kylec | Slow Havamal 65

The 65th verse tells us we will often be repaid in kind for the words we say to other people.

This is a “half-verse,” three lines instead of the usual 6-8, and the first I’ve encountered. The text doesn’t explain why, but I’d like to think it’s because that was all that needed to be said.

Though there’s no guarantee, I can often expect that what I say to others, including my tone, body language, and the context in which I say it, will be repaid to me. Odin doesn’t say that it will be repaid by the recipient, or even another person. The mode is vague, but I should expect to receive as I give. This approximates the concept of karma, whereby the effects of my actions circle back to me.

I see no moral imperative here. Rather, it’s stated like a law of nature, applied equally to all persons with as much detachment as the law of gravity. The result depends on the choice of the speaker. I can run people down behind their backs, curse them to their faces, or start arguments. If so, then I should expect that I’ll be repaid in kind. It seems like social pressure is enough to bring this about. Who would want to go on being nice to a jerk? Likewise, how many people would mistreat someone who always had words of encouragement, gratitude, and friendship? My reputation goes before me, and even people I’ve never met may take this disposition based on things they’ve heard.

Though people do tend to treat us as we treat them, I suspect there’s something more insinuated here. I don’t know if the Norse had a karma-like concept, but this has the feel of a divine promise, not a statement of odds based on sociological observations.

I gave examples of extreme goodness and wretchedness, but there are many more ways we can speak to others. I can speak with patience, passion, bitterness, fatigue; loudly, softly, clearly, with thought, or off the cuff; in a monotone, a measured cadence, a joyous melody. I can wave my hands in gesticulation, or fold them, or keep them in my pockets. My face can reveal my emotional state, or hide it. I can speak to others in the same manner regardless of who they are and what’s happening, or I can exercise sensitivity to changing contexts. I can choose to remain silent.

The consequences, then, come in great variety, and most of us probably meander through different modes at different times. If I don’t like the way people are treating me, this verse suggests I look first to my own speech. Am I too brusque? Do I ever stop to listen? There will be exceptions, but most people will treat me as I’ve treated them. This doesn’t work in a linear fashion, though. Angry speech can beget angry speech, but it can also generate timidity and a resistance to open up if the person is less confrontational. My yapping finds me a friend who prefers to listen, or vice-versa. It might be better to think of my speech as an organism within an ecosystem. The rest of the system will fill the available niches with speakers who complement one another. Maybe we can never truly get rid of the unpleasant types, but the way we set boundaries or extend ourselves determines in some bewildering fashion the characters we will meet.

Given that each of us has a range of capacity for mood and speech, it’s no surprise that we elicit certain responses from others. We also affect their mood in turn, and color their next interaction, further driving ecological change to our social biosphere. This law is not a threat. It doesn’t prescribe behavior. But it does ask us to reflect on our role in the life we’ve made, and to accept the consequences of our words, or change them.