#riddle problems

There's that story about the two wolves, one with all your darkness and one with all your light, always fighting each other, and the idea that the one that wins is the one you feed. But starved, desperate wolves are vicious fighters, snarling and snapping and nasty. And it seems dangerous to try to kill a part of yourself, to deny it entirely, pretend it isn't there, smother it, ignore it, because I suspect it doesn't die but it might get so small and slight and sly that you forget it's there. And then when it bites you'll be surprised and outraged because you thought you didn't have that part anymore. And no person is half a person, and to take away half is to leave them in immense pain, or possibly deadened. Or possibly it's actually impossible and the other half just goes quiet, hibernates, waits, or does things on the sly, things you barely notice, a trickster in the dark. I think this might be one of the reasons Gillian Flynn is so popular as a writer - she speaks to the Other Wolf, in women in particular because that's one of her stated goals, but absolutely also to men (love to see what she'd do with NB characters). I don't think you can starve the other wolf out without losing a part of yourself, and I think it might be good even if exhausting that they're often fighting each other, or at least play fighting, because you're always testing your idea of goodness, of which wolf to listen to, and it may be that there are a lot of times when two fed wolves can agree, when they might be able to stop fighting and be a pack. If you're starving one, not giving it the air and space to hear what it's trying to tell you, they'll always be fighting, because a starved wolf is cruel and defensive and the fed wolf is ... sort of smug about its strength, certain of its primacy, confused about why this fight is even still happening, maybe trying to lay down arms and not understanding why the Other Wolf won't, and, crucially, fighting with the certainty that it will win and so Not Listening.

It is possible to harm others because you feel too small, like power is something you've been denied and need to steal and take and take and take in order ever to have any (Tom Riddle) and it is possible to harm others because you feel too big, like it just makes sense that you would be more right and know better than other people what they need and what the world needs and you're just going to do it for and to them until they listen (Albus Dumbledore). And although a lot of people may lean more in one direction than the other, I think anyone is capable of committing either kind of harm. And it would be so good if we could describe more kinds of behaviour as abusive and just have that mean "you should work on, and seek help in working on, changing this, because it causes harm, and you should not destroy yourself in order to change it, because you matter too" and not, and never, "you are a monster, you are sick, you are bad". Because I really really really think everyone is capable of committing acts that harm, and we are not monsters for having that capacity within us.