[quote="Tom Sawyer" post_id=2026 time=1720702405 user_id=66]
I get your point, but I stick to my response because some cultures and stories are simply a way of control the future of a people via made up tradition.
and also I have not inherited any of my people's culture, so I don't have value in this earth if I just made up my own values?
[/quote]

All traditions are made up, all cultures born from a single person doing something at some point. (Like the First Warrior did in his just war against the three headed serpent).
You're right that some are used to control, certainly, we see that a lot in cults or some fundamentalist religion where people aren't free to leave and pursue their own ways. That would be akin to the theft of wealth, restricting someone's story to within the framework of an existing box of dogmatic belief.
It should be fluid, not forced. As with all cultural evolution.

Not inheriting a culture, or way of life isn't a new thing - it's how new traditions begin. Whether your ways stand the test of time to be taken on by others as a good way and inherited over millennia, or die with your fleshy body, remains to be seen.
Either way - that's your new story, an identity no-one's but yours. If not greatest, then it is great wealth, without that what are you?
This slides up alongside the misconception of total ego death, its an impossibility without becoming a zombie under control of another (like the aforementioned cults do).

So, if a people's greatest wealth, in this case yourself a singular "people" (as you inherited nothing from your forebears apparently), is a faith in an action... are you taking this action? Waiting faithfully for someone else to do it? Preparing for the act as a matter of progression through life?
It would be a strange thing to have one's greatest wealth rely on someone else doing it for them, though, your culture is not my culture - perhaps it would be not so strange from your perspective.

[quote]so I don't have value in this earth if I just made up my own values?[/quote]
No, it's your greatest wealth. You're just the first of this new people known as... the Tomothies :grin

I get your point, but I stick to my response because some cultures and stories are simply a way of control the future of a people via made up tradition.
and also I have not inherited any of my people's culture, so I don't have value in this earth if I just made up my own values?

Taking this further we might be able to say that the true wealth of a people in the aforementioned context can be referred to as: their story.
That a people's wealth is their past, present and future, their personal power, who they are, their identity, their story.

This relates to a an attack on one's soul - or the collective soul of a people - when an identity is stolen, distorted or corruption occurs.
It's also the way to truly eradicate a people, wipe out their cultural identity. Without it, for better or worse, something else takes it's place.

The wealth of a people: their story.

[quote="Tom Sawyer" post_id=2022 time=1720446521 user_id=66]
[quote=Týsköll post_id=2020 time=1719891010 user_id=2]
Consider also, what is the true wealth of a people?
[/quote]

true wealth = Faith in justified rebellion
[/quote]

"Just war" alike to what Tyr/Tiwaz presides over being the God of Just War through laws and contracts? That aligns well with the Sky Father (Tyr/Tiwaz/Ziw/Zeus/Deus, etc) helping the First Warrior to recover the people's wealth ([b]Fehu[/b]: [i]cattle, wealth, personal power[/i]) then later continue the cycle of gift giving ([b]Gebo[/b]; [i]gift, magical exchange[/i]) by offering sacrifice to the gods who initially gifted the cattle (and domestication etc).

I think it's definitely part of the western culture dating to PIE origins (where this story comes from), to have faith in a just war.
Restoring balance in such a way dates back to the (reconstructed) story of the first warrior and echoes through time and space in mythology, history and modern fiction.

[i]Let the hand be restored;
Blindfold removed.
The great net drawn -
The dog to check balance again.
Evenhanded, feathers placed,
Hearts weighed, eyes witness.
Oppressed no more;
Just war – people freed. [/i]

But is that action wealth? No, it's the restoration of via heroic deeds.

I think the true wealth of a people is their history and culture, that which makes them, [i]them[/i].
All else is secondary if you cannot exist projecting ourselves in to time ([b]Mannaz;[/b] [i]mankind, psychic order of the gods, projecting self in to time[/i]), embracing where we came from (past), being yourself (present) and go further as all ancestors want for their descendants (future).

Further thoughts are most definitely welcome.

[quote=Týsköll post_id=2020 time=1719891010 user_id=2]
Consider also, what is the true wealth of a people?
[/quote]

true wealth = Faith in justified rebellion

Intriguing how the wealth of the people - symbolized as cattle or gold - stolen by the three headed hydra can have potentially morphed in to the folk tale of a frog blocking the flow of water.

Water, of course, is often a symbol of wealth in such things as dream interpretation.

Consider also, what is the true wealth of a people?