing act may take place across vast distances of both time and space, but it remains true. Opposing forces may sometimes take control, but this is always met with an equal reaction.
Likewise, everything passes. Even the most horrible events in history eventually wound to conclusion. Winter always ends. Spring always returns. Time is cyclical, in both small and large ways. Stay grounded and the wind won't throw you around as badly.
Today I've been fighting off some anxiety issues and it's had me thinking: despite the disadvantages of struggling with this, there are some important advantages, as long as you can channel your efforts into the right places.
Those of us who perennially suffer from anxiety disorders look death in the face many times daily, and yet we must perservere. If you can direct your thoughts into the right places, this becomes simply an exercise in overcoming your fear of death, in shutting down panic, in keeping your cool under pressure. There is a reason it's a trope that nervous wrecks are good under pressure (see: Zenitsu Agatsuma from Demon Slayer) and this is because once we have something real to worry about, it seems almost trivial. We had been battling ephemeral, invisible enemies, so when they take tangible form, this is much easier.
It can be an advantage if you handle it correctly.
I recently encountered an idea that misses the mark so profoundly it's difficult to know where to begin to pick it apart.
I saw someone online express the opinion that one's worldview simply must reflect the reality of the world, and it is irrelevant if it “makes you happy.” Firstly, “happy” is a loaded term here. Long-term happiness is not necessarily feeling great or ecstatic all the time. Happiness, in this sense, speaks to a deeper fulfillment with your life and your self, as well as a capacity to hold yourself together even in times of crisis. Secondly, I find it funny that the people who espouse these kinds of worldviews almost entirely focus on the evil in the world, especially their own misery. This type of sentiment is repeated ad nauseam by the most miserable people of the world, whose perception is completely tinted by the lens of depression.
Your worldview must steel you against the difficulties, horrors and injustices of the world, or it's useless. The world will never be utopian or free of evil – it is instead your job to be resilient and resistant to this. You need to make yourself as much of a solid rock, unmoved by the storm around you, as you can. Not only is this best for your own mental and physical wellbeing, as well as that of those around you, but it's best for actually achieving or embodying your own lofty goals. That's the secret and the key to virtually everything.
I know I haven't always been as committed to this as I should be. I've spent most of my life overly emotional, easily swept away by my own feelings, and frankly, miserable. It doesn't do anyone any good.
I hope people stuck in these loops can break free and finally be happy.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately as I've been fighting some of my own. It's never too late, or pointless, to fight your demons. Even if you were on death row for something awful you had done, (though I admit this is an extreme example) it would behoove you to spend time wrestling them into submission.
It is likely you will never slay them. It is likely they will escape from time to time and wreak some havoc. This does not mean, however, that you shouldn't fight them with everything you've got. You will eat today – I imagine – despite knowing you will die someday, correct? Apply this logic to all things.
I'm feeling oddly hopeful, yet somber and grounded. I think I can be redeemed, though I've been given far too many second chances. If I can keep on the path and stay good, I think I can still be good. I have to try, anyway.
However, I know, somewhere deep in my soul, that I'll have to give a lot back to make up for this cosmic debt. Someday, someone's gonna have to swim into a nuclear reactor to flip a switch, or stay behind and get torn apart so others can escape (or something like that) and it's just gonna have to be me who does it.
Today, I'm wishing I had given my dog a hug before I left the house. My wife took him to the vet today for an x-ray, but apparently they're gonna do some bloodwork and possibly remove some teeth. He should be okay, but I wish I had hugged him first.
Also, we bought a house. This is exciting, but also a challenge. However, I am excited about the opportunity to rise to a challenge. It should be good for my soul
I really wish I weren't such a son of Kali Yuga but here we are. I just have to do my best from where I stand.
Something I see a lot among heathens and pagans of various flavors is that the overwhelming majority of them completely miss the point. It only takes a quick sojourn into places like Reddit's r/paganism, r/heathenry, r/asatru etc. to see many absolutely lamentable examples of this. Nature-based spirituality isn't a marketing identity. It isn't just an aesthetic. It isn't something to “geek out” about. (In fact, this is inappropriate for many things frequently thought of as “geek out” material, such as The Lord of the Rings.) It definitely isn't a self-insert fantasy to act out your post-modern political ideologies (Yes, this applies to most right-wing and left-wing pagans alike.) It is a commitment not only to nature and humanity but also to do your absolute best to embody your ideals any way you can.
Frankly, I cringe when I see someone wearing a hammer pendant without doing their best to be their best self. Heathenry is not like Christianity in this aspect. A Christian can basically act in any way he pleases, knowing that all is eventually forgiven. A heathen knows he must deal with the orlay (something like karma) he has wrought in this life and the next. That isn't to say a heathen is a lost cause after one mistake (far from it) but heathens are expected to comport themselves a certain way in this life.
I read once that orlay is like water dripping into a vessel. The best deeds are like pure water and the most evil deeds are like black ink (there is of course a gradient between the two). One drop of ink isn't going to turn a large vessel black, but that drop isn't going away. It must be forever dealt with and made up for. In Christian theology one can basically have a large vessel entirely of ink that can be transmuted into pure water at the pronouncement of a word. In this way Christians are not held to any standard. Yes, I know they are encouraged to comport themselves in certain ways but at the end of the day, one well-placed sincere apology will undo all of it. While I can see the appeal of this, we differ from them here.
I see a lot of people who call themselves heathens simply using their misinterpretations of heathenry to justify their already-existing biases and post-modern ideologies. Isn't it interesting that when you talk to a hard-line right-winger or to a wokie, the ancient heathen past embodied all of their ideals perfectly and reinforces all of their biases? Curious. The truth is that ancient Germanic peoples (really all ancient peoples) were neither a perfectly diverse melting-pot of ethnicities and gender identities as something like a Google AI would imagine them, nor were they a perfectly homogeneous group of perfect right-wing ideologues as lots of internet and pre-internet weirdoes like to imagine them. They were their own people with their own issues of their own time. However, I digress. This is a point for another article.
The point of nature-based spiritualities (paganism, heathenry, etc) is to be truly human. The point is to be the best mortal humans we can be in the here and the now. The point is to excel and be better without infringing on that which makes us human (as transhumanists would advocate for.) This means it is fundamentally incompatible with a lot of post-modern ideology.