"A Cherokee elder is teaching his grandson about life. 'A fight is
going on
inside
me' he tells the boy. 'It's a terrible fight. It's 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.
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 is
quiet
for a moment,
then asks 'Grandfather, which wolf will win?'. His grandfather replies
'The one you feed.'."
... old Cherokee tribal legend
This essay,
The One You Feed,
is the companion piece to
It's one of my all time favorite
analogies:
"Which wolf will win?", and the answer is "The one you feed.". In the
annals of the poignant old Cherokee tribal legend which launches this
essay and from which the essay inherits its title, the wolf which
emerges victorious in
the battle between good and
evil,
is the one you feed. Wow! It's awesome,
brilliant,
this "which wolf will win"
analogy,
yes? There's hardly anyone, even from a very young age on up, who won't
grasp its significance, get value from it, and appreciate it.
The thing about this
analogy
however, which is to say the thing about this, any, and all
analogies,
is each one
fails
at a certain point. They all
fail
because they reference something in terms of something
else, and that "something else" is always at least one step removed
from the issue at hand. When the issue at hand isn't referenced in
terms of the thing in itself, there's an absence of
rigor.
There really aren't any wolves ... but you get the idea
anyway. Since there are no wolves, there's
nothing
to feed ... but you also get the idea anyway. It's not only when we
deploy analogies which reference something in terms of something else,
when there's an absence of
rigor.
It's when we talk in general about almost anything and
everything, we talk with an absence of
rigor.
More than that, talking with an absence of
rigor
most often also includes talking without
presence of Self.
All that said, I'm not dismissive of the premise this old
Cherokee tribal legend disseminates - it is, as I said, one of my
favorites. Rather I'm interested in building on its poignancy by
tightening
its
language
so it points to something imminently tangible and therefore immediately
useful - and by this I mean
directly
rather than
analogously.
Out of
respect
for the Cherokee nation, I don't
intend
to
rewrite
its entire text. Instead my contribution will be to make only one
change to only one
word,
and to leave the rest of it intact. Changing just this one
word
however, allows an entirely new possibility to emerge, allowing the
main body of the legend to segue into something even more
pragmatic, to morph into something else even more useful
than it currently does, something I suspect was the Cherokee elder's
intention
for his grandson all along - and changing this one
word
realizes his
intentiondirectly
rather than
analogously.
The one
word
I would change is the verb "feed". I would change "feed" to
"speak":
"Which wolf will win?", and the answer is "The one you
speak.".
It's not a trivial difference. It's not splitting hairs. It's
not just semantics either. When I feed a wolf, it's what I
do which empowers the wolf. To be sure, what I do counts
for something. It counts for a lot. But when I
speak
a wolf to empower it, I bring who I'm being to bear ie I
bring
who I am
to bear. "Feed a wolf" empowers it, with
who I am
not necessarily being
present
(that's powerful).
"Speak
a wolf" empowers it, with
who I am
fully
present,
front and center stage
(that's very powerful).
Of course I wasn't there personally when that very wise Cherokee elder
said "The one you feed.". Still, I'll bet if he was familiar with
Werner's work,
he'd agree "The one you
speak"
works
better. Furthermore, I'll bet you good
money
this was the exact form of the expression he
intended,
undistinguished, for his grandson all along.