Honor & Helplessness

Helplessness is the state of being deprived of strength or power; powerlessness or incapacitation; unable to help oneself; feeling weak or dependent. Honor is harder to define. It includes: honesty, fairness, integrity, distinction, respect, worth, merit, and esteem. It can come from within or without, and be defined as a standing in society. In his book Honor For Us: A Philosophical Analysis, Interpretation and Defense, William Lad Sessions identifies six different concepts of honor:

• Conferred honor (reputation)
• Recognition honor (recognized excellence)
• Positional honor (societal hierarchy)
• Commitment honor (ideals)
• Trust honor (one’s word)
• Personal honor

Often honor is equated with fighting and battle. Romantically, honor lies in the realm of knights and princesses, or in glove slaps and duels. I found this interesting passage in “The Neurologist’s Introduction” to The Mind at Mischief by William S. Sadler:

“To live is to fight. It is a fight to understand and manage and live harmoniously with other persons, other things, and ourselves. We are being driven on by certain impulsive urges. Obstacles to the fulfillment of our desires are constantly arising in our path, both within and without ourselves. We must learn how to play the game of life with efficiency and poise. Alas, much too frequently and too easily, for one reason or another, we are in danger of losing, or actually are losing our poise and equilibrium. When we have temporarily lost our poise—due to the blocking of our needs or wishes—with resulting mental conflict, emotional struggle, stress, strain, and tension, we battle for recovery of poise and inner harmony. In our ignorance, weakness, blindness, helplessness, or misfortune, driven on by urgent wishes, anxieties, and fears, panic-stricken, like a drowning man grasping for a straw, we seize upon harmful, false, or foolish ways out of our difficulties—methods that cause us to flee from reality and that do not really help us to solve our life’s problems and meet them intelligently, squarely, and manfully. It is at such times that we are especially suggestible. It is then that we look for, in fact crave, help, guidance, and direction. Not infrequently at such times the blind are led by the blind, or, still worse, by the charlatan and quack.”

Meyer Solomon, M. D.

In other words life is a battle between the honorable and the charlatans, and if we feel helpless, we become susceptible to those charlatans.

Today’s Images

To find the helplessness in honor and the honor in helplessness, I put a metal plant stand in the mirrorworld with a vase full of cut flowers on top. The bars of the plant stand represent the helplessness of being caged. People use cut flowers to honor each other, yet the flowers are helplessly facing death. I photographed up from the floor representing looking up to, or honoring someone, and I used one of my new pyramid shaped filters because pyramids were built to honor the pharaohs.

The Prompts

NaPoWriMo

Today’s prompt is to write a shanty. For inspiration I read ” A Deep Dive Into Sea Shanties” from Library of Congress Blogs.

Poem A Day

Today’s prompt is a title prompt “How (blank)”

The Poem

How the Poem Be Writ Upon an Angry Sea

Find ye words in the morning poet, and write, ye poet, high-o!
Tame ye words into meaning poet, and write, ye poet, hi-ho!

Do not drift along like a helpless vessel
tossed to and fro by every sensation

Find ye words in the morning poet, and write, ye poet, high-o!
Tame ye words into meaning poet, and write, ye poet, hi-ho!

With every wind blowing mental distress
aversion to pain tears passion from the breast

Find ye words in the morning, and write, ye poet, high-o!
Tame ye words into meaning, and write, ye poet, hi-ho!

But come to the desk and wrangle those fears
Mark up the page with ink-smears from those tears

Find ye words in the morning poet, and write, ye poet, high-o!
Tame ye words into meaning poet, and write, ye poet, hi-ho!

Master of  moods dictate positive commands
Direct physical sensations into your hands

Find ye words in the morning poet, and write, ye poet, high-o!
Tame ye words into meaning poet, and write, ye poet, hi-ho!