The One With All The Seals

So I filed my taxes yesterday, a tax which I enjoy immensely. It's like budgeting. There's something very soothing about it to me. I must have been an accountant in a previous life.

But in filing my taxes, I needed to look up the address for the University of Edinburgh. (I know Carolina's by heart because one does not attend a school for four years and work for it for another four without having to google that a time or two.) When I looked up the address, I was treated to the school's motto, Nec Temere, Nec Timide, which is Latin for "Neither rashly nor timidly."

I like that motto. It sits weird in my heart, though. I want to hold it in my hand and say, "Yes, this is a thing I want," the way I do with Carolina's motto, but I'm not quite there. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's motto is Lux Libteras, Latin for "Light and Liberty," which, just, hits me right in the gut.

Scotland's motto, by the bye, is In my defens God me defend, which is in Scots. Much of the time you'll see it on the coat of arms as IN DEFENS. There's a Scots prayer to go along with it: "In my defense God me defend/ and bring my saulle to ane guid end O Lord."

Angry unicorns aside, I do love the Scottish national motto and the very Scottish attitude it embodies. But don't you worry, friends of mine who think I may leave my homeland's fair shores forever, my American side is going to show itself in 3, 2, 1...

I would get the North Carolina state motto tattooed onto my body, if that weren't such a weird thing to do. Esse Quam Videri, latin for "To be rather than to seem." Let's talk about that, NC. Let's talk about that.

And the US's official motto may be "In God we trust," but E pluribus unum made the seal and the fastest way to make star-spangled banners come rushing out of my eyeballs is to bring up the notion that we as a country are inherently out of many, one.

What I'm saying is that I'm a sucker for systems. I'm a sucker for words in a dead language that meant enough to the founding ideals of a system to emblazon it on every official document available. And I have myriad feelings about mottos and how you live up to them and the responsibility you have to the ideals you inherit, but that might be a story for another day.