A question that I’ve been frequently running across as Loki’s fame has spread across the Internet over the past few years is, “how do I become a Lokean”? To answer that question, I thought I would first tackle the question, “what is a Lokean”? I have to warn my audience that there won’t be many footnotes in this article, and so a lot of what I’ll be talking about concerns my personal spiritual experiences and (GASP) UPG. Some of it may come off as spiritual “woo woo” to more agnostic or cultural Heathens/Pagans, but it is what it is. This is my experience, take it or leave it.

First of all, who in the hell am I, and why am I qualified to answer this question? I’ve been a devotee of Loki since 1995, when as a child I began having dreams about a person who called himself “Loki” and would take me on strange adventures. I grew up in a spiritual household, where one of my father’s best friends was a Native woman who I would define as a medium or spirit worker. She was like a second mother for me when I was growing up, and she taught me many useful things from a young age, including how to use my (what has now been popularly labeled) “god phone”. She and my father were some of the first people I shared my early experiences of Loki with, and he became my close companion not just in the dream world, but in my everyday life as well. My father bought me my very first book of Nose Myths around this time (which was “Nordic Gods and Heroes” by Padraic Colum). These stories made me even more enamored with Loki and his world, and I was hooked ever since.

From 1995- 2004 I was practicing a solitary blend of eclectic paganism/heathenry that was mostly inspired by my individual practice with Loki and books by pagan writers (such as Freya Aswynn and pretty much anything with a Norse title I could get my hands on) along with the Eddas. Some of these books had positive things to say about Loki, some of them had negative things to say. The negative interpretation of Loki as essentially the Norse Satan ran so contrary to what I had personally experienced of Loki (who had never brought me anything but blessings and good advice) that I tended to tune out those parts and ignore it. It has never ceased to hurt my heart when I read full on antagonistic descriptions of Loki, but in 20+ years it’s never altered my opinion.

Around 2005 I finally decided to actively seek out Heathens in my area, and became involved with a local group who I remain friends with to this day. Initially, some of the members were nervous regarding my devotion to Loki, but the unease slowly began to dissolve as we got to know each other better. I think it was during this time that I decided that, in any way I could, I wanted to be a good “ambassador” for Loki in the Heathen community. This has often meant learning to swallow my pride, and being willing to really listen to other’s points of view in order to be heard, but this philosophy has never steered me wrong.

In 2006, I decided to finally join one of the major Heathen organizations. I chose the Troth because of its open door policy towards people of all ethnicities and sexual orientations. Through the Troth I began to make friends in the wider Heathen community, and have been a member ever since.

So why was sharing my autobiography necessary you may ask? I just wanted to demonstrate that I’ve been an active worshipper of Loki for 20 years, and have been a sometimes observer, sometimes participant in the Heathen community specifically for about 10 years. I’ve had quite a long time to develop my own ideas about who Loki is and what it means to be a Lokean (ideas which have always been evolving, and I hope always will), and I’ve also been observing the shifting opinions that the Heathen community holds about Loki and Lokeans for a long time. I therefore might have some insight that people who are newer to the concept of Loki and “Lokeans” might find useful.

Get on with it! What is a Lokean?

Back when I first started to explore Heathenry, the word Lokean was used to describe a Heathen or Pagan whose “patron” or “fulltrui” was Loki, or someone who viewed Loki positively and included them in their worship. I think I first came across this word on the now defunct “Loki Cult” website, before I adopted it to describe myself. Since that time, my exact definition hasn’t changed all that much. A Lokean is someone who (whether they describe themselves as Heathen, Pagan, or something else) worships and works with Loki as the primary deity in their personal practice. Some people in the past few years have begun to use the word Lokean as if it were an independent religion in its own right, which has never been my understanding. In my opinion, taking Loki completely out of his cultural landscape and focusing only on him to the point of ignoring the existence of the other Norse Gods essentially strips him of his role in the natural and spiritual world. Being aware of who he is and how he interacts with the other gods in his Pantheon is important, but I don’t think it’s mandatory that someone identify as “Heathen” in order to be Lokean. However, many did and still do.

I think it is a very important distinction to make that not all people who identify as Lokean identify as “Rökkrtrú”. I am personally not a fan of this label, though some people under the Heathen umbrella do choose to use it. Because many new Lokeans have despaired of being accepted by mainstream Heathenry (whether that is due to running into Heathens that aggressively oppose the worship of Loki, or because of an expectation that all Heathens hate Loki) some have embraced this title, which I think has led to it becoming a widespread term, despite the fact that it was never used in antiquity. Because I tend to view the Jötunar as a class of deities in their own right like the Titans were in ancient Greece, I tend to see the word Rökkr as superfluous and as carrying unnecessary stigma that tends to further alienate the deities who are granted this title in the minds of Heathens. However, that is only my opinion, and I mean no disrespect to individuals who have embraced this title.

How do you become a Lokean?

There is no specific “oath” involved in becoming a Lokean, and no agreed upon model of worship. Before one starts throwing oaths around, I think it’s important to understand the function of an oath in modern Heathenry, and how they’re supposed to effect you in the spiritual and physical world. Oaths aren’t thrown around liberally in most Heathen circles, and making an oath is perceived as tying your destiny, your luck/personal power, and your honor to your word. If anyone else is present for your oath, it is widely believed that their luck and honor is on the line as well, since they are expected to help you uphold your word. Making an oath to a god is tying your destiny, your fortune, and your life to them, for good or for ill. People who break their oaths are highly looked down upon in modern Heathenry, and some might go as far as to say that oath breakers have no place in the community, or are even cursed. Some believe that if you break your oath to a god for any reason, they may decide to exact their own recompense from you at their own discretion (and potentially from anyone who witnessed the oath but didn’t hold you to your word).

Some kindreds put a safety-net in place before someone makes an oath, and a price is agreed upon that the person making the oath will pay if they break the oath or discontinue the oath for any reason. In the case of making an oath of devotion and service to Loki, whether asking him to be your fulltrui, husband, or friend, I would suggest creating an agreed-upon payment that you will give him in the case that the oath is broken for any reason. This isn’t intended to be a loophole where you make an oath to Loki, pay him when you screw up, and then oath again. The point is that you are hurting your own power by damaging the integrity of your word, and continuously doing that can have negative effects on your overall success and effectiveness in life.

There are also timed-oaths, where you make an oath to do something until a designated time. This might be the safest way for a new devotee to approach an oath of devotion to Loki: agree to honor him as your fulltrui for a certain amount of time. If you both find this to be a favorable arrangement after the designated time, you can move onto more long-term agreements from there. In either case, I suggest that contacting a diviner that you trust and who has proven themselves to be effective may be helpful in determining whether or not Loki agrees to the terms you’re creating. An oath to a god is a two way street, and they may accept your oath or not.

Any oath you make to Loki is between you and him, and if you are primarily worshipping Loki in your practice, or have made some kind of oath of devotion to him, then you have the right to call yourself Lokean, even if someone (the author included) doesn’t agree with your specific worship practices.

Is it safe to worship Loki?

This really is kind of a loaded question. To be 100% honest, no, I don’t think it always is “safe” to worship Loki…. or Odin, or Freyja, or any god that holds dominion over powerful, life-shattering transformation. One of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn in working with Loki has been coming to terms with his role as a god of chance. Where Odin aligns himself with the force of destiny, Loki is in alignment with the happy accident: the quick, powerful shifts in fate, which can bring down nations and permanently alter our destinies. He is pure potential with no boundaries or expectations. That place of pure potential isn’t a place where human beings can live forever. Trying to live in that place of Loki’s pure energy of transformation can be extremely disorienting and disorganizing and I think this is where Loki’s reputation as a god of “chaos” truly comes from. Nothing can ever find completion or stable ground in pure potential, and it’s my personal belief that anyone who is deeply aligned with Loki will (sooner or later) need other stabilizing powers in their lives to ensure that the Lokean in question doesn’t become trapped in a whirlwind of potential with no direction. The gods are real, and the gods are powerful, and playing with gods can actually affect your life in subtle ways you may not expect. This is one pitfall that lies in new devotees flocking to the god Loki because of their affection for a character in a movie named Loki, without any real understanding of who the real Loki is, what he represents, or how his energies are going to effect them in the real world. I have met many Lokeans who have gone through stages where they have been living in the chaos of pure potential (myself included) and can’t seem to get their lives together. Finding outlets for stability and direction is important for anyone who has been called by Loki.

It’s also important to remember that Loki is not always a nice, gentle, guy, who will tell you everything is wonderful about you (even your faults) and bring you flowers on the weekend. He is a trickster and a transformer. If you are lying to others or, even worse, lying to yourself, his lessons can rip your life to shreds and force you to see what really lies behind all of your masks. He is the cremation fire that will burn away all of your comfortable illusions and expose you for who and what you really are. He is not a comfortable god, and he is not always a “nice guy”. He can be a real dick sometimes, and not just to the people you personally think are full of shit: That axe swings both ways. If you aren’t prepared to transform, potentially destroying every illusion of yourself you’ve ever clung to, don’t try playing house with Loki.

Loki is also very childlike in many ways, much like the Orisha Eleggua. He can be possessive, moody, and impulsive. If I did every single thing that popped into Loki’s head, my life would be in shambles. In this lies another Lokean lesson: Sometimes, he may try to push you as far as he can, just to see where it is you’ll stand up for yourself and draw your own lines. Self-respect and living in accordance with your chosen destiny is an important lesson of Loki’s.

A god can’t change its nature, and they are who they are. I would therefore caution not to make any promises or agreements with Loki you are not expecting to mindfully keep for the rest of your life. Making an oath to Loki because of your newfound excitement over him, the Thor movies, or his hype on the Internet may feel good in the moment. However, 40 years down the line when you may have moved onto new spiritual paths (or no spiritual paths), the hype of your earlier interests has simmered down, and you have either forgotten or disregarded the oaths you made to a Norse deity once upon a time, that could seriously come back to haunt you. Loki is a god of transformation, of change, of trickery, and sometimes of destruction. You also have to keep in mind that when you’re dealing with Loki, sometimes it’s like dealing with a kid. What would happen if you promised a kid you were going to get them an ice-cream cone every Sunday and then forgot about it or just stopped? Probably a big, freakin’ tantrum. Aligning yourself with Loki’s energy and then ignoring it could cause it to flare up in unexpected ways in your life, like a child’s unrestrained cry for attention. Loki is what he is, and just because you think that you are one of his “special people” will not exempt you from learning some of the harder lessons he may have to teach. He is not a human being, he is a force of nature, and doesn’t play by the rules of human social conventions.

With those things beings said, for some people, no other god “fits” for them better than Loki. There are some people whose energy is naturally in alignment with the kind of energy that Loki carries, and who can carry and deal with this energy in ways that may not work for others (just like any other god or goddess). Herein lies the wisdom of Lucumi, which has spiritual technology in place to identify your energy, and align it with what it needs to become even better. Sometimes who we think we are and what we think we need doesn’t match up with reality, and we can trick ourselves into believing we’re something we’re not. There is no other god or goddess that makes me feel the sense of devotion, peace, and completion that Loki does. However, I recognize that this does not mean that Loki is the god for everyone, or that aligning oneself with his energy will be beneficial for everyone. This is why I think it’s important that before you make an oath or agreement with Loki, you should spend some time getting to know who he really is, how his energy actually operates in your life, and if your life is getting better or worse when you’re in alignment with that energy.

Do Lokeans have an honor code?

I think that many people within Heathenry probably assume that because Lokeans have seemingly read the Eddas and have “chosen” to worship Loki despite the fact that he is obviously an agent of evil and chaos in the world, that we have no honor system, or somehow stand for the destruction of all that is good and decent. This is absolutely untrue. Often times I’ve found that people who are critical of Loki don’t seem to be talking about the same Loki that I am, and I’ve developed my relationship with Loki from a point of personal experience (which many Loki critics haven’t). Maybe this makes me delusional, but if that’s the case, maybe we’re all delusional and we should all accept Jesus as our lord and savior ASAP.

As I explained in my own account, I believe that from the very beginning, Loki chose me, not the other way around. I also believe that because my personal interactions with Loki began long before I had time to be indoctrinated by the idea that he is a force of evil, this has never colored my perception of who he is. It is my personal belief that Snorri’s descriptions of Loki in his Edda were highly influenced by his own need to cast a villain in his Balder story, and Völuspá (which itself was highly influenced by the Book of Revelations and the doomsday narrative which was so popular in the 10^th century, when it was most likely composed). I also do not believe that Ragnarök is a single, future event, in which all of human kind will have to take a stand with the “good guys” against the “bad guys” (but that’s a different article for a different day). Loki does have an honor code, and so do the people who worship him.

That being said, Loki is a trickster deity, which gives him a different code of ethics than most other deities in the pantheon. There are a few major roles that a trickster plays within its respective pantheon, many of which remain consistent across cultures. Trickster is there to challenge (and thereby, often reinforce) social norms. If Trickster screws up big time by breaking a social taboo, his story helps to reinforce why that taboo is in place. Trickster is also there to remind us to lighten up, and to laugh at our own ridiculous human natures. Sometimes we can become so self-righteous and so entrenched in our own beliefs and egos, that Trickster appears to hold up the mirror and make us really look at ourselves, question our motives, and perhaps most importantly, laugh at ourselves. Trickster is the speaker of unpleasant truths. He’s the little boy that points out that the Emperor has no clothes on. He’s here to point out our hypocrisy, our injustices, and our biases, so we’ll hopefully grow into more functional human beings. Trickster is also a creator and a destroyer. He creates people, nations, and worlds, and he also destroys them so that new paradigms can be created.

In order to perform these functions, Trickster always needs to be a liminal figure. He is someone who can move between extremes in order to present the truths and follies of all sides. He moves between male and female, different races, chaos and order, and is never really fully any of them. He is a shape-shifter so he can experience and compare all possible realities. He is not the enemy of order; he is the enforcer of balance between chaos and order and is the instigator of action. Stagnation brings rot. Whenever things are becoming stagnant, it is Trickster who acts as the force of action.

These are very subtle virtues, which don’t necessarily spark the same emotional reaction as words like justice, victory, and family, which are ascribed to other deities in the Norse pantheon; nor do any of Loki’s positive qualities fit comfortably within our romanticized vision of a Viking warrior culture. Loki isn’t famous for being a warrior; he’s famous for his cunning. Out of all of the gods and goddesses, only Loki has the power to find a solution to any problem and think outside the box. Even Odin can’t think his way out of a fix the way that Loki can. He may create turmoil in his quest for action and transformation, but without Loki, what stories about the gods would be left? And how boring would our mythos be without anyone to push boundaries?

With Loki as our focus of worship, what kind of code should Lokeans honor? Holding a sense of flexibility and being able to adapt and transform. We should be continuously working on ourselves, bettering ourselves, transforming ourselves in alignment with our quest for authenticity. We should never become so rigid in our ways of thinking and believing that it becomes impossible for us to see anyone’s truth but our own: part of the role of the trickster is to walk the line between extremes and thus find a place of common ground between them. This means learning to walk a mile in anyone’s shoes in order to come from a place of genuine understanding.
We should be strong enough and brave enough to speak the truth, especially when it needs to be spoken and nobody else has the cojones to do it. There is, however, a careful line that needs to be trod here. Some people mistake speaking the truth with speaking their fervent opinion, and begin to see anyone whose perception is different from theirs as the enemy of the truth. This means learning to speak your truth from your heart, not your ego, which says: “I’m right, and anyone who says I’m not is persecuting me.” Being a devotee of the trickster means being willing to turn that own harsh finger on yourself before you turn it on anyone else. It also means being able to discern between the things we just dislike and true injustices that need to be challenged.

Perhaps the most powerful tool at the trickster’s disposal when facing these challenges is humor. Back in the day, it was only the Jester that was allowed to criticize the king through humor, thus becoming an unthreatening outlet for the voice of the people. Being able to laugh at yourself is a prerequisite; otherwise you may begin to embody the dogmatic attitudes you are opposing. Laughter, when not being used as a weapon of attack, allows us all to examine the truth in a neutral, deflated setting.

Living with the trickster also means knowing when it’s time to create new things and when it’s time to let old things go. This can be one of Loki’s hardest lessons. We often build our identities around exterior, vulnerable concepts: what we do for a living, our religions, our relationships, our communities. When those things stop serving us, or even start hurting us, they can be some of the hardest things in our lives to let go of, because we mistakenly believe that they define who we are as people. Loki is a god that always pushes you to dig deeper, to get to the true heart of our beings, and to learn that all of these things are vulnerable to change. It’s up to us to find the core of our being, which can be transformed but never destroyed. Nothing is permanent but change, and Loki can teach you to be a reed in the wind (even if you have to learn the hard way).

Is it the goal of Lokeans to be controversial?

An accusation that has been leveled against Lokeans as long as I can remember, is that they are only interested in Loki in order to appear controversial. In reality, what “controversial” means, has changed from generation to generation, and I personally believe that Loki’s reputation as the god of “outsiders” has more to do with Snorri’s depiction of him as the “enemy from within” than anything else. Some 19^th century artists, such as Mårten Eskil Winge seem to have portrayed Loki as purposefully Semitic, reflecting a time period where romantic European nationalism was beginning to take hold and the Jews were the feared “other”. As modern Heathenry began to develop in some circles as a predominantly male, heteronormative, and in some cases sexist tradition, groups such as the Odinic Rite have identified forces in the world they see destructive (such as the “gay agenda” and “women’s lib”) as the vehicles of Loki. Others have suggested that Loki really represents Jesus, who destroyed the old religion. Other people use Loki to point out the destructive nature of racial mingling. Out of all the gods, Loki has been selected to be the “other”, no matter who each respective group believes the “other” is. Sometimes, this can be as simple as taking behavior or qualities one personally sees as repellant, and then projecting those things onto an exterior enemy (i.e. Loki).

So what do Jews, women’s lib, the “gay agenda”, and mixed-race relationships have to do with Loki? Actually, nothing. If wearing clothes made of burlap was considered by any group to be socially taboo, I’m sure that Loki would have been called the god of burlap at one time or another. The reality is, that in many ways Loki (like the Devil of Christianity) has been singled out as the scapegoat on which to project those things that we fear, revile, or vilify. Within Heathenry, he has often become the scapegoat for all of our perceived “sins”, whether real or imagined. How much of these projections actually say something about Loki’s character, or that of the person who is creating their own image of Loki, is up for debate.

I have actually never met a person who actively worshipped Loki in an attempt to make themselves appear controversial (I’m not saying they may not exist, I’ve just never met them). Some people who fall outside the realms of social normality are drawn to Loki, because they resonate with the image that has been built around him as an “outcast”. I tend to reject the image of Loki as the “god of outcasts”, and rather see him as the god of liminal figures: people who for any reason, live within more than just the accepted reality. In our modern culture, this may mean gay people, transsexuals, the transgendered, people who live with physical or mental illness, biracial people, people in a biracial relationship, people with dual citizenship, foreigners, immigrants, artists, anyone who straddles two realities or challenges the accepted reality. Whether or not these people have been considered “outcasts” has largely depended on their social environment at the time. Sometimes people such of this have been elevated and valued for their unique experiences. Other times they have been reviled as enemies of conformity. I would therefore say it is not at all a prerequisite to be controversial or an outsider to be a Lokean, though you may find that people with a liminal life experience will be drawn to Loki, because out of all the gods he embodies and expresses their own experience in a way that they can relate to. Loki is both Jötunn and Æsir, male and female, chaotic and constructive, good and bad, and he is also none of these things.

Do you have to marry Loki to be a Lokean?

When I was first introduced to Heathenry as a child, the only person I can recall ever claiming to have married a Norse god was Freya Aswynn, who underwent a marriage rite to Odin. Whether or not these kinds of unions were taking place before or at the same time, I have no idea. The next time I heard about god-marriage, with was around 2007, when I was first became familiar with the writing of Galina Krasskova, Raven Kaldera and Elizabeth Vongvisith, who to my knowledge was the first person to publically declare her marriage to Loki. Here and there I would hear accounts of people undergoing marriage vows with their gods, which I assumed resembled rites such as Marriage Lwa or the marriage vows that Nuns make to Jesus. When the Thor movie came out in 2011, I observed an explosive boom on the Internet of women (both young and old) who were claiming the title of “Loki’s wife”. I personally believe that the intersection of fandom and Heathen blogs were the formula that created this particular concoction, and I’ve already addressed how I’ve seen this influx effect Loki’s image in Heathenry in my (now somewhat controversial) article, 4 Reasons Heathens Hate Lokeans (By a Lokean).

In reality, I wrote the abovementioned article because I was becoming very frustrated in the trend that I was observing, where people were writing about their religious experiences with Loki with the same degree of reverence that they might write a DeanXSam sexy Supernatural fan-fiction. Because of this tendency towards over-sharing their sexual experiences (whether real or imagined) with a Loki who bears a striking similarity to Tom Hiddleston, I have seen this trend do more damage to Loki’s image within Heathenry than anything else in recent history. Any positive or constructive discussion about Loki’s role within Norse Paganism in the past has sadly become completely eclipsed by the current belief that all Lokeans are teenage girls with Tumblr accounts and reactionary crybabies, and Loki must foster that kind of behavior in people. Therefore, not only is he “evil”, but he’s also become a joke of a god who isn’t worthy of any serious worship. Sadly, not many people who have embraced Loki in this way and are completely new to Heathenry have seen how this new movement has made the perception of Loki within Heathenry even worse than it was before. Not only is it worse, but it’s now also become something of a running gag. My frustration comes from a deep love of Loki and a dislike of his name being further dragged through the mud.

Does this mean that there are no serious worshippers who use their marriage to Loki as a devotional act? No, there certainly are people out there who take their priestess/wife vows to Loki very seriously, and attempt to be positive presences in their own communities. These same serious worshipers would also tell you that there is also absolutely no prerequisite to marry Loki in order to worship Loki. However, because of the overwhelming voices of the new Loki brides on the Internet, I tend to see many people succumbing to a kind of passive peer pressure, where they may feel that their “seriousness” as a worshipper of Loki depends on marrying him in the eyes of their contemporaries. I suspect that marrying Loki has become a merit badge for new worshippers to prove how deeply Loki loves them. In many cases this seems to be turning into a competition between Loki wives, in which an inflated sense of drama and unworthiness seems to be making them miserable more than it seems to be empowering them. I would therefore encourage anyone considering jumping on the Loki-bride bandwagon to really wait and see how your relationship with Loki develops naturally as the Marvel hype inevitably begins to wind down. You don’t need to make yourself a carbon copy of the Lokeans you’ve met online in order to be a real Lokean. All of that is between you and Loki.

Better yet, get off the Internet. Stop seeking validity from strangers on the other side of a computer screen. Go out in nature (Heathenry is a nature religion, and Loki is a nature god) and spend some real time with Loki and experience his power on your own. Develop your own rituals for him and your own relationship with him that doesn’t include lighting a digital candle in a chat room. Get all of the other voices out of your head, and then you’ll be able to hear what your heart is really telling you.

Are all Lokeans girls?

Perhaps because of the massive influx of Loki brides, there are probably currently many more females publically identifying as Lokeans than males (though that is only my best guess). In reality, I have met many men who identify as Lokean, and many of them have been some of the most honorable, witty, and interesting guys I’ve ever met. If you are a male or male-identified person who is being called by Loki, don’t despair that you need to fit into the “Loki wife” mold in order to be a Lokean. There is nothing “unmanly” about being a man who worships Loki. Loki’s masculinity may not always be stereotypical, but he’s still a masculine figure that can empower men who likewise, may express and experience their masculinity in non-typical ways.

Are there really any “Lokean elders”?

Just as in any group (or sub-group) there are some people who have been at this “Lokean” business longer than others. In my opinion, doing something for a while longer than some other people doesn’t automatically grant you the title of “elder”, though some Lokeans have chosen to adopt it. However, there is no Lokean committee that grants the title of elder, and whether or not you choose to regard a Lokean as your elder should be dependent on whether or not a more experienced person has helped to guide and uplift your own spiritual experience. If you feel like someone deserves the title of your elder, that’s up to you to bestow it.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to affirm to my readers that everything I have said comes from my own 20 years of experience. This may not be your exact experience. I didn’t start out worshipping Loki with all of these understandings, or with this level of “seriousness”, and I’ve failed a lot along the way. My perceptions might change and evolve in another 20 years. It’s hard to say what Loki worship will look like in the future, and what it means to be “Lokean” may transform by then as well. I’m far from perfect, I’m not a Lokean guru, but hopefully my experience has something to offer new seekers.

Because of constant questions about what kind of positive example Loki could possibly set for his Lokean worshippers, I’d like to leave you with a list of nine “Lokean virtues” that I’ve compiled. Whether or not Heathens need the 9 Noble Virtues at all is highly debatable, and this list is admittedly something I’ve pulled out of my own ass. You may or may not resonate with this list, so take what you like as guidelines if you need them. Feel free to ignore the rest:

1. Truth: Be real. Be true to yourself as much as you are to others. Don’t apologize for who you are.
2. Humor: Learn to find the humor in all things, especially in yourself. This is how we learn not to be self-righteous assholes.
3. Humility: If you need to tie your balls to a goat to get shit done, suck it up buttercup.
4. Cunning:Try to think outside the box. Don’t make a mess so big that you can’t think your way out of it.
5. Transformation:Don’t be afraid of change, because that’s how we grow. Don’t be afraid of self-examination and listen to constructive criticism.
6. Creativity:Create awesome stuff. Try new things out. If you don’t like it, blow it up and try again.
7. Accountability:You are the only one in charge of your own destiny, your own life, and your own actions. Own your shit.
8. Empathy:Try to see things from more than one perspective. Walk a mile in someone else’s shoes before you pass judgment.
9. Experimentation: A mistake is only a mistake if you do it twice. Until then, everything is an experiment.