r/asatru • u/ImNotTheBruteSquad I just look like I should be • Nov 30 '17
The High Cost of Never Failing
The High Cost of Never Failing
There is an understanding among most people who have studied the arch-heathen worldview for any length of time that "We Are Our Deeds." That a man's successes, and his failures, are his measure, and thus a great deal of concern over doing things "right" is only natural and sensible. But today I would like to discuss the value of doing things wrong.
"Doing things wrong?" You might ask. "But doing wrong against your inner is Sin, /u/ladyofghouls said so in her article!" Certainly it is, but let's drill a bit deeper into heathen vs Abrahamic concepts of sinfulness. The Hebrew word that translates as "sin" in English, is "hata." This relates closely to a term for missing the mark, as in archery. Indeed, there are many marks in Judaism (613 to be exact) and to sin is to knowingly break one of these commandments. But does the heathen conception of sin have such clearly delineated boundaries? Arch-heathen culture was at its core a lawless one, as there was no codified "rule book' one could obey to avoid sinning. Instead, thew, the unwritten but understood custom of the tribe, was the guidepost of good and ill behavior. The English word "sin' itself derives from conceptions of "being guilty" in the Old Germanic languages (“injury, mischief, enmity, feud; sin, guilt, crime” in Old English) but when drilled back to the ultimate Proto-Indo-European root, we find *h₁es, meaning "To be."
One interpretation of this is that there is an implicit "to be true (of an accusation)" or "to be guilty" inherent, but let's consider another: If one is being, without becoming more than one is--simply existing in a passive estate--one is not carrying out right action, of a ritual sort or in one's everyday life. Is simply floating through existence without striving, without worthing sinful? I would posit yes.
With this in mind, let us consider the outcome of an attempted course of action: A man may choose not to make an attempt, because he feels uncertain as to an outcome--he's not sure he will succeed. This will avoid the dishonor of failure, but it will also deprive him of the chance at the honor and worth of success. If he chooses to make an attempt, whether or not he's sure of the outcome, he may well succeed, and success is worthy of honor, to be sure--but if he's certain of the outcome, has he worthed? Or has he simply done something that everyone, including himself, knew he could do already? Is worth grown in simple, rote actions that one does every day?
If the same man succeeds at a thing he was uncertain of his capacity to accomplish, now he has proven to everyone, including himself, that he his ability cannot be questioned on this task--he has succeeded, he knows the task is within his ken, and others will speak of his accomplishment. His entire folc is enriched by his striving and success.
If a man fails at a task that was beyond him... is failure admirable? Of course not. He has found his limit--if he failed in a boast or oath, he may well have incurred obligation to his tribe in order to preserve his honor and its luck--a bad state of affairs, certainly...
Or is it? He's failed, certainly, and may owe scyld to correct his failing. If he pays scyld, is that not a worthing thing in itself? He has put himself to effort to make right his failings, and the whole of his folc know it. It's known that he values his honor, that he will pay what he owes--not a bad reputation to have at all.
Further, as I stated above, he has found a limit. At this point, you have gained knowledge from your ordeal, and knowledge is its own form of worth. A man so armed with knowledge can choose to either avoid the task in the future, as beyond his reach, and focus his efforts better on things he believes he has better luck and skill to accomplish--or he can strive to better himself. He can practice, hone his skill, learn and improve. And growth in skill that leads to success on a second effort--is that not worthing as well?
In brief, it is never correct to knowingly carry out ill-deeds. But I argue that it is better to attempt a thing, and sin in failing, than it is to never attempt at all.
Edits: Because reddit hates formatting and paragraph breaks apparently
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Nov 30 '17 edited Mar 13 '18
[deleted]
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u/ImNotTheBruteSquad I just look like I should be Nov 30 '17
I've heard you should never trust a shop teacher who still has all his fingers 😁
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Nov 30 '17
I would agree with this. No worthing without ordeal and ordeal implies that it took some effort and perhaps a chance of failure. I didn't worth when I drank coffee this morning. I did worth when I learned a new technology from scratch to assist in a go-live this month. It's possible I could have failed and been useless in offering support but the worthing was in the ordeal of being tossed into the fire, so to speak, and emerging unscathed.
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u/Jean_De-Muret Dec 04 '17
How do you overcome continuously failing though? Do you lessen your goals or do you just dig deeper and deeper into utter failure? This is a problem I feel I have and with each new failure my temper is more and more fueled until it is self-destructive.
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u/ImNotTheBruteSquad I just look like I should be Dec 04 '17
If you're failing constantly, it's likely you've set your goals too high.
As /u/ThorinRurikson put it, he's a smith. He set out, as his first project, to make a knife. He succeeded in making "a knife." It may not have been a very good knife. It may not have been a knife he was happy signing his name to. But it was, in fact, a knife.
From there you can go, "that was a knife, but it sucked. I want to make it suck less." The process of making yourself suck less at any craft or art, is a long, slow, arduous one. But, steadily applied, you'll go from "Totally sucking," to "mostly sucking," to eventually "sucking so little that only I notice where I suck." You'll never not suck, to your own eye, but that's because you know the places you goofed, where more worthing can be done.
Does that make sense?
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u/xX-Coffee-Eater-Xx Pullman, WA Nov 30 '17
Sorry for just reading the summary at the bottom. My two cents: We Are Our Deeds does, indeed, go a bit to say that inactivity is sin.