Duality

There is an old Cherokee legend of a man telling his grandson about a battle going on within him and the story goes something like this. "A fight is going on inside me" he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued. "The other is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person too." The grandson thought about what he was told for a few moments and then asked: "Which wolf will win?" To which his grandfather replied, "The one you feed."

There are many adaptations of this same folk story and of similar stories throughout pretty much every culture, but they all share the same theme: we can choose which side of our character we build on and allow to grow. This is central to the concept of duality. I very much agree with the sentiment of the tale, as it is a very solid one, but there is one aspect of it that my thinking differs from and I'll explain that by the end of this entry. I've always believed that no one is entirely good or entirely evil, rather we all have the capacity to be either, but what constitutes benevolence or malevolence is where things get very subjective. In many instances it can be difficult to know exactly which wolf we're feeding and in a time when the waters of morality are significantly muddied, it's easy to see how anyone without a particularly adept moral compass might not be able to guide the food to the mouth of the right wolf. I would like to think of myself as someone who is fairly well grounded in their sense of right and wrong, but from time to time, even I have found myself in morally ambiguous situations where I'm still not sure as to whether or not I made the right call that would lead me to nourish the better side of myself. Then again, that's just me. Everyone sees things differently, and many believe that they are beacons of morality who bear not only the ability, but the obligation to guide others along the same path of righteousness that they believe they follow. The problem there, is that often times people are mistaken in their beliefs. Sometimes it's in the core concepts, sometimes it's in the methods, and others it's in the vast sea of convoluded details regarding their particular moral outlook. I recently encountered a man who was a good example of someone who truly believed that they were feeding the good wolf, but in my view, they were sustaining the evil one. This was a man who struggles with similar issues as myself, but we differ strongly in our approach to them. On the surface, his mindset seemed well intentioned and proactive. He approached his problems in a head on fashion, accompanied with an almost religious zeal and was extremely active in managing his struggles. Unfortunately, towards the end of our interactions, I came to realize that the underlying philosophy he had towards this approach was fatally flawed. This mentality was a highly moralistic one, which led him to possess a "holier than thou" sort of attitude towards others with a differing approach to their struggle. His attitude was one that appeared to be fueled by determination, faith, compassion, and understanding, but that was just the surface. Once you dug further, the vices of pride, superiority, arrogance and pettiness revealed themselves. Let me be clear, I don't hold grudges. I've found in my experiences that they are a burden solely carried by choice, and it is for this reason that I choose not to hold the mans choices against him. I know he has the capacity to grow, and I genuinely hope that he does. The reason I shared that story is that I feel it's a fantastic example of an instance where the sides of our dualistic nature aren't entirely clear. It's a great story to tell for the purpose of illustrating the point that not everything is cut and dry, and we need to be consistently examining the underlying motives behind our actions so as to understand which side of our personality we're actually allowing to grow. It should be said that duality isn't just in regards to our perceptions of "good" and "evil", they apply to all aspects of our nature. Sigmund Freud was the first to suggest the concept of ones "ID" which is the deepest level of our subconscious. It is the level of ourselves that reflects our deepest, most primal and animalistic desires. Of course with this being a Freudian theory, the ID also supposedly fuels our sexual desires, and that's just Freud being Freud, but at the same time I can see how there's merit to that. Sex is considered primal and animalistic in nature so why wouldn't our innermost self be fueling our desires? That brings us to the conflict of the duality concerning our innermost self, whatever you choose to call it, and that conflict is something I've referred to in a previous entry titled "black outs". In that entry I referred to the struggle within all of us concerning the desires to satiate our primal urges vs the desire to live up to the ideals of civility and order that we as human beings have assigned to ourselves for whatever reason. Those are just two more attributes of each of the wolves within us, however they are attributes that make me think the "bad" wolf, might not be all bad. Maybe it isn't "evil" and in need of being killed, but rather of being tamed and controlled. Perhaps we don't need to vanquish our demons, but learn to understand them and how to keep them in check. I'd say that's the only flaw of the wolves folktale, it implies that the battle will end in one side winning and one losing, when in reality, the only spiritual and personal "victory" I can see, would be finding balance between the two of them.