Slow Havamal: 77

[kylec]

The 77th verse repeats the first three lines from verse 76: that cows, family, and eventually you, will die. Then it goes on to say that Odin knows only one thing that doesn’t die: your reputation

This verse is a near-copy of the previous one. When something repeats in Havamal, that means we should pay attention—it’s important. The minor difference is the phrasing of the second half, which still basically suggests that a reputation never dies.

At the risk of repeating myself, I’d like to explore something I first poked at last week, which is the independent life of a reputation beyond the flesh that built it. What does our reputation do for us, even while we’re living? It’s a story told by others about our deeds and what should be expected from us. So it helps others to decide how to relate to us without having to collect years of personal experiences by our sides.

A fine reputation allows us to shortcut the phase where we might be wary of a newcomer and hurry to enjoy the benefits of someone who everyone else says is an outstanding friend. We can bypass the classic visual size-up to an extent, and simply look for confirmation of the rumored traits. This is most useful in avoiding people with bad reputations, but in these verses we’re concentrating more on good reputations. This fast track to trust saves us a lot of time and energy and potential mistakes. We are more inclined to partner up in the face of risk. To the person who earned the reputation, this is also a boon. Wherever they go, their goodness has preceded them and opened doors that would have remained shut to a stranger.

In Havamal, the most important aspect of the reputation is that it endures after death. We may say that we don’t care about praise when we’re in the grave, but that reputation can go to aid our family and friends, the projects we worked on, and the communal life in general. In that latter, it’s as though some spirit of ourselves were still around inspiring others to good deeds with all the kind words still floating around about the dead person.

But a reputation is not usually singular. We have one for each person who knows us. When we act consistently, they will agree on all but the minor details. This is more desirable from the standpoints of longevity and credibility than having wildly varying reputations. But no two people can ever experience us the same way. Even if they know the same stories, they differ in which ones they were present for, and how they impacted that person. Each new telling after death germinates a new reputation in a new person. These are like so many children, carrying on our legacy and our work in our absence.

Few of us have been beacons of goodness and consistency all our lives. Those who knew us the entire time will have more complex narratives than recent acquaintances. For the most part, we should value the latter stories more. People change. Early mistakes may add character, but need not condemn the long-remediated.

I assume we’re advised of the power of reputation so that we might become conscious of it and start to cultivate better ones. That requires us to pay attention to how others perceive us and treat us, especially those who met our mutual acquaintances before they met us. And if you’ve got a hole to dig out of, best to start digging. A good deed doesn’t erase a mistake, nor are they averaged, summed, or anything else. Our actions stand as a whole, with each counted by every person who knows it. When we show capacity to change and correct mistakes, people are willing to overlook early faults.

We might put energy into our strengths. Those good things people say about us are easy to keep doing, and contrast well with our struggles that we are trying to improve on. Remember that fixing a poor reputation requires action conspicuous enough that everyone who holds a prior opinion of us takes notice. That seems to favor virtue signaling, bragging, etc., but I think people notice that, too, and it becomes another part of our reputation.

Nor is it ever too late, as long as a reputation lives. I found out recently that the poet W.H. Auden was secretly committed to great generosity. He once heard that a woman in his congregation was having night terrors, so he took a blanket and slept in the hall outside her apartment until they ceased. He’s been dead since 1973, but his reputation just gained from that story and others coming to light, and from the fact that he never promoted these activities.

Every act has the capacity to color our many reputations, and retains that capacity long after we think it’s impossible for anyone to find out. If there’s a takeaway from these two verses, it’s to live the example we want others to see, especially when they’re not looking. Our material advantages pass quickly. And admittedly, our reputations will either die or become extremely disconnected from the lived person over centuries or millennia. But there are few greater sources of wealth while we live, and perhaps none greater once we’re gone.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

Could the phrase "Odin knows" be doing some work in this repeated passage?

Suggesting, perhaps, that it's the not only mortal others who pay attention to our deeds...?

[kylec]

Absolutely.I only treated it from a mortal POV, but there may be far more interested parties than humans. ;)