The Wolves Many of you have probably heard this parable. Inside you there are two wolves, one good one evil, and they are fighting. It’s a binary construct, about being responsible for who you chose to be. But the fact is the wolves are misidentified. The idea is, I list things that most people would consider evil and attribute it to one wolf, then list things they would consider good and attribute it to the other. So let’s just examine this.

If I say one wolf represents evil, fear, hatred, envy, anger, and so on. You might agree with the first few no problem… fear is a weakness, hatred generally has a negative vibe, envy only ever leads to bad news. But when I say anger, there’s a strong chance I’m going to lose a few people, people who believe they’re entitled to their anger… that it somehow makes them strong. And if I continue the list, I’m likely to run into more dissension. So let’s look at the other wolf.

This one represents good, love, kindness, charity, pride, and so on. And who wouldn’t agree that love is a good thing. But what if we include obsession, “murder you in your sleep because I can’t live without you” obsession. Well, there are people who would argue “that’s not love,” and I would agree, but then I would probably argue that what they do consider love is not love either. Because that obsessive person feels the same passionate emotion you do when you say you’re in love, only way more intensely… “end of the world intensely.” I would argue that true love was of the unconditional non-possessive variety, true acceptance and honesty. So what about kindness, no one would speak against kindness because they don’t want to sound like an ass. But kindness applied without measure or reason can do as much harm as good, and the same could be said for charity. People often need help, but you have to make sure you’re helping in a constructive or at least necessary way, and not just to make yourself feel good about doing good. And of course there’s pride, many people would say it’s good to have pride, “you should take pride in yourself…” they say. But isn’t there also a saying “pride comes before the fall,” which is it. Isn’t pride one of the seven deadly sins, you know the unforgivable ones, like murder. I believe it was Lucifer’s sin… so who’s telling you to have pride again, because the devil gets blamed for every other bad thing people chose to do… but pride, pride feels good. But watch the preachers back pedal on pride, because they know how important that feeling is to their congregation.

So what am I saying? Well, I believe for the purpose of the metaphor that there are two wolves… a binary equation. But these wolves have very different identities and represent very different things. One wolf represents your true self, and the other your false self (your ego). One wolf is truth, and the other fear (ego).

The wolf that represents fear, hides in the darkness, feeds on lies, and acts on its instincts and emotions… this wolf breeds chaos, strife, delusion, suffering, dishonesty, and regret.

While the other wolf which represents truth, stands in the open illuminated, feeds on honesty, and acts on reason and understanding… this wolf breeds peace, contentment (happiness), freedom, and love.

In the parable the little girl or boy ask the parent or grandparent telling the story, “So, which one wins?” the answer of course is “the one you feed.” The wolf you feed becomes stronger and bigger and conquers the smaller wolf.  This is a profound acknowledgement of the reality of our choices, too often clouded and muddied by the ambiguity of the morality to which it is attached. When the truth is that good and evil are false constructs, and they are not synonyms for right and wrong, only substitutes for people who don’t seem to know better.

Take for example the word good, I would have to ask you meant if you said it. If you replied righteous, I would have to reject your construct. Because every war begins with righteousness. Righteousness is simply the ability to look down on others and claim that they are doing wrong, while you proclaim the morality of your own beliefs as justification to do as you please. Righteousness was responsible for the child crusades, and pretty much every other crusade or holy war ever. So no thank you, if that’s your idea of good I want no part of it… because it sounds a lot like wrong to me.