Asatru Folk Assembly - Speak Out of Love (from VNS Episode 9)

00:00:00.000 When we step into the world, do you have any recommendations on how to approach

00:00:10.840 social or political issues that we face? Trent, go ahead and take this first.

00:00:19.860 That kind of goes back to what we said earlier about courage. You just need to kind of have

00:00:24.220 courage. There's a, I would say the biggest reason that so many of our societies like social

00:00:30.440 and political issues have come about is because people have been afraid to speak up. That's a

00:00:35.560 thing with our people, especially where we've always been so altruistic, I think. And lately

00:00:41.140 it's gotten to the point of, you know, we don't want to hurt feelings or whatever, but you can

00:00:47.960 be assertive on your social and political views without you know being a douchebag it

00:00:55.560 you know you can just calmly say no to whatever it is or calmly say i'm not changing my stance

00:01:04.260 on whatever it is and at the end of the day i mean yeah some people are going to get upset and

00:01:09.500 go cry on twitter or whatever it is people like that do but for the most part i think you'll find

00:01:16.020 people will respect you for it even if they're like okay well i want nothing to do with you

00:01:20.180 they'll they'll just move on that's the biggest thing with a lot of this stuff is just having some

00:01:26.100 courage to be and you know what to quote the odin's hawk motto uh just do right and fear no one

00:01:36.260 so uh all of that but i think the other thing is

00:01:40.900 is, and Trent said this, but just to elaborate on it a little bit.

00:01:50.980 Don't be naive. Be courageous and stand up and say what you mean and mean what you say.

00:01:59.460 But there's a big difference in that. There's this phenomenon amongst our people is when they

00:02:06.080 go on the internet and they create a fake name and use a fake picture, they say the most outlandish,

00:02:11.960 ridiculous things in the most in-your-face possible way because it feels so good to finally be able to

00:02:20.240 say the things that you've been afraid to say. And so they spew it out in the most repulsive way they

00:02:26.340 can think of because it's been repressed for so long. What I would say is speak nobly. Realize

00:02:33.900 that what you say and how you say it is going to be seen by everyone, not just your friends,

00:02:39.280 but your enemies, your employers, your family. So own it. Believe what you believe, but say it in a

00:02:46.460 way that's honest and that reflects your real feelings. Most of us aren't bad people. We're

00:02:54.300 good people who have good values and good things to say. Keep that in mind when you're speaking.

00:02:59.220 it's really easy to become embittered and frustrated by all of the things we don't like

00:03:05.780 and rightly so there's so many things in this world that are so far askew from how they should

00:03:10.720 be it's easy to get mad don't speak out of anger speak out of love speak about the things you love

00:03:19.420 the things you value the things you want for you and for your family I think that we do much better

00:03:26.160 speaking politically or about anything to people when we talk about what we love rather than all

00:03:32.560 the things that we don't like or all the ways things are messed up think about what we do want

00:03:37.120 to see and the world we do want for our children talking positively about what we're trying to

00:03:42.960 build and who we want to become those those are beautiful things and i think we need to speak

00:03:49.200 those courageously and thoughtfully.

Asatru Folk Assembly - September 28, 2023