Befriending Shadows

We are conditioned from childhood to be critical of our thoughts and our actions. This manipulation of the instinctual need for tribal approval is probably effective enough left unaggravated. Much unnecessary suffering is caused when instictual habitual assessments are made with a view that is hostile to vagaries that are inherently human.

We do not expect our friends to be infallible. We tend to see our friends more or less as they are, and accept with good-will the idiosyncrasies that are the marks of individuality. We extend good-will when they trip on the stones of their humanity, and comfort when error has led them to sorrow. We will not jeopardise friendship by harping on some small flaw. Friends extend counsel in the face of error, and in the face of error give support such as can though the friend may have been foolish or unwise. If you have no friends who will tell you when you are fucking up, you don't have any friends at all; but this is a far cry from a beating over the head for every failure to operate in optimum mode.

Many actions for which we berate ourselves express a need to jump fences we have made in ourselves. Fervor that religious sects exhibit is due to fear that without ridged behavioral guidelines humanity would reduce to chaos. This is not so. The will to good is instinctual, and the natural aversion to disorder does not require pathological proportions. Self destructive behaviors: emotional, intellectual, physical, are almost always unconsidered attempts to jump fences that we have set up in ourselves with the generous help of others.

We cannot be set free by chaining ourselves to a self image, and unless we befriend ourselves we can never afford to see ourselves as we are. We run from our shadow because we have not embraced our shadow.

Shadows

the setting sun has put the sky ablaze

trees loom black

shadows reach long

there are shadows without

there are shadows within

vacancies in luminance

when perceived

appear as creatures of a nether light