[MR] [Fwd: [STEPS] Warts and all...]

Wed Feb 6 09:45:58 PST 2002

Forwarded with permission...

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [STEPS] Warts and all...
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 09:35:49 -0800
From: "Tammie Dupuis" <tamm at portentinteractive.com>
Reply-To: <tamm at portentinteractive.com>
To: "'Steps'" <steps at antir.sca.org>

Greetings,

What follows might be termed as a pedantic rant... read at your own risk.

During the painting of his portrait of state, Oliver Cromwell made the
following request of the painter,

"I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me,
and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts
and all; otherwise I never will pay a farthing for it."

As human beings in an uncertain world, we all desire honest description.
There is in us a wish for realism... unfortunately, when we do see the
'real' picture, we then recoil from it.

And this is also a very human thing. We (especially those of us in the SCA)
tend to want to see 'heros' and want to have people that we can respect (or
even put on a pedestal). We tend to want to portray those people as
'bigger-than-life' or 'above reproach'. There was a famous knight of
Charlemagne who's tag was 'sans peer et sans reproache' - without peer and
above reproach. The 'biographers' who wrote this about the man had probably
never really knew him and may have never even met him...

The two hard things about wanting heros and wanting people who are above
reproach is that a)if we can find them, at some point they will fail to
measure up and b)most of the time they do not exist. Additionally, such
people that we make into paragons often leave us with a hidden feeling of
inadequacy and hopelessnes that we ourselves will ever measure up to those
'shining examples'.

What's the point of all this trite observation?

Only this...

The SCA is filled with human beings. We are all motivated by a wish to
create for ourselves a comfortable place - most of the time this does not
involve maliciousness, only a wee bit o' selfishness. We all long for the
fairy tales about Knights and deeds of valour to be re-enacted and to,
perhaps, help re-enact them... to live them if even for a short period of
time.

For the new people on this list, as you have seen in recent days... there is
quite a bit of passion that most put into this 'game'. Not everyone is going
to agree with everyone else. My best advice is this; don't let these
squabbles and snarks interfere with how YOU play the 'game'. That is YOUR
choice... don't allow it to be taken away from you... don't get bogged down
in the muck that seems to be fairly prevalent right now.

For all that the SCA is capable of re-enacting some of the dirtiest politics
that might have ever been seen in the middle ages, it is also capable (more
than capable) of re-enacting some of the most glorious heights ever attained
in that era.

For those of us who have been here quite a while... it might do us well to
remember the above advice. It might also do us well to remember that it is
not so important to actually attain a level of perfection as it is to
continually, and without pause, strive for it. And to not get bogged down in
the muck...

I attended my first event seventeen years ago this month. My first thought,
upon entering the event site, was,

"Wow... what a bunch of freaks".

I remember the first time my rose colored glasses were unceremoniously
ripped away from my eyes. It was an Estrella War and the great shining
paragon of virtue that I had looked up to for two years had a huge,loud,
childish temper tantrum on the war field. It might not have been so bad had
he not been King at the time... but, somehow, the fact that he proved
himself very human with that tantrum made me admire him a bit more.

And so, seveteen years later... I'm still here. I've seen horrible things
and I've seen glorious things. And I still say,

"Wow... what a bunch of freaks". Except now, I class myself as one of them.
Just another freak, striving for freakish perfection.

This mushy interlude brought to you by,

Laurellen de Brandevin

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