Chivalry is Fucking Dead

ORIGINALLY POSTED:   Monday, June 30, 2008
   

Yeah, you heard me. Ms. Believe in the Goodness of Humanity Until She's Practically Suffocated by the Stench of the Rotten-ness of Society....Hating Sobriety.....Spewing Profanity.....Fucking Emotional Calamity.....Mental Sterility.....Reasoning Incapability.....Toes Curled Over the Sheer Cliff-Edge of Sanity....Or (I don't recall any longer) is it Insanity...... Goddamit Injinji.......Spiritual Catastrophe......How Many Times can one Claim Emotional Bankruptcy?.....No Comfort Even Within Adversity.....Diversity.......Creativity...... Individuality.....Or My Own Usual Perversity....Self Inflicted Brutality......I FUCKING HATE this City....America's Finest Pity....I've Forgotten the Meaning of the Word Anonymity.....Question My Own Mortality Versus Everyone Elses' Fatality... Here I am Becoming, Once Again, My Own Worst Adversary.....Pop My Schizophrenia Cherry....Bring out the Clowns Toting Contagious Deadly Anxiety.... MotherFucking Normalcy....THERE'S NO SUCH THING, YOU ASSHOLE POSER WANNABES....Drinkin Wine, Every Night, Getting Shitty.....FUCK YOU CLARITY!!!! Nothing Better to do to Entertain Me....I've Learned to Let Myself Be.....Free.....Now to Teach Myself to See....And Never Forget, JmeLee.....There's no me in we.....And no we in me.......A Dead Institution, to Marry....Sometimes These Ideas Grow Scary.....But It's Not Your Destiny....Is There Such a Thing as True Intimacy?....Reliability, Dependability, Integrity, Security, Responsibility, Accountability, Trustworthy.....Comfortability....How About Stone Cold Honesty.....Through the Smoke and Mirrors it's so Hard to See....Fuck This Paranoia Conspiracy......I'm manifesting a new theory....Search for Something More in Reality.....Stop being so Goddamn Flighty....Come Down a Few Peaks Dear Cappy.....Just TRY a Little Harder to be Happy....Let go of the Tunnel Vision Mentality.....Or You'll Lose Site of the Trophy....The Only Things I've Left to do, Consciously.....Fight When They Come to Change Me......Harness it When it Comes, the Energy......Live out My Meaning All My Life, Fulfill My Prophecy.....Embrace When It Comes, the Misery.....Weather the Storm When It Hits, However Lonely....Snuggle When It Comes, What Makes Me Happy.....Love Only When He Loves, My Destiny.....Fuck Until it Hurts, Whenever it Inspires, the Ecstasy.....Revel When I Can in the Fantasy...Strength in my Convictions When They Try to Break Me....Believe in Who I am When They Judge Me Unjustly......Maintain Passion in My Soul When They Scorn Me Spiritually....Always Remain Unjaded, Don't Succumb to the Negativity. But never, ever, ever Believe...Because It's not Fucking Reality....No One is Selfless or Wants to be......It's Dead, It really is, Chivalry.

What is chivalry? Depends on who you ask. Some say, usually guys, of course, that walking an elderly lady across the street is chivalrous. FINE! That's true I suppose, one definition of chivalry is "kindness toward women." Blah Blah Blah. In this day and age, I would love to hope that "kindness toward women," or ANYONE is just a common standard we have established in our society. Of course, that's bullshit. But I'm not in the mood to call anyone who employs common courtesy and respect, a minimal level of kindness and compassion, chivalrous. Try a little harder, although something tells me that if you don't get it already, you never will.

So, fuck the current common understanding of the definition of chivalry. Here's a little Word History for ya:

"The Age of Chivalry was also the age of the horse. Bedecked in elaborate armor and other trappings, horses were certainly well dressed, although they might have wished for lighter loads. That the horse should be featured so prominently during the Age of Chivalry is etymologically appropriate, because chivalry goes back to the Latin word caballus, "horse, especially a riding horse or packhorse." Borrowed from French, as were so many other important words having to do with medieval English culture, the English word chivalry is first recorded in works composed around the beginning of the 14th century and is found in several senses, including "a body of armored mounted warriors serving a lord" and "knighthood as a ceremonially conferred rank in the social system." Our modern sense, "the medieval system of knighthood," could not exist until the passage of several centuries had allowed the perspective for such a conceptualization, with this sense being recorded first in 1765."

Hmmmmmm....Neato. In Chinese Astrology I am a horse. And in Western Astrology I am a Capricorn.....A goat. Seems to me that in the development of this word, it traditionally had more to do with hard work than the proper behavior and good manners of folks.

"The concept of chivalry in the sense of "honourable and courteous conduct expected of a knight" was perhaps at its height in the 12th and 13th centuries and was strengthened by the Crusades, which led to the founding of the earliest orders of chivalry, the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitalers) and the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon (Templars), both originally devoted to the service of pilgrims to the Holy Land. In the 14th and 15th centuries the ideals of chivalry came to be associated increasingly with aristocratic display and public ceremony rather than service in the field."

And blah blah blah. So anyway....None of this matters. I just find it interesting, the evolution of a word and it's effect on behavior. Or lack there of...Or, to the point.....The evolution of humans and our willfulness to do something, pretty much anything only until it's good enough. Only until we achieve the desired effect, "It's good enough for now." We'll take the immediate gratification, and when that runs out, if we're not bored with it yet, we'll see if we can figure out a way to squeeze a little bit more out, and a little bit more, and a little bit more, until it's either too much of a hassle to deal with anymore, or it's just plain exhausted or broken beyond any recoverability.

This is why chivalry is dead. In romance, in business, in friendship, in life. For example. In a relationship, in the beginning, the partners do little things for each other. Little things that are simply thoughtful and pleasant. Unnecessary things, but the action is what counts, the thought is what matters, making sure they know you are concerned with their happiness, comfort, with THEM! This is chivalry.

So, after a while, the "honeymoon" phase wears off, and the comfort zone is established. And somehow, people forget. They grow complacent in their chivalrous efforts, after all, they have what they want, they've grown into the comfort zone beyond the realm of "The Little Things." Who needs the little things when all the bigger things have started coming together? "This stuff doesn't matter anymore! We're waaaaaay beyond this! We're interacting daily. That should be enough for you to be satisfied!"

I'll say this. I've been on both ends of this situation. In many different instances, both personal and professional. And each time, I NEEDED the little things. When I was the one that found myself trying to pick up the pieces, I needed the little things to remind the other party of the reasons we nurtured a relationship to begin with, to reel them back in again, hook line and sinker, right? And when I was the one drifting away, I needed the little things for the same reason. To remember why I swallowed it, hook line and sinker. And here's my insight, for the moment, on the little things.

A relationship is like a car. There's always going to be a need for servicing, and even with the most well maintained vehicle, more than likely, eventually, there will be a need for repair. If you're constantly mindful of the responsibility of owning a vehicle, chances are you're considerate of how vital proper maintenance is, and your repairs are going to be far less dramatic than if you just constantly do what's "good enough for now." But when you start neglecting that regular maintenance, bigger problems start to arise, it becomes more costly and time consuming, and harder to recover that reliability. And at that point, you probably just try to do what you can to make the car last as long as possible, but you've given up on making it right. It's too far gone.

Just like in a relationship. Do what you have to do to get by for now, tell yourself some bullshit that it's gonna get better even though you know inevitably with is coming, and forget the hard work of repairing what's really broken. As long as you get through today, and hopefully you'll get through the rest of the days until you've gotten all you want, or until you're comfortable with the change, then that's "Good enough."

Fuck that.

Chivalry IS DEAD.