Doing good and its limitations.

[sargentlard]

I recently got this in an e-mail

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.

He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all.

One is Evil.

It is anger, envy, jealousy,sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is Good.

It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Now I agree with the message and the wisdom of the little anecdote but it got me thinking; Can one grow as a person without any support from his/her environment? More specifically can I ,or you, grow as a person, make strides in one's emotional strengths without any support or sign of appreciation from my, or your, social structure?

After reading that little nuggest of wisdom I realized that I, intrinsicly, try to do as such. To learn new things, to look above and past the anger and to genuinely try to learn from my mistakes but is it futile to go on when others around me show no sign of changing only take my generosity for advantage.

Don't get me wrong, I am no doormat for people but what is the point of being stronger emotionally when all you're mostly near dolts who don't understand anything about furthering one's self. I am no yogi here, breaking new grounds of spritual sucess, infact the word "spiritual" itself rings hollow to me.

My conundrum can basically be summed up in this; How can one see progress when adversity is all around?

Is personal growth influenced by surroundings or does inner strength flourishes on its own causing others to take notice?

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

This does not look like real traditional American Indian wisdom. This is monotheism in all its ugliness: There are two spirits inside us; one is good and one is evil. End of lesson, go out there and be good.

The Indians were sensible polytheists like everyone else until the Abrahamists invaded their hemisphere and started spreading the poison of evangelical patriarchal monotheism. This is something an Indian would have said after the European conquest and the forced conversion to Abrahamism.

This is a crappy model upon which to attempt to build a strategy for improving your life. You don't have two spirits inside you. You have something like 23. The Greeks, the Egyptians, Shakespeare, everyone throughout history has eventually stumbled into a paradigm that has 23 spirits, apparently we really have exactly that many dimensions.

So you do not have a good spirit and an evil spirit inside you fighting for dominance. You have a hunter and a healer and a parent and a king and a reveler and a teacher and a lover and a warrior and all the other spirits that have been identified by our ancestors for thousands of years. None of them is good and none of them is bad. They each have their mission, they each have their strengths and weaknesses.

In each of us, some are stronger than others. If you have a strong healer you'll probably be interested in a career as a doctor, nurse, veterinarian, therapist, counselor, etc. But you can still be a competent parent or warrior when the need arises. If you don't have the opportunity to go into a healing profession one of your other stronger spirits will call you to something that will be just about as satisfying.

They all have times when they're called on and they all have times when they have to stay in the background and let someone else take charge. If it's the first Saturday night after the end of the school year your reveler will come to the forefront. It would be a mistake to say, "Oh, I'm a healer, I can't party with you guys." Just like it would be a mistake at 10am on a Wednesday in the office to say, "Heck, I'm tired of letting my king always take charge, I'm going to shine on my meeting with my staff and go out drinking."

Wisdom is letting your spirits settle into a comfortable balance so they all contribute to a healthy life. Anger comes from failing to do that, so some of them are frustrated or suppressed. When that happens they get stuffed down into your Shadow and they just sit there festering like forgotten cheese, getting more and more frustrated until one day they take control at the most inappropriate possible time and motivate you to do something that's really stupid, dangerous, or self-defeating for the circumstances.

The Protestant culture that we Americans inherited from England and northern Europe has an unhealthy imbalance of work and play. We're taught that work is good and play is a sign of weakness. Much of our play is "educational," or comes with a heavy dose of guilt, or is just aimless and somehow unsatisfying like the long hours glued to videogame consoles. As a result, many of us have stuffed our reveler down into our shadow, and when he finally breaks free he really messes up our lives. Drugs, car wrecks, absenteeism, these are usually the work of a repressed reveler.

You will begin to see progress when you learn to stop trying to view life as a one-dimensional vector with good at one end and evil at the other. Life has many dimensions and you have to find your own balance in that complex place.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam offer us a tempting simplification, a way to find happiness without understanding the complexities of the universe. Instead of a 23-dimensional road map they give us an arrow pointing toward a god. It only works in the very short run and ultimately creates civilizations that are vapid, rootless, and unsatisfied. When an entire civilization pushes most of itself into its Shadow, look out. They periodically explode into celebrations of hatred and violence that in a few years overshadow what little good they've ever accomplished throughout their entire existence.

The "Cherokee" in your anecdote is trying to lure you on the path to a one-dimensional universe. You're playing into his hands by buying into the good-versus-evil paradigm of the Abrahamists.

You can be wiser than that. It won't be easy but it is the path to what you seek.

Remember that life is a journey, not a destination. A process, not a goal. Good luck.