I was perusing Norskk’s “Become a Víkingr” website when I came across a section called “SURVIVE IN HARSH ENVIRONMENTS”. I’ve been spending a lot of time reading, studying, learning about what it is to be a man on sites like Norskk, Order of Man, MFCEO Project, Man Talks, The Art of Manliness, and the like. I must admit, though, it seems somewhat ignoble to investigate something so fundamental on the other side of life. No matter. That is irrelevant presently. You see I have been on a journey. A journey that began over half a century ago. In that span of sunrises, I have managed to compact and compress things that would fill several lifetimes into one. But that is a story for another time. Suffice it to say that what lies ahead in however many – or few – years, maybe months, or even hours, a solitary sunset, no doubt measured time I’m given, I have given it to reconciling what is passed, in turn, investing it in the nebulous concept of what is future. A pièce de résistance resonating beyond what is physical. Life. Living. That is to say, to leave here having left all that I was, and was not, as a measure of a man who came to understand his innate fallibility yet through it, paradoxically, triumphed over what was surely utter pyrrhic defeat.
So, I asked myself, “What does it mean to ‘Survive?’” As a man. No, not so much physically, but cerebrally, where the fight to survive is already won or lost before any physical action to survive is set into motion. Is it not the mind and even the heart that is the battlefield upon which one is either victorious, albeit bleeding and wounded, or blood-soaked, lying in one’s blood? Defeated. Lifeless.
Moreover, what does it mean to survive on one’s own terms in light of the above, inescapable prognosis?
A good place to start would be to dig deep and find out if you have what it takes to survive the shitstorm when it arrives – and it will come. I mean, do you have the moxie, the wherewithal, the stones to weather the storm ad infinitum? The fact is, you are already in the midst of it. Born into it. Even when you are in the eye of it, and all is momentarily, unnervingly, deceivingly calm. You’re in the middle of it. Every single day is a shitstorm in the making and most of us just let it shit on us – literally. So, the question I pose – as I have been posing to myself more than ever – every single day is: “What am I doing to get through the proverbial shitstorm?” and “How am I doing?” or “Am I making progress?” And, “Do I – still – have my stones and sanity about me?”
Most days I suck at it, beating myself up with, “What am I doing? This is hopeless.” and “Who the hell do I think I am?” Yet, despite and more so, in spite of stupendous failure, infinite loss, and immeasurable sacrifice, much as I try, at times, to accept defeat, I cannot. I will not. For there is something deep down inside a man residing in the darkest, deepest fathoms of the well of his soul – that looks back in disgust – and says: “You miserable coward! How dare you? Quit your belly-aching and get your fucking shit together.” Do I doubt that voice? Can’t. Not possible, for it is the only true voice a man is moved to action by. A father’s voice? The one voice that emanates not only from his good side but from his bad and ugly side altogether. They, all sides of him, make the whole and are so divined by that which is greater than the man himself. That is where his truest, unaffected self resides. The self he does not truly know or understand, but is nonetheless, all the more, who he actually is. An intimidating thought to behold – for any man.
You see, I see, failure, loss, sacrifice as one man’s fuel and another’s futility. The art is becoming and being the man who treats these relative terms as imposters, turns them on their head, and then uses them as volatile fuel – like the coal they are – to press on instead of wallowing in the miasmic morass of futility like a pig in his urea.
In the midst of this unrelenting crucible of chaos. Where entropy and anomie consume. That is where the strong man not only survives, but it is where he truly lives and thrives; where he is either solidified or incinerated. So when it appears – and appearances have a habit of lending themselves to the truth – there are no options, no more chances, no further recourse, a man must look at himself in the mirror and ask – and more importantly, answer – that beaten, battered, and bloodied face staring back at him – that reflection of himself, his self – without hyperbole and without bullshitting himself the only questions that matter. “Do I give up? Do I throw in the towel? Do I allow myself to self-destruct? Or do I carry on, harder, more determined, more ruthlessly than the day before and all the days before that one? Do I reconstruct, reinvent, recreate myself daily, unflaggingly, to meet and slay – headlong – the never-ending, seen and unseen dragons that never seem to die; that must be killed and killed again and again and again; to absorb the onslaught and maelstrom of insults and punishments only to stand tall again, and over again; to go do battle, together, with the few like-minded souls who remain at my side and I at theirs, and knock the brutish beast called “life” in the head once more?” Indeed, and in deed, for a man – not all men – every day is St. Crispain’s day (see St. Crispian’s Day speech below). For all men die, few men truly live, let alone survive with their honor and dignity intact, and almost never on their own terms.
friedrich manfred simon – kaput gerat lupinum – 11.02.16
dichter – denker – dreher
kaput@kaputgeratlupinum.com
St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V (1599) by William Shakespeare (modern text), see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Crispin%27s_Day_Speech for the original text)
WESTMORELAND:
Oh, if only we had with us here ten thousand of those men back home in England who aren’t working today.
KING HENRY:
Who’s wishing that? My cousin Westmorland? No, my dear cousin, if we are marked down to die we are enough for our country to lose, and if marked down to live, the fewer the men the greater the share of honor. For the love of God, don’t wish for one man more. By Jove, I’m not interested in gold, nor do I care who eats at my expense. It doesn’t bother me who wears my clothes. Such outward things don’t come into my ambitions. But if it is a sin to long for honor I am the most offending soul alive. No, indeed, my cousin, don’t wish for another man from England. God’s peace, I wouldn’t lose as much honor as the share one man would take from me. No, don’t wish for one more. Rather proclaim to my army, Westmorland, that anyone who doesn’t have the stomach for this fight should leave now. He will be guaranteed free passage and travel money will be put in his purse. We would not like to die with any man who lacks the comradeship to die with us. This day is called the Feast of Crispian. He who outlives this day and gets home safely to reach old age will yearly on its anniversary celebrate with his neighbors and say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.” Then he will roll up his sleeve and show his scars and say “I got these wounds on Crispin’s day.” Old men are forgetful, but even if he remembers nothing else he’ll remember, with embroideries, what feats he did that day. Then our names, as familiar in his mouth as household words – Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester – will be remembered in their toasts. This good man will teach his son, and Crispian will never pass from today until the end of the world without us being remembered: we few; we happy few; we band of brothers! The man who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother; however humble he may be; this day will elevate his status. And gentlemen in England, still lying in their beds, will think themselves accursed because they were not here, and be in awe while anyone speaks who fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
Kaput Gerat Lupinum 