Slow Havamal: 16

[kylec]

In the sixteenth verse, we’re told that unwise men think they can avoid death by avoiding a fight altogether, but that even if they succeed in escaping weapons, old age will grant no peace.

We’re not very good at imagining our deaths. Of course, we can come up with a mental image of the event—of a possible instance of the event—but when I try, it feels as though I’m watching a movie. It isn’t me, and it isn’t likely to come true. At least not that specific example. I know that, so the unconscious error to think, “death, the abstract event, won’t come true.” Thus an unwise man avoids those particular situations which might believably lead to his demise. He knows intellectually he will die, someday, somehow, but he lacks the belief.

In his mind, he’ll “live forever,” according to the poem. Death isn’t avoided, only put off for another day. We might want to defend the unwise man, pointing out that he knows he’ll die, he just prefers to see his grandchildren at holiday dinners and in Facebook pictures until he expires quietly in hospice care at the age of 93. He wants to experience those years that an early death might have cost him. That seems valid. It’s also disdainful to the Norse way of thinking, in which the life lived weighs more than the lifespan. To demonstrate manly virtue for 30 years is preferable to cowering for 90. This is in sharp contrast to modern American thought, in which cowering, especially if hooked up to equipment and incapable of caring for yourself or remembering basic details is the bee’s knees.

First, it’s important to remember that not all fights end in literal death. The unwise man flees not guaranteed destruction, but the possibility of destruction, victory, and any number of options in between. He flees risk. Even in the most literal interpretation, old age gives him “no peace” though weapons do because like a war wound that just won’t heal, age batters us little by little. A knee won’t bend at far, a spine curves, old strength fades, eyes dim, until a man’s physical capacity is that of a wounded version of his younger self. But we moderns have few opportunities for literal battle. What does this verse mean for us?

The notion of living forever suggests that current actions—habits—will continue in perpetuity. What action? Whatever it is we do that we call “living.” Our routines. The way we think. The way we say hello and goodbye, the work we do, the desires we have and the things we avoid. The whole of whatever acts fill your day (and are omitted) is your life. It’s homeostasis—a system that restores itself to a certain balance. If I always enjoy peace and reward from the same behavior—let’s say a usual breakfast of two pancakes, two eggs, and two strips of bacon—I would expect to always be rewarded in that fashion. It would be a shock if that same meal suddenly sent me into the toilet in severe pain, and I might change the menu. So to live forever means to get the same results, without change. Change is death.

And what is it I seek to avoid when I set my sights on eternal life? A fight. That could be a clash of steel, but more likely a clash of wills. Any time two forces meet in conflict, something has to give. It could be an argument with a friend. A confrontation I’m putting off. It can be when my map—those actions I like and the results I expect—meet with a strange territory, where they no longer have the same results. Or the inner dissonance I feel when trying to sort out what to do about it.

So life is action, but it’s also the expectation of what follows each action. By adulthood, we have so many deeply-rooted expectations that it’s difficult to realize they’re there, much less untangle them. For example, I grew up in a town of 400 people in rural Louisiana. When I moved to Los Angeles, let’s just say that people were different. They lived by strange rules, and if I used to earn smiles and praise from saying, “yes, ma’am,” it was a shock to suddenly get the opposite response. I could have avoided all that by just staying home. At least for a little while. Those “fights” cause us to either change the way we think and act, or suffer continuously without any inkling of why.

There are a few ways to avoid conflict. We can either accept the rule of the conflicting force without a fight, or we can just go around, hide in exile, live under the radar of the contentious power. Either way, we give up any claim to what could be won by facing it. Many people do exactly that. To some degree, we shirk danger and insulate ourselves in protective bubbles where the world turns exactly as we imagine it. But by fleeing the fight, we have to accept ever-narrowing possibilities. We forfeit anything about ourselves that would rock the boat. Any gold or glory to be gained from a hard victory. Soon, our unwise man is made of only those actions that conform to the past and are unthreatened by the present, until he becomes a walking caricature of himself. Old people mire deep in their routines. They tell the same stories and the same jokes. These are the handful of aspects of themselves that have survived the process by which they eliminate what yields unpleasantness.

In the worst cases, people can become walking delusions. Their map no longer matches the territory. What is old is that which has not changed. The world around us moves along, though. This narrow band of deteriorating behaviors may have once served, but as the circumstances evolve, we have to evolve with them. That means facing a conflict between our current way and what’s needed to adapt. We have to take novelty into account, hear it out, and change accordingly with the context. Otherwise, old age will give us no more peace than the conflicts we avoid. To remain the same is an increasingly difficult act of creative reinterpretation. We look to the world around us, ignore what doesn’t fit the stories we tell ourselves, and conjure giants from windmills. This amounts to cognitive dissonance. The unwise man strives to always see the past in the present, that he might live as he always has in a world to which he no longer belongs.

On the other hand, we can face the fight at the moment it appears. Battles mean casualties. No army escapes unscathed. These casualties are the beliefs and behaviors that can’t survive the conflict. For example, I may find myself unemployed, with an opportunity for a new job in a new field that will require a sharp adjustments of my skills, as well as a new degree of patience and social intelligence. Those old behaviors have to adapt. To adapt is to die, but it is also to be born anew. When the fight is over, the victor regroups, heals, integrates new beliefs and behaviors into a moving self. This is death. Death is unavoidable. It comes as the man is changed through willing conflict into a new man, or when his stubborn refusal to change is swept over by the armies of Time.

It doesn’t matter how long one can rest in the same place. It matters what he can face, what he can learn. How bravely does he go to those little deaths? If he thinks he cannot face them, cannot survive, he’s right. It’s another who will emerge.