Honor

Honor. Honor is what has made great men the subject of tales since the dawn of human existence. It is the foundation of human society, the invisible, intangible bond that ties each one of us to the other. Some people call it love, some compassion, but I, full of piss and wind, prefer honor.
To paraphrase from Pirsig, honor is that fleeting notion, at the very point at which one makes a decision, indeed at every conscious point in life. The decision to act honorably is akin to the very iron atoms on the tip of an arrow that split the air in their passage; at point along their passage, they fulfil the exact purpose, without question, for which they were created. Similarly, the shaft and ferrous metal leading up to the atoms at the very tip represent the experiences and underlying person who you are, or think you are, while the very tip represents the fulcrum point that is every moment of life, every decision made.
Decisions are tricky to lock down. Is it my decision to breathe? Physiologically, my unconscious nervous system is programmed to breathe for me, and only through training can I learn to control it, to channel my breathing for energy or to negate stresses exerted on the body. My decision to have a few drinks tonight to ring in this twenty eighth year of my life is a decision I make consciously. It will hopefully not adversely affect those around me, and will ring in this semi-momentous occasion with a dampened bang of sorts, a loosening of the thoughts, the tongue and the cocker spaniel ( ;) to any ladies who may be reading, besides my sister). But my decision, each and every day up until a few months ago, NOT to write, not to be creative or express my emotions, NOT to become an active smith of lies (all tales and propositions are lies from one point of view), at least not on paper, now seems utterly absurd. Absurd in the sense that this release allows me to speak my mind, even if few people hear it, allows me to bury some hatchets, get the poison from the day out before it sets in.
I believe that far fewer poisons have been allowed to encroach on my person since I made the effort to seek the positive point of view, since I listened to myself giving commentary during a conversation, maintaining self awareness and actually thinking “How does this sound to other people.” I was very surprised to hear myself buddying up to people a lot, taking their point of view more often than offering my honest opinion or offering a rebuttal to their statement. Fluffing people like this certainly maintains a status quo of sorts, makes a lot of people like you because you take their side, but I would argue that it is not the honorable thing to do.

In my humble opinion, it is honorable to contradict, or voice an opposing view, at any point in time, regardless of the other members of a conversation, if you are convinced you are in the right. This is arguably one of the most difficult and tricky things to do, as it is very tempting to mistake other impulses, such a vanity or greed, for honor. Honor is all powerful, a person’s most treasured known trait, that neither torture nor hardship nor even death can take away.
It pervades our daily existence, from using turn signals to escorting spiders out of a crowded room, from sticking to your guns when three a-holes mistake your Soviet-era-style shirt for something racist, all the way to telling the one person outside of your family you love the most out of any of the dozens that have come before her that based on her decision to call off your relationship, and due to extraneous circumstances you cannot accept her back nor promise to wait.
Honor is nearly impossible to explain, as it is a quality someone possesses, not an item or title. It is so fragile that to grab after it is to lose it, but the grows out of a succession of seemingly minor choices made from an honorable frame of mind. Honor is quality. For more on Pirsig, click here. To the drinking posts. X