Cain was an interesting character to try and create. As I write his story, he continues to evolve in ways I hadn’t anticipated, challenging me to think differently about how to approach the challenges I come up with for him.
One of his founding philosophies is the story of the two wolves – a Native American tale that is meant to teach one how to properly deal with things like anxiety and fear. Throughout Ballad and Aria, I tried to call back to the tale in order to shape the story in a way that people could use in their own lives, as the tenets of it have definitely helped me get through some really dire challenges of my own.
Here’s the gist: There are two wolves inside all of us, locked in constant battle. One is light, made of hope, trust, love, and joy. The other is darkness, made of hate, jealousy, fear and suspicion. Which one wins the fight? The answer is the one you feed. The more you feed hate, the stronger it will become within you, and will color your interactions with those around you. The same is true of love. The choice we are all faced with, and have power over, is which one we choose.
James and Ian, being more accustomed to the world of social media, instant gratification and everything else new-world, are the perfect vehicle to show how learning from this philosophy can help deal with some very real world issues like anxiety. They, like most of us, grew up in a world that has increasingly turned up the volume on acute mental disorders, and find themselves locked into thought circles where the despair or fear inside them becomes inescapable due to the feedback loop that feeding the dark wolf causes. In Aria, this becomes dangerous as James is left to run a new society without Cain’s counsel.
Years ago, I had a battle with the dark wolf that resulted in the loss of jobs, the breakdown of a marriage, and several public celebrity style blowups that obliterated a massive chunk of my work and left me back at square one. It took me years to learn that most of the issue – the things that conspired to bring me down – were of my own construction. Artifacts of the feedback loop where I would feed the anxiety I was feeling with suspicion and mistrust until I believed wholeheartedly that I was the only correct person in the argument du jour, and everyone else was literally out to get me. It wasn’t until very recently (the last 6 years or so), that I realized this and made a conscious effort to change myself and my approach to conflict.
The result? The people around me are no longer the enemy. I’m able to have good, symbiotic relationships that build both parties in positive ways, and when adversity presents itself, I find myself looking for opportunity in it rather than falling into a spiral of fear. I found my calling and I’m actually pursuing it, while continuing to grow in my career as well. Now, this doesn’t come without downsides, but at the very least, I know that I can now face any adversity that comes my way with a level head and I will come out of the interaction okay.
Feed the right wolf.
