Ripe Ideals & The Individualist
Episode 06:12:2023 - Prompt: Loyalty
Where Loyalty took me…
Nixon was President when I was born.
I don’t remember him from that time, but I know what he stands for in the history of the United States: a breakdown in the public trust.
Why do I look back to 1974 to contemplate loyalty?
Because I’m not sure loyalty was something I understood until very recently. I’m not sure it was part of my influences growing up.
I was suspicious of loyalty.
It seemed patriarchal, fraternal, militaristic, religious, cultish… everything I’m against, including the soaring tide of group think and blind allegiance.
But what does it really mean to be loyal?
In The Philosophy of Loyalty (1908) by Josiah Royce, the author characterized the US as “a country so ripe… for idealism, and so confused, nevertheless, by the vastness and the complication of its social and political problems.”
That was 1908!
It holds true today. Perhaps that is America’s identity.
I see examples of loyalty everywhere - basic trust - and the shared belief that we are all in this together - but cracks in the architecture are becoming the design.
Which brings me to my first adult lesson in loyalty.
This story has nothing to do with Richard Nixon.
It has to do with a young woman, me, who had never been faithful in an intimate relationship.
Where did I learn this?
I’m sure in cultural influences - movies, books, TV, music, comic books - and also being the child of divorce.
Divorce, no matter how necessary, is a division into teams.
Even with measures in place, the child can’t help but take sides.
I was an only child, so I was always torn.
I felt loyalty to both parents and to neither… for power? Sanity? Preservation?
I took an “individualistic” mindset forward into my tween, teen, twenties, and yes… all the way up to my thirties.
It was my way of maintaining control.
Royce says the individualist is the downfall of society. The “every person for themself” slogan of rugged exceptionalism carries a tariff.
The bill comes due.
At 35, I met my ex-partner who was 12 years older. He had experience in long-term relationships and had a brother and sister with whom he was very close.
Some time in the first few years of being together, we were at a bar on Spring Street for happy hour.
I wasn’t a lush, but I could drink.
My partner and I were sitting at a table having some beers. Next to us was a group of guys - probably in their late-twenties - having a loud, good time.
And because I was into partying more than being in a relationship, I started talking to them.
Yucking it up.
I remember an individualistic world view taking control of my actions, and I barely acknowledged my partner sitting at the table.
Like he was a stranger.
Maybe it was getting charged, not in a fist-fight sort of way, but now that I understand loyalty for myself I can imagine the scene.
They were looking at him like he was being played.
Why did I betray him? Why would I be so disloyal?
In many dramatic narratives, a test of loyalty is how & when the action begins.
It’s when things get interesting.
It’s also how wars foment.
I just marked my 17-year anniversary with my life partner, the one who I know I’ll spend the rest of my days with, the one who I’ve never and would never betray.
Loyalty to peace, stability, and respect.
This is the healthiest loyalty I know, even with its dashes of drama.
YOUR TURN: I found LOYALTY to be a complex theme.
Sadly, today is a death day for two loved ones, and I thought about how loyalty killed them. I also thought about brand loyalty and the unification of East and West Berlin (it came down to laundry soap).
Where does LOYALTY take you? There is no wrong answer if it’s true.
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Hmm. Loyalty. Well I think it depends.
I believe I'm a very loyal person. If someone trusts me with a secret my lips remained sealed. But at times that secret gets let out to the person I was holding it for and then does the other feel I wasn't loyal to them.
After my husband passed and when I first started dating again I wondered if I was going to be perceived as being disloyal. After all I was still young and wanted another chance at love. Did I feel disloyal. I think initially. But I also I know he would have wanted me to continue to live life.
I was loyal to my employer for 30 years and then one day, I as I was told, my performance as far as they were concerned wasnt good enough and they fired me.
Yes it depends. Maybe I believe loyalty has to be earned now. Maybe I'm more cynical than I used to be when it comes to loyalty.
To me Loyalty is something I bestow not because it is demanded of me - because wrapped up in it is Trust and Forbearance and I have discovered that forbearance plays a vital role.
The thirteen years I spent with my first husband, a prolific and dedicated artist, were transformative for me. However sometime during the final year of his life, I realized that my trust and forbearance had been wavering because of miniscule, incremental actions of his over time. I began to reflect on the positive and negative implications and concluded that I should leave my marriage.
Just as I had mustered up the courage to do this my husband became seriously ill, needed hospitalization and, to survive, a strict regimen to follow. I chose loyalty to him over my personal desire, there was time for my needs to be met.
Well, he chose to ignore his regimen and within 3 months suffered a massive heart attack. On his last day as I was drawing in another room, he put his head in and said “everything will be alright “as he continued down the hall and collapsed. And everything has been alright. Over the past 53 years I have been the loyal steward of his life’s work and continue to be so and have been duly rewarded as his legacy prevails.