Wolfing Around

A friend of my husband’s who has some Native American blood remembers one of the female sages in the family observing that we all have two wolves inside us, a good wolf and a bad wolf, who are in frequent if not constant conflict. The wolf who wins is one  we feed.

I’m generally leery of white people absorbing and a-contextually repeating the wisdom of oppressed peoples. And I’m pretty convinced that we should spend more time listening to the wisdom of oppressed/colonized/under-respected peoples. Whee, a paradox. I love a good paradox.

Anyway, this one seems relevant, useful, illuminating, and potentially inspiring. Especially since I’ve talked a lot at various points about my running battle/engagement/relationship with my Inner Idiot Brat. You know you’re resorting to hyperbolic language when calling someone/some thing a “bad wolf” is  a move toward moderation…  but I think this shift might be worth spending some time with. Good wolf. Bad wolf.

Before I go there, I probably need to remind myself of some of the basic tenets of the World According to HAES (or. at least, my personal version): Bodies normatively come in many sizes. Healthy bodies normatively come in many sizes. Beautiful bodies come in many shapes and sizes. Weight is not an indicator of health or virtue or character. Normal, healthy eating can have many different patterns.

Because I am still very much entangled in the struggle to free myself of the (by now) autonomic response/belief that what I eat is a measure of who I am, and how I look is a measure of my worth, and that weight loss equals health. Because the truth is vastly more subtle and complex than that. Because a sane, healthy relationship with whatever body I have is my right as a human being as surely as it is my right to speak my mind and love according to my nature as long as neither of those things abridges any other human’s rights.

Because my sanity does not equal weight loss.
Because my health does not equal weight loss.
Because my worth does not equal weight loss.
Because my character and integrity do not equal weight loss.
Because my happiness does not equal weight loss.
Because my beauty does not equal weight loss.
Because my intelligence and competence do not equal weight loss.
Because my neither my morality, nor the state of my soul correlates to weight loss.

But all those things do involve feeding my “Good Wolf.” And some of what defines feeding the “Good Wolf” looks, on the surface, like things that normally involve weight loss: not eating more food than my body needs, eating foods that don’t stress my body and that nourish and sustain it, moving my body regularly and intentionally in ways that protect it. The difference, of course, is the goal, which is health, not meeting an artificially and externally constructed standard of health, but measurable, prove-able markers like a good A1C number, a healthy heart and other organs, non-scary fasting sugars, good blood pressure, reasonable endurance and energy levels, good sleep, and that important-but-hard-to-define sense of well-being. In my case, having my brain’s complicate relationship to neurotransmitters operate peaceably is also on the list. Some of those things, for one reason or another, require assistance from the pharmaceutical companies I so distrust. So be it. But many of them are within my control. And all of them are matters of feeding the Good Wolf.

So, for the sake of letting the whole thing seep thoroughly into my brain, let’s play with the metaphor a bit more:

The Bad Wolf is mangy and savage–its fur is untended and un-lush, and it kills for pleasure. it does not care for the other members of its pack, if it has a pack at all. It relishes havoc. It wounds animals without killing and leaves them to die in pain. It hunts on other pack’s grounds and takes food that is rightfully theirs. It is ugly. It stinks. It is alone. It will die young and unmourned.

The Good Wolf is still a wolf. It’s not cute. It’s not a pet. It’s not charming. What it is is a competent member of a pack–wherever in the pack hierarchy it is. It is fed. It shares. It kills cleanly and only for food. It cares for others in its pack. Its coat is thick and protective. It’s muscles are strong. It has a place in the order of things and will live its full life. Its death will be noticed and mourned.

Wolves are an interesting animal for the metaphor here–they are highly intelligent, have fascinatingly dense and complex social structures, and are closely related to their highly domesticated cousins, dogs. But while they might be beautiful, they are neither charming, nor emblems of the sort of individual, disconnected personalities Americans like to think of themselves as modelling. Of course, it’s a sometimes dumb, sometimes worthwhile model, especially insofar as it acknowledges and respects the sanctity and rights of each individual human life. But of course, that can only truly be protected and respected in the context of a social structure/contract–a pack, if you will. Another paradox–a really juicy and delicious one this time.

But it is important to consider, perhaps, the social, or pack issues involved when I feed the Bad Wolf. There’s a sort of bottom line on that one, for me, anyway. Not taking care of my body may very well translate into my not being around to see my grandson (and any future grand-darlings) grow up. It, in effect, robs both me and my loved ones. Pretty bad pack behavior. Pretty serious heartbreak to be risking.

Obviously, I could succumb to cancer, automotive chaos, or random violence. but those are the things I have no control over–for which I am most emphatically not responsible (yeah, I know the cancer issue is more complex than that, especially if it turns out that inflammation plays a huge role in it and there are things I can do about inflammation–but I do take aspirin regularly, and I can’t control for most other factors, as far as we know). They’re not the issue here.

Sometimes the Body Acceptance folks come awfully close to suggesting that anything goes, and any decision is okay and it’s fine to be fat if you want. Well, of course it is, as long as you’re willing to and able to deal with the consequences. But if you can’t move, sleep, bathe, dress, walk, or breathe, then you’re not the one dealing with the consequences–you’re making the world take care of you or clean up after you–rather like folks who claim that it’s their right to ride motorcycles without helmets without considering that all of us will end up paying for their medical costs when they grind their brains to mush on the side of the road. So there are limits. There are fat people who are spending their lives feeding the Bad Wolf. But there are skinny people like that, too. Who smoke, drink, gamble, chase money for its own sake, bully,–all sorts of Bad Wolf stuff. But the body Acceptance people are right: those limits are not about, per se, fat. They’re about Bad Wolf feeding.

Maybe I should name my wolves. Bad wolf: Cheney? Bomber? Bull? Lots of candidates. Good Wolf: Fussell or Gaiman or Rosa or Elizabeth. Got to think about this one.