Shadow

There was a man

Who was so disturbed

by the sight of his own shadow

and so displeased with his own footsteps

that he determined to get rid of both.

The method he hit upon was to run away from them

so he got up and ran.

But every time he put his foot down

there was another step

while his shadow kept up with him

without the slightest difficulty.

He attributed his failure

to the fact that he was not running fast enough

so he ran faster and faster, without stopping

until he finally dropped dead.

He failed to realize that is he merely stepped into the shade

his shadow would vanish

and if he sat down and stayed still

there would be no more footsteps. 

-Chuan Tzu

We are part of a culture that is full of fear. Much of that fear seems to arise around aspects of reality and ourselves that are out of our control or outside of the culturally defined limits of society, or normalcy. We fear the shadow aspects of ourselves and our society. By shadow self, I refer to the aspects of reality that do not reside in our normal, egoic awareness. Aspects of the collective or individual self that are undesirable or unacceptable, but remain nevertheless, despite our best attempts to ignore them. The devil inside of us, to use Christian mythology. What are some of the shadow elements of this culture? What aspects of who we are do we run from and are in need of stopping to observe? If we choose to follow this fear and simply be with it, what will we learn about ourselves and how could we grow?