The Norse Kenning is an Elegant Form of Thinking

There are only three ways to think. Two of them are false, because they derive from the original, symbolism: Saying something by saying something else. The two others are rationalism: Creating a definition, and nihilism: The dissolving of meaning. Notice how you can only define or speak of the void by the first, primal language. Even the most exact mathematical formula must use symbols, which can never be and match the reality they point to, and you have to use something to speak of nothing, the void. Therefore, I say: I don’t believe in anything, not even nothing. Nothingness cannot be reached by our frame of reference, but we find ourselves in a reality where we experience something, and we can only express this something by something else. This is the extent of human knowledge, and who says otherwise is a self-deceiver. Any attempt to seek an exact definition, or no definition, will fall short. Who would be a great philosopher, must also be a great poet, and a rationalist, shallow Logos itself, a Buddhist or a nihilist are far removed. They all depend on the remote language, and do not master the first one: Poetry. Odin, the thief of the mead of poetry, is wiser than the Logos (mere words) of Jesus, the nihilism of Buddha, or the self-deceiving rationalism of Socrates. If you look for wisdom, do not go to them. As a friend once told me: Dumber than before. You’ll understand less by listening to certain people. Personally, I listen to very few.

Plato was wrong in the overall picture, but even the worst of philosophers can be right in detail. He referred to a myth where humankind at one point might have been ettins, two entities fused into one, before being split up into genders. Regardless of the veracity of such a claim, which, strictly spoken, is true in an evolutionary sense, it is clear that our mind is an ettin, as it consists of two parts. The left side of the brain is sequential and exists within time, and deals with causality, logic, and orientation in space. This is our higher or Apollonian self, and just as the original ettins once were man and woman fused together, the left part of our brain is male. The right side of the brain exists within a single moment and its only discernment is binary. Light and shadow. Hot and cold. A pattern is understood, not through time, but inside a single moment, and so our pattern recognition, intuition and emotion are placed here. This is our reptile brain, our Dionysian self, and our female part. We are essentially two persons existing within one body. A man and a woman together. And each part has one dominant language and mode of being, either as a symbolist, a rationalist, or a nihilist.

I came to this knowledge in my relationship with two men. The first one is a friend and critic. At that point in time, I wrote historical fantasy in an exotic setting. Two leaders sat negotiating, there was a misunderstanding, and a bodyguard appeared from behind a curtain with a raised sword. I understand nothing of this, my friend told me. It is as if the text is covered in black spots. This was serious for me. Could I not write? So, I experimented by changing up the names, making the leaders into Hitler and Stalin, and in this case, the bodyguard of Hitler came storming in with a raised Luger. Ah! My friend exclaimed. Now I understand everything! I had to formulate why my friend could now understand exactly the same text, only having the names and weapon changed. And I realized why. My friend was very concerned with realistic literature, based on real events, and was particularly a fan of Knausgård, the famous Norwegian author, with the self-styled My Struggle series. If it was too exotic and not immediately relatable to real world issues, my friend’s mind simply blanked out. Knowing the man and his philosophical endeavors, I understood my friend was a rationalist, being dependent on exact definitions in one and all. All his mental activity was in search of such definitions, and everything outside of this simply did not exist, and so he was blind to my fantasy literature. Because of a certain melancholy disposition, I must now designate him as an emotional nihilist, and an intellectual rationalist. Emotionally, he latches himself to suffering, and intellectually, he demands exact answers. No wonder he befriended me.

The other illuminator was the Norwegian writer, Stig Sæterbakken, who functioned as my teacher at the art academy. One night I sat drinking, he approached my table with his friends. He made sure to secure himself the chair at the head of the table, one with a particularly tall backrest, in order to assert his dominance. This, he explained, was in reference to my writing. Fantasy literature being characterized by focusing on the external to explain a possible inner world. An authoritarian man sits on a throne, someone very sensitive or sunken deep into pathology wears as mask, and wine always taste like the lips of women or the like, wine itself being an erotic marker, signaling what’s going on. He gave me the key to this knowledge, and now I see it everywhere. Then again, an inner world is not possible. At least it cannot be communicated, except for by external means. And as any mystery religion, or say Catholicism or nazism, which are related in form point to, every layer is equally close to God. The external rituals of Nazism and catholicism, like parading around with torches, is the essence, and nothing more can be found. Certain Hindu temples display sex with animals in the sculptures on the approaches on the outside. Moving into the temple, the sculptures become more elegant and sublimated. First, normal sex, then people feasting, then statues in poses of dignity. Then, in the innermost sanctum, there is nothing. And all those parts are of the same value. As Hindu sages would say, drawing a big X on your ceiling can be more worth than any masterpiece, as long as it leads to the worship of a god. Likewise, even our deepest and most complex thoughts cannot exist without externalities. As Aristotle said, the soul never thinks without an image. But what is a soul? Here we’re talking about images thinking about images. An externality with externalities, if it wasn’t for a oneness that cannot be found. Externalities all over, then.

Since the man had been rational with me, it was easy for me to designate him an intellectual rationalist. But what about his emotional state? Stig Sæterbakken walked around with shirts from the band Death in June, displaying black and white pictures of something dull and dreary, as characteristic of most pictures without colors. In a documentary he bemoaned that he would never open exactly this bottle of wine with his friends ever again, even when they could just repeat the process and have as many wine bottles they’d like. Why should I complain about my destiny when I so easily can change it? said Sade. Sæterbakken stated that sorrow and melancholy were always deeper than mirth or comedy. Even here I disagree. Throughout his writings, and as it would show itself, his deepest values, he worshipped death in one and all, as his music tastes would indicate. He longed for death, by his own admission, and not long after, he committed suicide. I suppose he had to assert his dominance. One of my friends wrote two satires about the situation. One where Stig Sæterbakken killed himself outright by reading my stuff, and one where he mistook the nerve medicine with rat poison, also by reading my stuff. As deep as anything are insults, or more likely, play. We can confidently designate Stig Sæterbakken as an intellectual rationalist, and an emotional nihilist. I suppose I attract the type.

What about me? Well, I’m an intellectual nihilist and have been for some time, having fallen into my natural place, as they say will happen to us all sooner or later. My economic standing is similarly natural, or should we say, soon to be in a state of nature. Intellectually, I am more than a nihilist and agree with the absurdists. The universe cannot be explained in rational terms, and any attempt to do so will fail. But lo and behold, I have a measure of health, matching my bodily vitality. Emotionally, I’m a symbolist, see symbols everywhere, and attach to them great meaning, one which strictly spoken, isn’t there. With that I’ve ended up in a mirrored state between my ettin parts. My Apollonian self has accepted the viewpoint and state of my Dionysian self, the lack of meaning and absolute chaos. And my Dionysian self, the woman, has accepted the imposition of the male, the illusion of Apollon, the notion that here is some order, here is some meaning. All is as it should be. I suspect a similar mirroring effect is the case for most people. My friends who are emotional nihilists, for instance, become so because their rational self is unable to discern any meaning in the universe, unlike what they say and claim. And if they are intellectual rationalists, it is because the woman part has taken over their thinking faculties. No wonder the results are stupid.

My purposes are writing and the erotic. The most far removed from life activity, and the closest. Each quality is attached to its counterpoint, lest it should lose its balance and fall out of the universe, being spread too thin to be discerned.

At one point in my life, I was at a philosophical height. Maybe I one day will regain and surpass it. Although I’m not the man I was, let me try to recount one of my insights. When the Ancient Greeks became decadent, they had Plato, and he down valued poetry and furthered rational philosophy, not realizing you then remove the necessary counterpoint of philosophy in the first place. The metaphor is always wrong, according to Plato. Shadows are not warm, and the sun doesn’t pull its rays behind it when it sets. In rational terms, shadows must be cold, and the rays of the sun spring from it and only go in one direction. The metaphor and poetry are therefore next to worthless, being the opposite of reality, whereas rational thought is not. What can I say? When you rationalize, you certainly ration your thinking faculties.

Shadows might appear warm, you say? Isn’t pleasure and pain closely related, and likewise, our notion of warm and cold? Someone freezing to death will experience great warmth right before the terminal phase, and often start undressing. Likewise, being burned can be experienced as heavy freezing. Have you tried sticking your tongue to freezing metal? It burns. So, the metaphor is a closer discernment of our experience, and all the world around must appear as warmer, when standing in shadow. And how about the sun pulling its beam behind it, like a sun-chariot as envisioned in the bronze-age? It’s a matter of perspective, and from the widest perspective in circular time, the sun indeed acts in reverse, the moment right before the present being furthest away, and falling towards itself. This fall-motion will make the sun pull its present behind it. Plato was therefore wrong when he berated poetry. You cannot have philosophy without poetry, since you then miss both available experience and the true state of things, the counterpoint and mirroring effect of reality. Poetry likewise turns into a great mess without philosophy. Philosophy: The love of wisdom. Imagine a poet who did not love his own point of view.

Enter the Kenning, a feature of Norse poetry, the latter being named Kvad, perhaps taken from Kvasir, the wisest of all beings, and whose blood indeed created the mead of poetry. Our Norse ancestors were in many ways wiser than us, and they certainly were healthier, not having been subjected to industrialization and slave morality. The Kenning carries all the hallmarks of the metaphor and poetry, and with that, the symbolist way of thinking, being defined by saying something by saying something else, using a poetical term for things, concepts, and gods. In a literal sense, the Kenning can be translated as “acquaintance” if we use modern Norwegian, and the Kenning is only meaningful if you’re culturally acquainted by terms used. The horse of the sea would be a ship, the raven-lord is of course Odin, and Freyja’s tears would be gold. Unless you’re familiar with the material, the thought-content becomes unavailable or at least harder to attain. A poet or Skald would therefore, per the cultural rules of his society, speak a philosophically superior language. He would be able to demonstrate his knowledge and acumen in having access to the cultural references of his day, making good mastery a competition, both in the cleverness of words chosen, and in their depth. Indeed, the ideal of the age was to be both a warrior and a poet. The Kenning is the language of Odin himself, and the endpoint is the highest ideal of Norse society, the fighting man with a mastery of words. Also, Skaldic poetry would serve to maintain the knowledge of a mostly oral culture, repetition and memory-techniques being far more important than they are now. The world order itself is only presented in the form of the Kenning, the name of the world tree itself, Yggdrasil, meaning the gallows of Odin. Demonstrated knowledge, and the ability to interpret, leads to a depth we now only have a tenacious grasp of.

Where can you find examples of the Kenning? The poem of Voluspå being a powerful example, the only Norse written source equaling or even surpassing what the Ancient Greeks had to offer. Wisdom-literature is aplenty, and Håvamål doesn’t surpass its equivalents in other cultures. The greatest Skald was called Øyvind Skaldespiller, the latter meaning “spoiler of Skalds” as no others were his equal, and their poetry was indeed ruined in comparison. His surviving works are not extensive. Heimskringla from Snorre contains excerpts of many skaldic verses, concerning heroes and kings, but often in fragmented form, the full work having been lost. The Kenning was the philosophy before philosophy, being characteristic of a heroic age, just as the hexameter is how the heroic age of the Ancient Greeks finally went from oral form to the writings of what we call Homer. As a heroic age is the most vital, but not the most sophisticated, the philosophy contained within will be in a budding form, giving hints at what’s to come, if only the seed is allowed to grow. The seed contains the full tree, if only as potential. Unfortunately, the Norse were ruined by Christianity, changing the course of a culture defined by itself to the advantage of something alien. It is impossible to return to a previous state. It’s not desirable for blood sacrifice and iron-age clothes to return, and it’s meaningless to pursue the bygone. But just as the most vital forms of philosophy will come in the form of poetry from a heroic age, the most advanced philosophy, from an age higher and more vital than our own, will have returned to its poetical roots. The Kenning as philosophy is elegant in its simple approach, for it captures the state of the world in relation to our thoughts – The only relation possible. Kvasir’s blood, the wisest creature of all, is itself a Kenning for poetry. Then it’s a somewhat melancholy realization there will be less mead over time, for only those who get to drink this divine mead will be Skalds or Sages. Entropy is the tale of Norse religion, renewal its solution.

The Indo-European cultures had each their divine drink. The Ancient Greeks had Ambrosia. The Vedic people had Soma. We, the inheritors of the Norse, have the mead of poetry. Drink, and be wise