Slow Havamal 69

[kylec]

The 69th verse says no one is entirely wretched even if they suffer from poor health: that some find happiness in children, kin, money, or a job well done.

A wretched life holds no joy for a man. But Odin tells us that no one is completely wretched. No matter how deep his misery, even in the throes of terrible health, perhaps from which he knows he won’t recover, there is still goodness to be found. Notably, the examples he gives all encourage us to look outside ourselves.

Sometimes in the midst of despair, it can be difficult to admit that there is anything good about ourselves. We see only our failures. To notice a bright spot would undercut the pleasure we receive from wallowing. I say that it’s pleasure, because I think there are advantages to all our actions in our own minds. If I mope about my inabilities instead of marking the minor victories and the possibilities, it allows me to feel excused for failing, and from putting forth effort in the future. It also encourages others—and myself—to feel sorry for me, which is the same pleasure I’d receive as a child from my doting parents when something upset me.

I’m certain we could all find triumphs within ourselves if we chose to look. But often, it’s easier to start by looking outside. Though our kids and our friends are probably not much better or worse than us, we more readily praise them and forgive their faults. Just as we often project our own unsavory aspects onto others to then criticize, I think we can also project our worth. Many of the kind words of encouragement we have for others are just those that we can’t offer to ourselves.

That recognition grants a foothold. Maybe my prospects aren’t as bleak as they seemed. Or if they are, if I’m dying in anguish, I can take solace in the fact that other lives will go on to do all the wonderful things that I enjoyed. I may look to posterity, or if I have no children, feel satisfied in the good works I’ve completed, no matter how small.

Wretchedness, then, shifts with perspective. It becomes an aspect rather than a condition of the whole. We’ll probably all experience it at some point—it seems a part of being human. When that day comes, we’re reminded to search beyond ourselves for the faintest sensation of a lifted heart. That becomes our opening by which we can find the many things that always stood in the light, whether or not we noticed. And how is that one who can see such beauty could be totally wretched? What we see is to a great extent a reflection of what’s within.