[Tyr Zalo Hawk]: 712.Essays.I'm a Warrior, Not A Fighter

It’s well known fact that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and that Wal-Mart has super low prices in comparison to most of the other soul-sucking superstores that people like to purchase goods at. However, no matter what the fact of the matter may be, it’s a person’s beliefs, their value system, that determines what is trash, what is treasure, and what goods they’re going to buy from their local Wal-Mart. You can talk about personality tests, career-placement exams, and talking to people for hours for, well, hours, but if you really want to get to know someone, their value system is what you’ll need. For me, having and keeping my values strong are two of the most important things to me. Dedication to my values, no matter what that means, is the core of my life because it doesn’t matter what values I say I have, if I don’t mean it to the end, they’re just not as important as I’d like to think. Now that you know that, feel free to read on.
While not on the list, necessarily, there is a certain sets of principles, a code that I try my best to live by which embodies most of what I believe in that I believe deserves mentioning. The code is the way of the Samurai: Bushido. Bushido has seven aspects that break down into Rectitude (Gi), Respect (Rei), Courage (Yu), Honor (Meiyo), Benevolence (Jin), Honesty (Makoto), and Loyalty (Chuu). While there are many other pieces to the puzzle that is Bushido, these seven principles are the ones I try my hardest to live by. They’re all things I value highly, and would defend until the very end of my days. This system of living is what I one day hope to live by fully, and completely. Until that day when I do, my other values take a somewhat unfortunate precedence.
I’m an individual, first and foremost. No, this doesn’t make me an anti-conformist who insists on being different from everyone by looking at what’s popular and avoiding it like the plague. What it does mean is that I like the music, foods, shows, people, etc that I like no matter what other people think of them. It means I do and say the things I believe are right, no matter what society considers about right and wrong. In fact, being an individual, to me, means being me in every way, shape, and form that I possibly can be. I’ve been criticized for everything from my music taste to how I speak in public, my hair ‘style’ to what I do in my spare time, but I’m not going to bend or break for anyone. If it means I can’t get the job I want, or even that I end up alone, so be it. I’d rather be hated for who I am than loved for who and what I’m not. Everyone else can be a clone, or can put on their masks to fool the world, I’m always going to be me, end of story.
Second on my top ten (since I figure I was going down the list already) is abstinence from drugs and alcohol. Quite frankly, I’d rather take a bullet than start turning myself into a mindless shell of a person. I want to be free to be me, not to become a second priority to an insatiable addiction that I’d have to base my life around. Then again, that’s just the extreme version. I don’t like drugs and alcohol for the same reason that most people do like them: they’re intoxicating. All of them ‘take away the pain,’ they distract you from reality, they numb the world. Life isn’t the same on drugs, you don’t have to think straight so your worries slip away, at least until you sober up. I’d rather deal with my life than escape from it using a substance that kills brain cells and impairs my judgment. So, extreme as it may seem to you, I’d take a bullet to any part of the body before I took a hit or a sip of a substance that alters all that I am in order to help me forget who I am. Excuses are what people have so that they can indulge in these things that only really hurt them, and excuses are exactly what I can’t stand about it all. There’s a whole lot more to it, but I’d rather just move on.
Friends have always been important to me. To me, friends are like family, except that you really do get to choose your friends, most of the time. Because of the importance that these people have to me, I can’t help but want to help them. Part of me is just driven to help them, because I know that they’re good people, and that they won’t waste the help I give. It doesn’t matter what kind of assistance they need – money, tutoring, a shoulder to cry on, or even just a silent wall to vent at – because I’m their friend, that’s what friends do, or at least that’s what I believe in. I’d like to think other people do the same, but part of me really knows better than to have hopes like that for anything more than 10% of the population of the world.
The rest of the list, while it is vitally important to me, somehow didn’t make the top three. Chastity, honesty, giving respect, even falling in love… all of it seems to pale in comparison to those three things. Ok, so maybe not ‘pale,’ falling in love just barely got knocked into fourth after all, but everything else still did seem to fall behind those top three. Yes, I believe in being chaste until married so strongly I’ve actually lectured ex-girlfriends about it while we were dating (maybe not such a good idea, but, I’m me). Yes, I want to fall in love so badly that I’d probably give my right leg just to find the girl I’ve been searching for all of my life. And, yes, I don’t lie, no matter what that means in the end, just like I’m honest about who I am. Family will either always be there for me, or end up leaving me for one reason or another, just like some of the friends I’ll make over my life; they’re important, but I’m me before I’m one of them. No matter the value, no matter how important it is to me, without those few core values mentioned earlier, I just wouldn’t feel like me at all. And not being myself, as mentioned earlier, just isn’t something I’m prepared to do.
So, there you have it. From being myself to falling in love, and from keeping clean all the way to the “Way of the Warrior,” Bushido, my values are all that I am. You can go ahead and label me with whatever you want, try to pin me down with whatever words would make you more comfortable to be around me. Just know that this isn’t the most comprehensive analysis of my values, nor is it even the fullest list of them. You’ll have to work a lot harder than reading an essay to be allowed access to my treasures, even if they are just trash to you.

© Tyr Hawkaluk (2004-Present)