One of my very favorite lines in all of literature comes from the epic poem Beowulf. I’ll spare you the Old English.

“Weird oft saves the man undoomed, if his courage is of use.”

Beowulf

I consider these words to be the key to a successful and happy life.  First the hardest concept for a modern audience is the term “Weird.”  We really don’t have a similar belief.  Probably the closest term we have is “fate” but that is not correct.  Fate is too rigid, which flies in the face of the rest of the quote.  Luck, may be a closer term but again is not accurate.  I feel the best definition for “weird” is: “The Luck that a man makes for himself.”  So if a ball comes loose at the 50 yard line, and three defenders are in the area and one lone decoy receiver, and the receiver runs as hard as he can for the ball and it seemingly bounces into his hands as he falls on it - that is not mere luck that is “weird.”

So know look at the quote again.  Weird can save you, but only if you are undoomed.  The Vikings and several other Germanic cultures did believe in fate.  If you were slated to die, then there was nothing you could do to save yourself.  Like all fate-based cultural themes there are measures of hypocrisy.  Still there is something of a comfort in knowing that the workings of the world are largely out of your hands.  Bad things happen to good people, they also happen to bad people.  The only thing that truly matters is how you react to them.  Do you react with courage and offer “weird” a chance to help you help yourself?  Or do you react like a coward, a whiner, a bitch?

That’s what I like about it.  At the end of the day the most important thing is your own self-respect.  In a very real way, people have almost no control over the challenges they will face.  Car accidents, cancer, the death of an infant, and other tragedies befall us seemingly at random and we may feel powerless and helpless.  Yet, no matter what happens, good or bad, you will always have the power to respond in the way you choose.  Small comfort?  Perhaps, but it is enough.  It is all you have, but it is enough.  If you carry yourself as a respectable man, then regardless of what happens you will earn respect, your own respect.  If you act like a cowardly feeb, even if you are the most successful person, you will never be truly respected by the only person who matters.  This is the courage that is of use, not the empty boasts of beer-muscles.

Viking culture is interesting for a lot of reasons, but what I find the most fascinating is their view of old age.  Especially in how it differs from other cultures.

First off - in many cultures the faiths that we know of apply only to the upper ranks of society.  No one with enough education to write ever gave a crap about the thralls, peasants,  the people with mud on them.  To the warrior, if you die of old age you go to Hel - it doesn’t matter if you were the awesomest warrior when you were younger or not, dying of old age is considered a coward’s death.

I always thought this was rather silly.  Until I met two guys at a fly shop.

Whenever I see “experienced” gentlemen having a discussion at a shop I always will position myself close enough to listen, but far enough not to interrupt.  As is so often the case, the conversation stopped the second the new guy was noticed.  After introductions and establishing that I at least knew the vocabulary of a fly fisherman, the conversation turned to predictions of the upcoming season, spots, and flies.   Didn’t take long to notice that George - the older of the two gentlemen, was talking about the past in terms of last season, where Mike was talking about the distant past perhaps even before I was born.

I asked Mike if he didn’t fish stripers anymore because the fishery was so much worse than the good ole days.

He answered by citing a series of aches and ailments.  Walking on sand was too hard, his shoulder hurt casting heavy rods, typical stuff that affects even much younger anglers, and I nodded in honest compassion.

George responded slightly differently.

“Stop bitching about not being dead.”

Like Mike, George also had sore knees and a bad shoulder, and these problems had slowed him down.  But they didn’t stop him.  George gets up every morning to walk his dog, then during the season he’ll walk the beach.  If the stripers are busting he’ll cast to them, if they aren’t he wont.  He’ll wade the perimeter of a trout pond, upset that he has to get out more often to pee than in years passed.

Mike shook his head at this uttering a familiar exasperation.  “And what happens if you get stuck or have a heart attack?”

George laughed.

I understood.

Dying of old age isn’t cowardly, the Vikings knew that.  However, stopping what you enjoy, changing your way of life because of a simple and natural hardship kind of is.  The pains of old age are the tuition for experience.  For George walking in soft sand has gotten harder.  It takes him twice as long to go half as far.   He is not an idiot nor does he have a death wish, some areas he avoids altogether.  Marshes with muddy bottoms, areas with powerful currents, he has had to accept some limitations, but he didn’t quit.   Old age and physical limitations have slowed him, but not stopped him.  Also, he knows the beaches better and finds fish.  Instead of missing what he has not, he uses what he has got, a rich store of experience.

The Vikings and I may have come to the same conclusion.  That in order to die of old age, you must first NOT die of something else.  The fear of dying has to overcome the joy of living. 

The thought of George dying I find rather sad, so I’ll just look at myself.  I love to kayak in the ocean.  I launch my 80 pound rig and paddle for miles, sometimes I hug the coast sometimes I’m well off-shore.  I know that a day will come when I will be physically unable to do what I now enjoy, and it is my sincere hope when that moment of realization comes I am in my saddle.  That thought scares me far less than the thought of living and never yakkin’ again.

A morbid thought?  Maybe? but only from certain angles.  I rather feel it is extremely empowering.  Everyone dies.  We have no say in that matter, but we do have some input into the how and the why of it.  I may die of skin cancer, but only if I spend a lot of time in the sun at the beach…that hardly seems like a sad thought.  If I quit kayaking, then I will not have to fear a heart attack miles from shore, but I will have to fear becomming a wuss.  Only one of those really bothers me.

Kind of an odd post…but I do have my reasons.  Up next, I’d like to share some of the exercises I used to recover from my injuries.  In many ways, I feel it is the ultimate angler workout.  Can’t honestly say that it will change your life or make you any more popular with the ladies, but I think that these exercises will make it easier to get out and enjoy a good day on the water now and later.