ANST - What is a Peer?

[Carl Chipman]

Okay, here it is from me.
Quit worrying about awards.  :-)

Work towards them, enjoy them, have fun with them.  Do not worry about 
them.  My job, my car, my housepayment, even my significant other cause me 
enough stress without worrying about awards.

What will it mean to my mom if I get elevated to Knighthood?  What will it 
mean instead if I call her and tell her I love her?

I love the SCA.  I aspire some day to be a knight.   Every time I start 
worrying about awards, (because yes, sometimes I loose grasp of what is 
important I do worry about it) I try to remind myself of what is really 
important.

The SCA is supposed to be fun.  I am always looking for that time when I 
get the dream.  Sometimes its a wonderful event, sometimes its a glorious 
fight, sometimes its serving feast.  But sometimes for a brief second, I 
achieve the dream, and the awards I have mean nothing, for I would enjoy 
the moment as well where I a knight or were I a person without an award.

For the record, Master Tadhg, I have an Award of Arms, and a Comet for the 
Shire of Mooneschadowe.  I am very happy and proud of these awards, for the 
member of the shire I live in, and the people whom I love and enjoy playing 
this game, gave them to me.  In truth, you could say the crown gave them to 
me, but at the root, it was the members of the shire who gave them to me. 
 That these people thought I was deserving of these awards means much more 
to me than the awards themselves.

I aspire towards many things.  In the SCA, I aspire to knighthood.  Why? 
Because the journey there will take me where I want to be as a person.  I 
want to be more chivalrous, more kind, more courageous, more loving, and 
more ferocious.  By aspiring towards knighthood, I work towards those 
things.  Knighthood gives me a name for the person I want to be.

Will I succeed in developing myself towards the goal I want? I don't know. 
 I hope so.  I hope that I can be  better person.

Even if the SCA does one day say "You are a knight", I will still not be 
the person I think I should be.  Its a path, a journey.  The path and the 
journey are the important thing.  The goal is there so I know the 
direction.

You said :
"that there doesn't breathe a single person in the SCA who can successfully 
'quit worrying about awards' "

And I say:
And if you mean "100% of the time, awards never ever crossed your mind", 
you're probably right.  But having a healthy respect for the real 
importance of the awards is possible, and indeed probably a more reasonable 
thing to do.

Jean Paul de Sens,
Mooneschadowe.

Carl Chipman
Nomadics, Inc.
cchipman at nomadics.com
http://www.nomadics.com

On Friday, October 15, 1999 4:21 PM, Dr Tiomoid M. of Angle 
[SMTP:tiomoid at yahoo.com] wrote:
> --- "Weiszbrod, Barbara A (Barbara)" <baw2 at lucent.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Quit worrying about awards...
> > >
> > > Advice you'll hear only from people who already have tons of
> > > awards. The gullible are their natural prey.
>
> > Although most of what Master Tidhg has said is harsh truth, I have to
> > disagree on this statement.
>
> Says the Court Baroness. You're just proving my point.
>
> > Until this year I have been one of the least
> > awarded-long-time-members in this area.  After thirteen years of
> > playing, eleven of them here, I had two Thistles and a Sable Comet.
> > Both are AOA level awards.
>
> And I don't recall ever having heard you push this particular argument
> prior to last Coronation. I'd feel more persuaded if I could.
>
> > I don't think that you can label me as
> > "people who already have tons of awards", yet I have fought for the
> > ideal of not worrying about the awards.
>
> I'll be happy to amend my statement to "people who have already
> achieved high rank" in place of "people who already have tons of
> awards", if it makes you feel any better. It doesn't affect my
> underlying point.
>
> > I truly believe that
> > once you start worrying about the award you are not only forgetting
> > why you started to play, but leading yourself into a bitterness that
> > NO award will ever remove.
>
> You got THAT right. If Vashti had received the Laurel that she so
> richly deserved before she died, I'd still be bitter. Hell, if they
> made me Emperor of the Known World tomorrow morning, I'd still be
> bitter. And there's nothing you could say that would alleviate that.
>
> But *I* truly believe that there doesn't breathe a single person in the
> SCA who can successfully "quit worrying about awards", popular
> mythology to the contrary notwithstanding -- and peers can be among the
> worst award-grubbers around -- so this constant din to do so is a waste
> of time, and merely engenders cynicism in the hearts of those who hear
> the mythology and see the reality.
>
>
> Tadhg
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