Feeding the Right Wolf

When I was reading Carl Morse’s poem, “How To Watch Your Brother Die,” I experiences a wide range of emotions that came and went surprisingly quickly. I think that no matter how strongly we hold an intellectual belief, there is always a part of us that in some way reverts to an entrenched prejudice that we have not yet drowned. Pema Chodron Wrote a book called “Taking the Leap: Freeing Ourselves From Old Habits and Fears.” The first chapter of the book, “Feeding the Right Wolf,” talks about mental habits and how mindfulness can help us to overcome our entrenched ways of thinking and create new defaults that are beneficial to life. She draws an analogy of a river, and describes every action and thought as a drop of water. We have large rivers that have built up over years of drop after drop being put in them, and if we wish to change these things about ourselves, we must instead put drops in a new river. And while we may actively prefer a newer and smaller river, it is not helpful to deny the existence of other rivers. I think that many of us who consider ourselves progressive individuals find it uncomfortable to acknowledge our own prejudices if we are uncomfortable with them. As I was reading Morse’s poem, there were times where I felt deeply sad and empathetic, but I knew that I was making some assumptions because of prejudices that have been socialized into me and most people in our society. I think that I often feel the desire to ignore these and pretend I don’t feel them, and I can only assume that others do the same. But I think that perhaps an acknowledgement of these feelings followed by a conscious reinforcement of our intellectual beliefs would result in us putting out drops into the right river–feeding the right wolf.