Rocks in a backpack?
May. 29th, 2007 02:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichArn has a phrase he uses for folks who take on guilt and never let it go - he says, "you're putting another rock in your backpack, aren't you?"
That phrase came back to me on the way home from the event when we were talking about how we determine which candidates for Peerage we feel are 'there' and which ones are still in the 'let's watch them' stage. Because calibrating our personal support for a candidate is so subjective and so personal. And in the course of that conversation, I remembered his analogy and thought about how useful it would be when applied to a person's body of work within the SCA... their backpack might be filled with one or two massive rocks or stuffed full of loads of medium ones - but at some point, viewed from the outside, an observer would say they weighed the same (and no, I'm not carrying the analogy to discussions about what kind of rocks they are and if they are valuable or not and all that. Work with me here.)
So. I admit, I'm a tight-fisted person when it comes to the higher awards/recognitions. For instance, I think that if a body of work only benefits the small group a person lives in, then an award from that small group is the proper one. If it starts to bleed over to benefit folks in other groups, then when it reaches the point at which a kingdom is positively affected by the person, then a kingdom-level award is apt. And only when a person's body of work has made a Society-level difference should they be recognised/elevated to a Society level Order.
And in some books, that makes me a meanie. I'm okay with that. In the law of averages, I'm probably evening out someone else who thinks that everyone deserves any award they want. Okay.
But as someone who quit being a leader-trainer for the Boy Scouts after it became common for 13-year-olds to get their Eagle Badges via one week at Scout Camp, well - that's just the way I am.
But I am curious about how other folks view it. Both Peer and non-Peer, Kingdom Order members and those who look at them...I'm especially curious because in conversations with those who are beloved to me, the frustration of not being able to speak clearly about something so personal and yet so elusive to describe is difficult to deal with... So I'm appealing to those who read my journal and are in the SCA - how do you describe the differences between local/kingdom/Society recognition that you would use to advise the Crowns?
That phrase came back to me on the way home from the event when we were talking about how we determine which candidates for Peerage we feel are 'there' and which ones are still in the 'let's watch them' stage. Because calibrating our personal support for a candidate is so subjective and so personal. And in the course of that conversation, I remembered his analogy and thought about how useful it would be when applied to a person's body of work within the SCA... their backpack might be filled with one or two massive rocks or stuffed full of loads of medium ones - but at some point, viewed from the outside, an observer would say they weighed the same (and no, I'm not carrying the analogy to discussions about what kind of rocks they are and if they are valuable or not and all that. Work with me here.)
So. I admit, I'm a tight-fisted person when it comes to the higher awards/recognitions. For instance, I think that if a body of work only benefits the small group a person lives in, then an award from that small group is the proper one. If it starts to bleed over to benefit folks in other groups, then when it reaches the point at which a kingdom is positively affected by the person, then a kingdom-level award is apt. And only when a person's body of work has made a Society-level difference should they be recognised/elevated to a Society level Order.
And in some books, that makes me a meanie. I'm okay with that. In the law of averages, I'm probably evening out someone else who thinks that everyone deserves any award they want. Okay.
But as someone who quit being a leader-trainer for the Boy Scouts after it became common for 13-year-olds to get their Eagle Badges via one week at Scout Camp, well - that's just the way I am.
But I am curious about how other folks view it. Both Peer and non-Peer, Kingdom Order members and those who look at them...I'm especially curious because in conversations with those who are beloved to me, the frustration of not being able to speak clearly about something so personal and yet so elusive to describe is difficult to deal with... So I'm appealing to those who read my journal and are in the SCA - how do you describe the differences between local/kingdom/Society recognition that you would use to advise the Crowns?
