Saturday, March 10, 2012

Swa scriþende gesceapum hweorfað

With ignorance and arrogance, success is assured.

A "beot" is a boast, a promise to do something outrageous, something impossible. Beowulf vows to fight Grendel without weapons or armor. That is a beot.

A beot consists of three parts:

  1. Pledge: an individual makes a vow, usually for a specific challenge, one that everyone assumes is impossible.
  2. Speculation of outcomes: there are only two outcomes, success or failure. Come back with your shield or on it.
  3. Commissioning to a higher power: in old poems, they would declare that the outcome was due to a higher power (God or fate). We will skip this one, since I do not believe God and fate is a fickle thing.

"I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day." 
"I can't believe that!" said Alice. 
"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes." 
Alice laughed. "There's not use trying," she said: "one can't believe impossible things." 
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Make an impossible promise. Vow to do something so outlandish, no one will believe you. It doesn't matter if you succeed. Failure is always an option. Just proclaim the fact that you will do something that is so crazy, so out there, people will assume you are joking. But you are not.

I am going to make a beot now. An impossible promise:

Within a year, the Slender Man will be dead.

Trust me. It's almost time for summer.

The invincible summer.

10 comments:

  1. /reads the bolded line.

    You're....terribly ambitious, aren't you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's why they are called impossible promises.

      Also, I never said I would be the one to kill him. Only that he would be dead.

      Delete
    2. Time will tell then, eh?

      Let's see what your beot brings.

      Delete
  2. Heh.

    It's a shame most of the current runners won't be around to see it...
    They have a lifespan of about 8 months...

    Keep updated.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Such an intresting stance for The Skeptic to take, I like it. You know, typically I end up harrasing anyone who makes that claim. This though, I like this. Fate is something to be refused, let's see someone else change their destiny already. Who knows, maybe it won't catch up to them this time.

    See you aorund
    -Free

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fate always catches up to us, however. That's why we must confront it, to dree our weird.

      And once we realize that our fate is inevitable, we can move on from it. What's that saying? "If nothing we do matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do."

      Delete
  4. Or maybe I'll find a way to make Them visible to whoever wears said bit of jewelry. Who knows? I sure don't.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'll make you a beot.


    I will become the ultimate beast, wise and wild both.

    I will become a dragon. and not just any dragonm but the Chaos dragon that i should have been anyway.

    Can't wait to see it be true.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For a beot, you don't just wait and see, you go and make it come true.

      So go and dree your weird.

      Delete