Think Valentines Day is for sappy romantics? For lovers, not for fighters? Think it is just a fake commercial holiday made up by Hallmark and Russell Stover? Think again. There are a few stories from history about good people named Valentine. No one’s sure which one the heartfelt holiday is based on, but here’s part of the story from the History Channel’s 2018 daily calendar. This strikes very close to the raw nerve of The Spirit Wielder.
Can you imagine the leader of your country ordering a halt to all weddings? To all family creation? Who knows? Maybe Claudius even prohibited battle-worthy people from caring for their parents or other elderly relatives. Prohibited in order to force people to focus on fighting for an unpopular ideal. Sounds like the way some pitbulls are trained to fight. I don’t know – people are malleable, and can be convinced to live under all sorts of ideologies and philosophies. But I can’t imagine being forced to ignore your family, your children, your spouse. To forget the possibility of ever having a mate, a partner, a lover with whom you can share life’s simple pleasures, or get a hug from when you’ve had a bad day. What a horrible existence that would be. Talk about low morale.
Many things have definitely changed since the days of the Roman Empire. Today, leaders (of the free world anyway) can’t simply order executions of those with dissenting opinions. There are human rights, freedom of speech, due process, and rules against cruel and unusual punishment. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for pretty much everyone. Emperor Claudius II would find today’s world completely different. With rampant disdain for his subjects’ lives (much less their basic human rights) he wouldn’t last one day in today’s world.
That being said, while the human race has appropriately lifted its moral decency from those old dark ages, the first two decades of this new third millennium of recorded history have included a couple significant tests of human morality. Sadly, nearly all world powers of historic fame were built and maintained using forced/slave labor. I am lucky to have no experience being an actual slave. But I have an imagination. I’ve seen lots of movies that depict slavery. I can picture what it would feel like. Misery. Blood-curdling anger. Despair. I certainly know what it feels like to work very hard. And I’ve been mistreated and deceived before. But its true that I’ve never been forced to work very hard for long days and not be compensated in some significant way for it.
After the Great Recession of 2008 and 2009, you almost don’t need an imagination to envision turning your back on loved ones and losing sight of things that truly matter. That was going on in many places. The pressure and competition heaped into the financial services sector often creates an environment where completing tasks for banks and their rich clients are the most important thing – more important than caring for sick loved ones; attending children’s baseball games; and even more important than making wise financial decisions ironically. Get the deals done at all cost. If you know someone else is making a mistake in the process, don’t tell anybody … just get the deal done and reap the rewards! Pretty sickening.
For those in significant debt, jobs can feel like the most important thing. What do you do if you owe a lot of debt, and you have an important but time-consuming work project to complete for your employer; but your spouse, child, mother or father gets really sick? Are you willing to let your boss down so that you can take care of your loved one? Are you willing to risk losing your paycheck? Someone else will gladly fill your role at your company. These are tough situations that we usually only barely survive. No one handles these situations gracefully. It’s usually a matter of splitting your full attention and your full effort among your job and your loved ones. Neither your job nor your loved ones get the full attention that you may feel you’re signed up for, but hopefully they get their basic needs met. I guess we should be thankful that caring for your loved ones isn’t outlawed all together, as it was in Rome 1750 years ago.
Let’s bring this full circle. In my life, I’ve boiled my goals down to two things: healthiness and happiness. I want to optimize both of these in my life. And relationships are a big part of that, maybe the biggest. A job, an occupation, a means of financing my life is also a big part of the equation. But while the corporate world values standardized machine-like precision in almost every aspect, we are humans. We are all humans, with hearts, with flaws, with emotions, with loved ones. And our time on earth is limited. So appreciate your loved ones, passionately. Happy Valentines Day.