The Freedom of Losing Control

Norse Mythology: The Death of Balder

‘He dreamed of worlds ending, and of the sun and the moon being eaten by a wolf.  He dreamed of pain and death without end.  He dreamed of darkness, of being trapped.’

Odin and Frigg’s son Balder had it all: love, power and good looks.  Although, sadly, he also suffered from terrible nightmares.  Perhaps a reminder that there are much deeper forces at work in the depths of our beings that demand our attention regardless of how well we seem to be doing in the outer world. 

Balder’s dream was also very upsetting for his father and mother, who perhaps symbolically represent our core fears.  And these fears want nothing more than absolute control.  Complete protection.  They mean well. 

Balder’s contemplation of his impending death and darkness triggers his fearful mother-complex into hyper-drive.  She travels the entire world demanding protection from every living thing:

‘She walked the earth and exacted an oath from each thing that she encountered never to harm Balder the beautiful.  She spoke to fire, and it promised it would not burn him; water gave its oath never to drown him; iron would not cut him, nor would any of the other metals.  Stones promised never to bruise his skin.  Frigg spoke to trees, to beasts, and to birds and to all things that creep and fly and crawl, and each creature promised that its kind would never hurt Balder…’

And on she goes… until she received an oath from every living thing.  Well nearly!

‘Nothing was too insignificant for Frigg to ask, save only the mistletoe, a creeping plant that lives on other trees. It seemed too small, too young, too insignificant, and she passed it by.’

And as a result of the overwhelming protection Balder gained, all the other gods enjoyed throwing swords, spears and rocks at him.  Hmmmm… his incredible defence system attracted more adversity!  And ultimately, Loki, that problem-solution aspect of our psyche, exploited the weakness, and got Balder’s unsuspecting brother, Blind Hod, to throw a dart of mistletoe at Balder, thus accidently killing him.  Frigg’s attempt to protect her son, speeded up the race towards death.

I think this myth captures the counter-productive nature of trying to fight what we can’t control.  Fate.  In fighting it, we fuel it.  We speed it up. 

I was exploring the symbolism of this myth with a group of eleven-year olds.  As is often the way, one student offered a profound insight:  ‘It’s like when you’re on holiday.  As soon as you start worrying it’s going to end, it’s kind of over!’  So true. 

During this time of teaching on Balder and other myths, I was reading Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search For Meaning’; his account of struggling for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps, and his subsequent psychotherapeutic approach called ‘Logotherapy’.   His insights into human freedom, dignity and our search for meaning are incredibly powerful, transformative and hopeful.  And whilst teaching my lesson on Balder, a connection to this myth came to mind.

Frankl laid down a rule for himself whilst in Auschwitz, which proved to be a good one and which a lot of his comrades later followed:

‘I generally answered all kinds of questions truthfully.  But I was silent about anything that was not expressly asked for.  If I were asked my age, I gave it.  If asked about my profession, I said “doctor”, but did not elaborate.’

He observed that his fellow inmates’ attempts to save themselves often ended with them sealing their own fates.  On a number of occasions, Frankl had options to avoid possibly dangerous transports, be removed from potentially perilous lists, but he chose to focus on his inner life, his own dignity and search for meaning more than mere survival.  When he was offered by the chief doctor to get his name removed from a seemingly doomed list prisoners, he refused:

‘I told him that this was not my way; that I had learned to let fate take its course.  “I might as well stay with my friends,” I said.  There was a look of pity in his eyes, as if he knew… He shook my hand silently, as though it were a farewell, not for life, but from life.  Slowly I walked back to my hut.  There I found a good friends waiting for me.’

Paradoxically, Frankl believed that by not trying to fight the forces out of his control, he alluded a speedier death.  On this occasion, the list signified a transport to a better camp, and those who fought to get off the list were tragically left in an even greater hell.  Frankl references the story of ‘Death in Teheran’, which is synonymous with the myth of Balder:

‘A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants.  The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him.  He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening.  The master consented and the servant galloped on the horse.  On returning to his house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?” “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran,” said Death.’

Regardless of whether Frankl’s rule of survival actually worked in a physical sense, it seemed to have worked in a psychological way.  His book offers a powerful vision of human freedom.  Even in Auschwitz he experienced the human capacity to find beauty, love and meaning.  He challengingly asserts that humans are free to choose their outlook (even in such an unimaginable hell!):

‘Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.’

A few years ago I visited Auschwitz to improve my teaching of Holocaust education.  Leaning against one of the wooden barracks I listened to a Rabbi tell stories of how inmates affirmed their humanity in the face of such violent and industrialised dehumanisation and death.  He told stories of women who gave up their most desperately needed rations of bread to borrow a contraband comb for fifteen minutes.  This is extraordinary.  They were starving.  Literally starving.  In many ways they had ceased to be people: no home, no hair, no possessions, no positions, no relations, no name, no life.  Just a number and a famished stomach.  Survival machines at best.  But no.  Many inmates rebelled.  They resisted.  They declared themselves free.  They lived and died with such an intense dignity in spite of such brutal fear and terror.  Through giving away their bread and taking up a simple comb for fifteen minutes or so, they were resisting mere survival instincts and affirming transcendent human values such as beauty, individuality and pleasure.  There are so many more similar stories.  And for me, going to Auschwitz was such an intensely human experience.  It showed me what I am capable of, both as an oppressor and resistor.  It was simultaneously both humbling and empowering.

I think in many ways we are the same as Balder and the servant who bumped into Death.  We have the same fears and nightmares.  And like them, we don’t know when Death will catch us up.  But I think these stories teach us to not run away, and to not fight these uncontrollable powers.  That only fuels the fatality.  It only robs us of the life we have now, and therefore speeds up the death we’re trying to avoid.

Instead, as Frankl teaches, we must declare an inner freedom.  And I think we must listen to him; a person who has been to hell on earth; and trust him when he says that we have the power to choose our attitude.  We have the power to make meaning.  We have the power to find humour, beauty and love amidst so much suffering, pain and tragedy. 

Tempting as it is to follow Frigg around the world, trying to control the uncontrollable, and ensure absolute sovereignty and safety; I think, instead, we must follow Frankl, and only seek to control what is ours to control: our attitudes.  Therein lies true freedom.