People talk about doomscrolling, but truly the biggest doomscroll of them all is completing two degrees in medieval philology, save perhaps for doing a full PhD, and seeing the best, talented folk spat out. Truly, if there is ever a choice in life that made me utterly blackpilled

it is spending the best parts of my life with unwilling and bitter professors, inspiring doctors, and enthusiastic peers, all of a common understanding that: Everything is going to hell, and the entire discipline will be no more unless you sacrifice your happiness for the art

to truly see, with burning desire, the genius of medieval literature and the importance it has in a greater perspective. But just as importantly, keeping that burning desire harnessed to keep those exams pouring in, and encourage students to stay through that fucking course

whatever it fucking takes. *breathes heavily*. Because if you don't do it, if they don't do it, these past two centuries of academic reception will all be in vain. In 20 years there will be no Old Norse Philology. And all the cues and the firebrands will be extinguished

in collective amnesia.

Having people who breathed, ate, slept and dreamed a profound desire to just understand even a fragment of the art and wishes of some rustic peasant who died a thousand years ago, to tape together that bleeding wound that separates us. A connection denied by classicist humbug,

of something more tangible than endless rows of smug dismissals of ancient folk art and vernacular transmission. I think I was fully and completely ready to give my life and any hope of a stable economy or family to work on it.

And for ten solid years I hinged desperately onto idiotic and thankless part time jobs, just for the vain hope of one day, maybe, having the privilege of being one of those lucky few who could shed a gladly light on these sights, and the culture,

to literally tend fires in smoky Iron Age longhouses, and remove the dustcovers of the royal thrones at Håkon's hall. I was tremendously happy just for the opportunity to be in a space that had so pregnant with history.

But there are no jobs or hopes in those fields in any way vulgar society can appreciate. Had to downscale and live semi-off-grid just to satisfy my dream of working at a museum, the peak of my "success" was basically a minimum wage job at 3x hours 5 days a week. Pure exploitation

My mentor, the great Eldar Heide, who knows as well as anybody what sort of life that is, once told me this is really no different than the artist's life. But it's different: An artist has a fighting chance at getting decently paid for his creative work. Most academics do not.

Put that in your Scandinavian utopia and smoke it. I realized then that there was no future for me in traditional academia, and I was already experimenting with contemporary art, and had made my summer rent by supplementing my wages with bootlegging/moonshining already.

That was ultimately what led me on the path that is Brute Norse. And while it is hardly a living on its own, it is more than what I earned as a post-graduate museum host in a vision-deprived Norway.