Prepare yourself. Yesterday, I was all
Irish. Today, I am going Norse. Strap in…
Okay, so last week, I was wondering
about if we can ever get back to a normal life. And that entry has been
swirling around in my head as I have been contemplating what “normal” really
is.
Will this scourge be eradicated in our
lifetime or will there be “Growing Up Zombie” reality shows? Will our kids be
trained to eradicate zombies and just accept it as part of their new lifestyle?
Or will the scourge be eradicated and will grandparents tell “back in my day”
stories to the youngins that will become the campfire ghost stories? Will
future generations believe the horror stories of this eradicated zombie menace
or will these stories become ramblings? “Oh, Granddad is going on again about
‘back in my day, we had to brainpan the undead to get our supper!’”
I guess that is all part of the
unknown future.
So here is where the Viking stuff
comes in. I will admit that back in the day, I found mythology fascinating. The
Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians… all their stuff was pretty cool. When you
look at Christian faith, we get Heaven. We get to hang out with God and all our
loved ones. Heaven is a paradise. It is Paradise. It is easy to see how people
join and cling to that idea. If I am good, I get my reward in the afterlife.
Not all cultures believed this.
In the Viking faith, if you died in
battle, you got to go to this great shield hall where you drank beer and
partied with the gods. It was paradise… for a while. But those that were
assembled there were warriors. And you were there for a purpose. See, the
Vikings believed in Ragnarok, the destruction of all things. There was going to
come a time where the demons broke out of their prison and came to kill Odin,
Thor, and all the warriors that were celebrating in the great shield hall. And
here is where their afterlife was different. They lose. Not only do they lose,
they know they are going to be defeated. But it didn’t matter. It was not
victory that they were after. They just wanted to fight the good fight.
Stop and think about that mentality
and what it would mean to live that kind of life. It doesn’t matter if you
fail. It matters that you were willing to look at these impossible odds and
pick up a sword anyway. Maybe we all need to adopt this attitude.
I am not saying that we start
worshipping Odin. (Tough sell with this crowd anyway.) Maybe that is what it
takes to be a hero in the Zombie Apocalypse. Maybe you just have to have the
courage to pick up your hammer and stand against that rampaging horde that is
slowly shuffling toward you.
I guess the counter to that would be
that quote about useless dead soldiers. Didn’t Gen. Douglas McArthur have a
quote about that? Something about it is honorable to die for your country but
it is better to live for it?
Maybe that is what we are all doing
here. Fighting the good fight. Maybe survival is our revenge…
