I have this Gollum like character residing inside of me, it seems insidious, it’s creepy and it is loud, above all, it is a split personality that drives me on and off. Many other people have described this human mind of having two wolves. Going by the same story of Red Indians, we become more of the wolf that we feed more. The problem is when both are equally fed and equally adroit at altering my decisions.

This conflict of opinion is more evident to me when I read blogs of other people, and I see them doing better, frankly, judging by not their quality but the quantity of comments. That is a heuristic measure. Then, sometimes I wonder how they can write so often, so often that even though it is humorous, and interesting, it does not happen to me. It cannot be that their life is that interesting, or that my perspective faces a wall. This is the aggressive, destructive wolf calling the shots. The Gollum says “I don’t like their writing! Chuck them out of this list”. Incidentally, it is the creative one too, for without a little twist, my mind would be a barren landscape after all. Probably, it is also behind that reading list that I have named ‘Monotonously sad’. I still wait for the day when that list is empty. Oh but it isn’t, it never is and the funny thing is, majority of the world is in this list.

The other, the pacifying one, the rational one the supportive one, it rebuts the argument, “Look who you are comparing yourself with! The ones of your like, you usually don’t read, why? Because they write stupid things, or at least negative things in a non-artistic way, like you’re doing right now. The ones you do read are nothing like you. Barring a few, they’re people with lot of time at hand, they’re women, they’re retired personnel, and they are everything that you are not, and don’t want to be in whole. They’re like you were while in college, free, unbridled by the joy of writing things and not caring two hoots if the homework’s not done; you’ll get the master copy anyway, or at least, the problems they are facing are not at the frontiers of mankind which remain to be explored, and nothing like no one has ventured out to find a solution to them.” “You, my friend”, it continues, “you might not be on that frontier, but even when you are trying to move towards it, since you believe that it is there where you belong, even if it is to serve as a bad example which you hope not to become, you’ve to find things out which they don’t even think about. So rejoice that you’re at this altitude to look up to them and down on them in the same breath and also hope that they too have a similar latitude in their heads.” I cannot help but measure the amount of sarcasm that was just served to me by a white wolf and where, right in my head. I also see that

Now, isn’t it a matter to rejoice that my mind has a reconciliation agent inbuilt? That it holds me when I’m down? It tells me that comparing self to anyone, even myself from the distant past is wrong, and could be depressive and that I should avoid it. The other wolf, meanwhile, gruff as he usually is, laughs it off and rolls in the dirt around because that is how it grows, sustains itself. Besides this supposedly white wolf cannot be good if it asks me to eliminate the other. I ask, “Why can’t I just stop comparing myself, and why does it have to be a second thought to stop, this cautionary arresting of thoughts? Why do they have to originate in the first place when we know it is imprudent?” The black wolf smirks and before the white wolf has a chance to answer, it speaks, “Because no man is an island!”. The white wolf is happy with this answer as this was what he was going to say. But the black wolf doesn’t stop, it asks another question, now from me, “now tell me, what can we do to stop this comparison altogether?”, and I say “live alone”. The black wolf quips again, saying “you cannot do that either, can you? Even though you may want it, you may dearly like it, but you can’t, and you know why?” The two wolves suddenly come closer towards me, first as two, from two sides and then merging into one, grey wolf, saying the same words again “because no man is an island!” all the while licking the sweat beads off my face that the fear of two approaching wolves merging into one had put across my face.

They move backwards and again diverge as two, one black and one white, and sit on opposite sides, than where they were before. They ask me, “Do you see how it works now?” and yes I see, the hazard and the harmony of living on two levels.

They warn me that if I feed them equally, it could be a perilous thing to do, but if I killed one of them, I’d never know what it is like to know, for myself.

My Wolves

(Image Credits)