 
Discover Your Innate Self-esteem

by

John Kuti

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

Published on Smashwords by:

John Kuti

Copyright 2013 by John Kuti

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

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For my sweet wife Lynn

I would like to thank my lovely wife Lynn A'Court for her invaluable input and contribution to this book.

Her Weaverbird attention to clarity and detail has made this book so much better than I could have ever managed to do myself.

Her resilience as the sounding board for these new ideas has also been most important in their framing and description.

_Her ongoing encouragement and support are fundamental to my work, my life and_ _happiness._

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 Weaverbirds

Chapter 2 Peafowl

Chapter 3 Wolves

Chapter 4 Social Self-esteem: The Things We Do For Love

Chapter 5 Friendship, Love, Marriage and Divorce

Chapter 6 Parenting and Childhood

Chapter 7 Work, Culture and Society

Introduction

Most authorities now agree that self-esteem is the necessary base on which a healthy personality and healthy relationships rest. It has come to be seen as the crucial cornerstone of the psyche. Courses and curriculum for both adults and children are continually being developed to encourage the understanding and expression of self-esteem. But where does it come from, and where does it go?

Why does it seem to be unquenchable in some, and such a tender flame in others? Like art, we know self-esteem when we see it, know it when we feel it, but have almost no way of explaining what it is. What this book proposes to do is to describe the three completely different ways self-esteem exhibits itself in people. The root and stalk of self-esteem may as yet be inexplicable, but I propose that its three primary leaves are absolutely distinct and describable.

How well we understand and accept our own particular model of self-esteem will dictate, to a large degree, how we choose to live our life, the satisfaction it offers us, why we will make the choices we do, and how we decide what life means to us. What our marriages will be like, what kind of lover, parent, worker and citizen we will be, the job we'll choose and how we will feel about it, the car we drive and how we pack our clothes will depend very much on our particular type of self-esteem. The model of self-esteem that will be ours will be determined by how we feel we compare to other people. Some of us feel that our value as human beings is the same as that of others. Some of us just don't have an internal standard to measure how we compare to others. Some of us feel that we are born gifted and special in some way.

To understand and describe these three separate models of human self-esteem, I have used the behaviour patterns of three animals to represent and distinguish among them. This book is called Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves because these three creatures, in their behaviour, both independently and in social relationships, are very much like the three kinds of human self-esteem. These patterns of behaviour are innate to these animal species, whereas in humans, things are more complicated because we often feel we have to behave in ways that are contrary to what feels true to our own nature.

Before we can discuss such confusion, we have to look at what those three patterns of behaviour are.

Weaverbirds, an Introduction

Weaverbirds look alike and behave in very similar ways. They are conformists. They live in colonies. Security is everything to a weaverbird. The nest and what it represents are the primary focus in life. The male weaverbird wins a mate by making a nest that most pleases the female.

Since a weaverbird nests in great communities, this is no easy task. For responsible, hard working parents, nesting and rearing offspring represent the greatest success and satisfaction in life. To do this, security is what is most necessary to a weaverbird's life: security of numbers, security in behaviour, the security of hard work and commitment to family.

We all know human Weaverbirds, the silent majority who live in traditional houses, have traditional jobs, take as few risks as possible, and find their greatest satisfaction in providing a secure home and loving environment for their children.

What pattern of self-esteem do Weaverbirds represent?

Weaverbirds see each other as equals. Total egalitarians, they see themselves as basically no better or no worse than anyone else. They believe that all people are created equal, and that one does to others what one wishes others to do in return.

Peafowl, an Introduction

Peafowl have perhaps the greatest challenges in life because, for whatever reason, in their hearts they believe they have no way to measure how they compare in value to others, so they consistently underestimate their value as people.

Peafowl are either unrelenting givers or insatiable takers. Reaction! Reaction! Reaction!

Peafowl live and die in other people's eyes because they have little intrinsic sense of their own self-worth. No matter how much they give or how much they receive from life, they never feel it is enough for them to feel satisfied with who they are. No matter how rich or how famous or how loved, a Peafowl never believes it is real or could possibly last but a moment. The givers blame themselves; the takers blame everyone but themselves. The Peacock, the taker, believes in style, not substance, strutting, preening, posturing, demanding constant attention, sometimes screaming for it, and at the extreme, even becoming violent to get it.

At the extreme, Peacocks, the takers, whether male or female, are the majority of the abusers in life, the ones who can lose sight of another's worth because they have no real sense of their own. They see power in terms of bribes or coercion because they don't understand why anyone would do anything for them otherwise.

Peahens, the givers, whether male or female, defer, placate, rationalize and suffer. Their cries for help are in depression or martyrdom. When Janis Joplin sang, "Take another little piece of my heart now, Baby,. . . if it makes you feel good," we saw the irony of someone with so little self-esteem, standing before thousands, feeling glory in her own martyrdom to love.

For a Peafowl, it is either always about me or never about me. And that is a very hard way to find any lasting satisfaction in life.

Wolves, an Introduction

Wolf society is more like our human society than that of the great ape. A wolf's place in society is determined through individual power, prowess, confidence and authority. Wolf society is hierarchical yet co-operative; there are roles and status as well as responsibilities and interdependency. Innate confidence and optimism are the distinguishing traits of a wolf.

In human Wolves, the desire for individual authority is either seen as an act of willpower or a gift from a higher power, God or Fate. Often, human Wolves see their accomplishments as simply taking advantage of gifts they can't explain. But, regardless of how they see their special nature, they have an unshakeable belief in their worth and an absolute confidence in what they, can do. The human Wolf extends power and influence over as much of their world as possible, staking territory and defending it for the sake of the group, the greater meaning, the pack, society.

Whether this territory is intellectual or artistic, or real and tangible, Wolves have an overriding sense of a greater purpose. No matter how individualistic, or how strong the ego, human Wolves seek to lead a group to a greater purpose. Wolves are on a mission. Ambition! Ambition! Ambition!

Wolf ambitions extend to far more than personal glory. Whether they are worlds of ideas or practical reality like government and business, new territories call that must be explored and consolidated for the greater good. Wolves inspire. It is how they lead. Bribes and threats are clumsy tools to lead a group to a common good, and Wolves know it.

So those are the three patterns of self-esteem. Recognizing our own can be a long and difficult journey for some, or one that seems effortless to others. That's why we are so much more complicated than animals.

Why some people see themselves as the equal of others, inferior to others, or superior to others is impossible to say. But it is clear that those are the three patterns people are divided among. And whether it is innate or a product of early development is yet to be understood completely. The few studies that apply seem to say it may be innate.

Recognizing our own kind of self-esteem is something that, as we will see in this book, is invaluable to understanding ourselves, our lives and others as well. We all know someone who, after many years, or a personal crisis, suddenly changes. Hard driving professionals suddenly go back to the land. Housewives start businesses that explode into empires. For some it takes a long time to discover what matters most. And what matters most will come from how we see ourselves, and how we value that self.

Unlike animals, which innately know the rules of acceptance and rejection, people are accepted for being one thing by some, and rejected for the same thing by others. Parents, friends, co-workers, society have such varied and conflicting reaction to who we are, that it is very difficult to understand and appreciate what we should value in ourselves. This Social Self-esteem depends on how the world treats us, how we are accepted or rejected by our world.

This book is about the deeper kind of self-esteem, our Innate Self-esteem that we base on how we feel we compare to others, and how we feel we compare to others will depend very little on how we are treated or the things that we accomplish. None of the three kinds of self-esteem limits what we can accomplish. They do, however, determine how we feel about those accomplishments.

In the last seventy years there have been three Weaverbirds, four Peacocks and four Wolves who became presidents of the United States. Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford and George Bush Sr. were Weaverbirds. They became President because of hard work, a sense of responsibility and a desire to serve. Their ambition began, most especially, in a responsible way to provide for their families. Fate and circumstance, more than ambition, led them to the presidency.

John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and G.W. Bush were all Peafowl. Nixon and Johnson were obsessed with power and ambition because they thought so little of themselves. Power was to give them a place in history, bribes and intimidation their tools of choice to get it. And no matter how high they rose, there was always an enemy out to get them. No support, no loyalty was ever enough. They tried for incredible glory and sank to despicable acts to get it: Peacocks to the extreme. John Kennedy was a pure narcissist, living to satisfy his father's dreams of glory, even if it had to be bought from mobsters. G.W. Bush needed to be president to be someone that mattered for more than his charm.

Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton and Barak Obama were and are Wolves. Theirs was a grander purpose. Carter's mission was a moral America. Reagan's was to destroy Communism. Clinton's was to balance liberal compassion with fiscal conservatism. Obama's is to reconcile American ideological differences. Beginning with only their own optimism and confidence, they inspired people to believe they could accomplish such improbable goals. It is truly amazing what they did. It is amazing they would even try to offer Americans the cohesion of a pack with a shared purpose.

Yet for presidents and ordinary people it is hard to know what is at the core of our beings: How we see and understand the strengths and weaknesses, limits and potentials of our true natures. The process of coming to see and understand the way others see and value themselves is just as important as understanding ourselves.

None of the three patterns of self-esteem precludes anything in life. No matter how we feel about ourselves, the source of human nature is predominantly good. Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves can be fine people, spouses, parents and members of society. Each has the challenge of understanding and appreciating how they can make a life that is rich and fulfilling, and that satisfies the deepest feelings and potentials of the human spirit. And that challenge will best be met if we understand that how we compare ourselves to others determines what we believe is true and important and real.

Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves are like three different cultures with their own individual strengths and weaknesses that can either enrich the world or lay it to waste.

We will come to see that any of the three kinds of self-esteem, when taken to an extreme, is dangerous and destructive. We will also come to see that there is no correct way to compare ourselves to others, that we are not equal, inferior or superior in value to others. Our value is as individuals, and that is something beyond compare.

Who I Am and What I Am Worth

Who we are is incredibly difficult to know, and it is even more difficult to express. Great artists, with incredible gifts of self-expression, can be a mystery to others, and even to themselves. All of Shakespeare's plays and poems display the most incredible understanding of the human spirit. Yet what do all those plays tell us about who Shakespeare was as a person, how he felt about others and how he felt about himself? No matter how gifted we are at self-expression, our self will always be beyond description, and just beyond our understanding.

Nonetheless how we value ourselves is incredibly important. It was important to Shakespeare, it is important to us all. How we value ourselves will determine, to a great degree, how we live our lives, and even more importantly, how satisfying our lives will be to us and to those we touch.

How we value ourselves, and how others value us, is clearly a process of comparison. Is what I am, who I am, better or worse than the people that I meet, the people that I admire, the people that I don't even like?

We compare ourselves to others from our earliest days. And others compare us from the moment that we are born. "Such a good baby": people say such things all the time. Does that mean that there are bad babies? It's implied that there are; and it certainly says that right from the beginning, we are being judged, being compared.

It is the common belief that self-esteem comes from how others value us in our earliest years. Many studies indicate that a baby that is loved, valued, praised and encouraged will grow up to value himself or herself positively. This is not necessarily true.

Children, who are loved, valued and respected, sometimes grow up to self-loathing and self-destruction. How many fine and well-loved people have moved past the slow self-destruction of drugs to suicide? And how many brutalized, abused children have grown up to be strong, loving people, with a profound appreciation of life?

In a television documentary on Romanian orphans, two cases showed how environment, even one as cruel, harsh, and inhuman as the one in Romanian orphanages, could exhibit profoundly different self-esteem in survivors. One boy was adopted at three, and by the time he was five, was uncontrollable, without any empathy for others, a very young, very violent, seemingly sociopathic child. The lack of care had done its worst. Brain scans revealed that most of these orphaned children suffered abnormal brain development because of their lack of stimulation and care. Yet the majority of these children, when they were adopted, longed for love, and longed to give it. In most, the human spirit seemed to be unquenchable. Despite incredible deficits and handicaps, children who were treated like animals in cages, became loving, lovely children. They had a profound sense of their own value, and the deep longing to have it recognized by others.

Another boy, who spent eleven years in one of the worst of these snake pits, had polio and multiple handicaps, but, after being adopted by a loving family, was on his school swim team, baseball team, had good marks, and wanted to become a lawyer so he could go back to Romania and save those children still in orphanages. Here is a boy who is an inspiration, who does so much more with so much less than many who have had all the care and nurture a child deserves. Why?

Somehow, some children suffer and come to feel and believe that they are worthless. Some children are loved and come to believe the same thing. And some children, no matter how they suffer, or what they endure, shine with a humanity that is both inspiring and humbling to those of us who have never known how brutal and heartless this world can be. Why this happens is awesomely simple. They just never believe it. Some children, no matter how they are loved, never believe it. Some, no matter how they are abused, ever come to believe that their value as human beings is in question. We all have a sense, very early in life, of how we feel about ourselves. When this happens, how it happens, or why it happens, cannot be explained. But that it does happen seems irrefutable. Children judge their own worth, and compare themselves to others, regardless of how others feel about them.

So, is our feeling of self-esteem set permanently inside us at birth, or is how we feel about ourselves something that can be enhanced, developed, or even changed? If our feeling of self-worth is innate, we may have no way to change how we feel we compare to others. There may be no therapy, no attention that can change that underlying feeling. A person may intellectually understand that they are as good as anyone else, but be unable to feel it. Yet many studies and experiments have shown that how a person is treated can profoundly affect how they feel about themselves.

How can both be true? How can self-esteem be innate and yet be something that can be developed, encouraged, even changed from negative to positive? It is possible that both are true. Our innate sense of self-worth is like a foundation buried underground that is the unchanging way we feel we compare to others; whether we feel equal, inferior or superior in our worth. This kind of self-esteem may be called Innate Self-esteem.

How we feel about the circumstances of our lives is based on our feelings of acceptance and rejection by the world we live in. This type of self-esteem may be called Social Self-esteem. And that is something that can change, develop and improve. We can make a life that is the best we can do with the opportunities that we have. And no matter which of the three foundations that we build our lives upon, we can build a good life, and never come to the end of its possibilities.

Our foundation, our Innate Self-esteem may never change. Our Social Self-esteem, what we build on that foundation, will and must change as we grow.

Social Self-esteem

As we have said, Social Self-esteem is based on the degree to which we feel accepted or rejected in our lives. Our families, friends, peers, co-workers, teachers, and even strangers can affect how we feel about ourselves. We are social animals for whom rejection by others can be incredibly painful. That is true for everyone. We all know that's true because everyone, at some time, has felt the hurt of being told that what we are is not acceptable. Children suffer it from parents, from their siblings, from teachers and friends. It goes on through life even though we may also find affirmation and acceptance that gives us positive feelings of our own value. Yet on balance, growing up seems to carry far more perceived rejection for children, if the studies showing the precipitous drop in self-esteem from grade school to the end of high school are true.

Children respond in different ways to this assault on their self-esteem. The difference in their response will depend mostly on which of the three kinds of Innate Self-esteem they have as their foundation. Dr. Roy Baumeister, in a meta study of 2000 school programs that ran at least 5 years found little benefit or change in students. "Despite the enthusiastic embrace of self-esteem, we found that it conferred only two benefits. It feels good and it supports initiative. Those are nice, but they are far less than we had once hoped for, and it is very questionable whether they justify the effort and expense that schools, parents and therapists have put into raising self-esteem."

Innate Self-esteem

As we have discussed, the permanent foundation of our Innate Self-esteem depends on how we feel we compare to others, and we do that in one of three ways.

Weaverbirds believe that they are of an equal value to others; that they have as much to contribute as the next person, that they deserve and offer an equal measure of respect to everyone. Peafowl underestimate their value in comparing themselves to others, because they feel that any acceptance in this world has to be earned. Self-esteem is entirely a matter of the acceptance and rejection of others. Wolves feel that they are special, gifted, with the natural authority flowing from those special gifts. We all have one of those three ways of comparing ourselves to others. The fascinating thing about how we feel we compare to others is that it has almost nothing to do with our attributes as people. How we feel we compare to others will have little to do with how intelligent, how attractive, how brave or articulate we are. None of the qualities that we will base our feelings of Social Self-esteem upon will have anything to do with whether we are Weaverbirds, Peafowl or Wolves. How we compare ourselves to others is almost a completely arbitrary assessment.

There is, in fact, no way to measure whether someone is equal, inferior or superior in value to another. Yet compare we do, and it seems that compare we must.

One longitudinal study of self-esteem suggests that we have already decided how we feel we compare to others by the time we are eighteen months old. And this decision never seemed to change in at least the twenty-year study period. The greatest task of self-discovery may be in coming to realize which of the three hidden foundations of Innate Self-esteem is our own.

Who We Think We Are

Understanding the hidden foundation of our Innate Self-esteem is so difficult because we are compared and measured by the standards of Social Self-esteem. Because we are, as children, without any real sense of who we are, we try to be what we are told is good to be. We try not to be what people tell us we should not be. In trying to emulate and please those who care for us, we come to believe that who we are, is in great part, what others say we are. We come to believe we are worth what others feel we are worth. The elaborate structure of our Social Self-esteem rises to reflect what our environment approves and rejects. If we have things to win social approval, we will incorporate those things in how we feel about ourselves.

We will come to believe we are intelligent, attractive, creative, funny or foolish depending on what we are told about ourselves. A child who believes he's intelligent can be shocked when put in a class of gifted children. That he is no longer the brightest may get him to question his own worth.

Sometimes the life we have built on the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem feels like home. Sometimes it feels like a prison. We may have done all the things that the world says is important. We may have become what the world says it is good to be. Yet sometimes that just feels wrong. What it is that feels wrong, why it feels wrong, can seem impossible to understand because we have believed that we are what the world says we are. Just as the way we compare ourselves to others is arbitrary, so too the value that others assign to us is arbitrary.

In the teen years we feel that most profoundly because we have not developed the elaborate structures of Social Self-esteem. We have little power, money, status or achievement to prove our worth. We only know that people do not seem to see or understand who we are. We don't understand it ourselves because our whole experience is with the measures of Social Self-esteem.

At first, we must pick those things in us that we feel our world does value and are valuable.

Then, as we learn independence, what is valuable to us is no longer a matter of a blind acceptance of the choices the world says we should make, but from what experience has told us we have found to be satisfying, fulfilling ways to live our lives and express who we are.

Independence

Independence is sometimes perceived as being a state where we don't need others. That is not true. We are social animals who will always need others to have a satisfying life.

Independence is getting to the point where we do not need others to decide what is best for our lives; what we should find and believe is important. Independence is the understanding that we deserve that respect, just as we understand that we must give it in return by recognizing the value and independence of others. We must not decide who another should be, just as we would not have others decide that for us. Even as we accept and approve of some and reject and disapprove of others, we must do that with the respect for who and what they have independently chosen to be. In order to give this respect, and to appreciate that different people have different ways of valuing themselves and others, it would be invaluable to understand the three different foundations of Innate Self-esteem that make people see and value the world so differently.

Chapter 1

Weaverbirds

In nature, weaverbirds live in large flocks. In Africa, some species of weaverbird have flocks of a hundred thousand or more. And, as they nest in colonies, they cover enormous trees with thousands of nests that sometimes actually topple the trees with their weight. These enormous flocks can descend on grain fields and strip them bare in a very short time.

Non-aggressive, non-territorial, conforming to a common set of rules of behaviour makes weaverbirds enormously successful at raising their offspring. Sometimes, however, they suffer the terrible consequences of their own success by destroying their own nest trees, and stripping their environment of food. To gain security for their family, weaverbirds give up most of their individual freedom of action. With this they also give up any way of appreciating or understanding or responding to the consequences of growth and ever expanding numbers.

Human cities have the same problems because they are organized in the same way: individuals giving up independent freedom to follow a set of rules of conformity that make the family as safe as possible.

Our Weaverbird World

Since human beings decided to gather in settled communities, society has been built on the foundation of Weaverbird values. Hard work, conformity, non-aggressiveness among members of the group, has given people the collective security to flourish and multiply incredibly. Western civilization has been built on these "family values" and has faced, and still faces, the consequences of that success.

Until the twentieth century, when most people lived in rural communities surrounding trading centres, family values seemed to be undeniably effective in giving an effective order to the world. But as cities and the social institutions to run them grew and grew, as ethnic nationalism enlarged the flock even further, Weaverbird values seemed unable, in the twentieth century, to stop the self-destructive aggression and social deterioration that has happened on an unimaginable scale. Flocks have turned on one another; cities have rotted; crime runs wild; the environment is under a global assault. Nest trees are falling!

Our society has reflected the strengths and weaknesses of its members' "family values." Conformity has created institutions that reflect those values. This past century has seen the consequences and limitations of those same "family values."

The Individual Weaverbird

The individual Weaverbird reflects the family values of conformity, responsibility, consistency, hard work and respect for authority. But what does all this have to do with personal self-esteem? For humans, self-esteem is based on the way each individual feels that their value compares to that of others.

For a conforming, security driven Weaverbird, that means feeling that everyone has an equal value. It is only this equal way of valuing and comparing oneself to another that makes it possible to create a society of co-operation and mutual interest so that enormous numbers of people can live together successfully. The nuclear family becomes the extended family. Only people who see themselves as equal in value to others will find it easy to give up individual freedom for the sake of a secure, predictable conformity.

The mutual security of the group demands a common set of responsibilities that each individual accepts in order to be included as a member of the group. Those responsibilities can only be understood if they are recognized as rules that are clear, inflexible, and apply to all members equally. Custom and politeness are the informal rules that a human Weaverbird society requires for personal interaction. Laws are the mandatory, codified rules that a group enforces on all its members.

The Rules Are the Rules

For a Weaverbird who believes in the equal value of all members of the group, and who believes in equal rights and equal responsibilities, everyone's point of view is equally valid, equally worthy of respect and consideration. Yet if everyone's point of view is equally valid, how is it possible to reconcile points of view that are either different, or opposite, or even hostile to the majority view? There are two ways to do that: social pressure to get people to conform, or explicit rules of conduct that require people to follow accepted rules and laws.

The courts, the police, and the army are the enforcing instruments that society uses to make people follow its rules. Conformity is only possible if everyone knows the rules and knows the price of breaking them. Without these explicit rules, Weaverbirds don't know what to do. In Eastern Canada, during the Ice Storm of l998, police had to be dispatched to a subdivision where the stop lights were not working, because everyone was being so polite, they were unable to decide who's turn it was next. A policeman was required to end the gridlock. "After you, Alphonse," is a Weaverbird axiom of good behaviour.

Authority

Where do the rules that Weaverbirds rely on, come from? In a democracy, they come from the legislatures, and they also come from social institutions like the Church, schools, the workplace, clubs and class groups. In a dictatorship, the same institutions set rules of behaviour, except that one man has the power to set or to override any of the rules other institutions may set.

In either a democracy or a dictatorship, those who have the power to set and enforce the rules can turn on anyone they see as not conforming. People can kill and are killed, imprisoned, fired, blacklisted, expelled, excommunicated or shunned if the social authority decides that someone is acting outside the rules. This preserves the social order in tyrannies and democracies alike.

Weaverbirds readily accept a world where their individual autonomy must be compromised for the sake of social stability. Weaverbirds know the benefits of the rules of order, and are willing to pay a great price to get it. The weakness of the Weaverbirds' way of ordering the world is that there is no easy way to distinguish between different and sometimes competing points of view. If everyone's point of view deserves equal respect within the rules, then society has to accept that it must defend points of view that are antithetical or even abhorrent to most members of the group. If social pressure does not make people conform, and they are within the strict limits of the law, there is little that a Weaverbird society can do.

The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed every individual's right to religious expression. This may seem a fundamental and precious right, one that recognizes a fundamental respect for different ways of worship. Prisoners in federal prisons have insisted on those rights, declaring steak, sex, and drugs to be sacraments that must be allowed as part of their religious beliefs.

Two women sued their boss for sexual harassment because he had a picture of his own wife in a one-piece bathing suit on his own desk. Because they saw this picture as intimidating them, and because it was their right to decide what was inappropriate under the law, they won their suit. The Civil Liberties Union defends the equal right to self-expression of pornographers and Neo-Nazis whose goal is to force society to accept values that would mean its own destruction.

Equal rights for every point of view means having to defend the rights of those who want to take away your own. Tolerance for the intolerant is a contradiction no Weaverbird society can endure for long. As long as everyone agrees on the rules of behaviour in society, a Weaverbird world works pretty well. But as soon as someone insists on the right to be different, a Weaverbird society begins a slow, inexorable slide to disintegration.

Look at Communist China. Look at post-war Japan. Rigid, conforming societies show the disintegration of the common acceptance of rules of order. We have seen the same thing happen in the West. We have also seen the backlash against those who insist on their own expression of constitutional rights and freedoms.

The Weaverbird world of "family values" is fighting desperately to survive, but Weaverbirds do not want to give up the benefits of their three thousand years of Weaverbird rules of social order. They do not want a world that accepts laziness and irresponsibility and disrespect for traditions and authorities, because such a world does not have the security they want for themselves and their children. Having had their own rules used so effectively against them, the Weaverbird majority is frustrated, angry, and no longer silent in their helplessness at being unable to preserve the order of conformity that is necessary for a successful flock. Enter G.W. Bush and the religious right.

Until the last half of the century, Weaverbirds accepted the world and the rules they were given as being ultimately more important and more powerful than the individual. Another reason that the Silent Majority was always silent was because they believed that "You can't fight city hall.": the rules are the rules and you just have to get used to it. Even for a worthy cause, the power of the rule setter was too great to fight. Besides, what was one individual doing trying to disturb the social order? If you want to be part of the flock, you have to move with the flock.

The Weaverbird Personality

Weaverbird societies have a hard time dealing with competing and divergent interests, as do individual Weaverbirds. If everyone's opinion deserves equal respect, what do you do if you disagree? What do you do if someone asks you to respect an opinion you abhor? What if the boss is spending money on a new office rather than desperately needed equipment? What if a co-worker is taking credit for things done by others? What if you learn your company is knowingly poisoning its workers? What is a Weaverbird to do?

Even when the accepted rules of social behaviour, like protecting the health of workers, are being broken, Weaverbirds usually find it hard to stand up to authority. Everyone knows the risk of complaining to a powerful institution about its bad behaviour. Jailed, fired, excommunicated or worse, that's often the price. And most Weaverbirds are loath to risk their family's security to do so.

Weaverbird conformity follows good rules and just authority. But Weaverbird conformity can often follow bad rules and unjust, even monstrous authority. That may be the reason it is so easy to get decent, ordinary people to do terrible things. Throughout history, genocide was carried out by just such ordinary people. Conformity can cut two completely different ways.

A Delicate Balance

If you see individuals as being basically equal in value, not only will you cling more and more to the rules of order and those who enforce them, but you will feel that life exists in a very fine balance that can be very easily thrown completely awry. All balances are delicate ones, by definition, and Weaverbirds believe that completely. A Weaverbird doesn't speak out when they see something wrong from more than an equal respect for a different point of view. They don't speak out because "You don't rock the boat." And one doesn't rock the boat because, if one does, everyone could end up in the drink.

Weaverbirds conform because long term stability is always more important than anything that could be accomplished through a short-term disruption. Life is in balance. The world is in balance. Stay seated and keep rowing. Again, the strength of a Weaverbird is the weakness of a Weaverbird.

The only times, and the only ways Weaverbirds like to make decisions, take any risk, is through consensus. If we all agree on a risky decision. . . and all decisions are risky. . . then we will all suffer equally if it fails, and we all will be rewarded equally if it succeeds. Weaverbirds love a committee. The committee, the Inquiry, the Commission, and the family meeting are the favoured forum for Weaverbirds to confront decisions. Because community is so vital to a Weaverbird, consensus is the best way to recognize everyone as part of the common interest. It's also the best way to keep your head down.

Weaverbirds Are Worry Birds

The absolutely distinguishing characteristic of Weaverbirds is how much they worry.

Weaverbirds worry about the big things like how they are doing at work; how effective they are as parents and spouses; how responsible they are as citizens of their community. They also worry about the little things. Because they see life as being in a delicate balance that can spin wildly out of control if it's not given constant attention, they have to worry about everything that can disrupt it.

They worry about car repairs, laundry, a healthy diet, and cholesterol. They worry about neatness and appropriate dress, hygiene, and halitosis. They worry if they said enough or too much. They worry that they have been offended or that they have given offence. They worry about whether visitors will enjoy their stay and worry that, if they enjoy their stay, they will want to come back too often.

Jerry Seinfeld is a classic Weaverbird. All he does is worry. He worries about minor annoyances like he worries about major decisions. But mostly he worries about the rules. What is the correct decision in civilized society? These countless worries about rules of order and behaviour are vital for a Weaverbird.

Jerry has to know the rules for making a date or breaking a date. He has to know how the rules change with the length and seriousness of the relationship. What are the rules for giving a gift and asking for it to be returned? What are the rules for waiting in line, and eating ones peas? It is crucial to know if breasts are real or whether someone you are dating has dated someone beneath them. There are rules for saying no and ones for saying yes and incredible ones for when you can say maybe. There are rules about who you can ask to help you move, and rules for breaking up in person or on the phone. For Jerry, the rules of order and good relationships are maintained and destroyed by worrying. It's not enough. It's too much. How do you know unless you worry? And he's right! Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. A stitch in time saves nine.

Weaverbird worry makes the world go round and puts toilet paper back on the roll. The wonders of our civilization are built on Weaverbirds worrying about the things that can go wrong that can threaten life's precarious balance. The problem for the individual Weaverbird is that there is no end to worry. A Weaverbird is never completely secure. Worry begets worry and this begets even more worry.

The best image of the way a Weaverbird sees and responds to life is that of a juggler who spins plates on the end of sticks. Spinning one plate is easy, so is two or ten. But spin more and more, until some of the plates start to wobble, and the plate spinning Weaverbird has to run faster and faster to keep all the plates spinning. The dental check-up, the insurance bill, what's for supper, kid's soccer, cutting the grass, calling your mother, what's happening at work, when to have sex, plate after plate after plate needing attention and care. And because there can never be too much security, Weaverbirds spin more and more plates, and have to run faster and faster to do it.

The effect of all the spinning and all the running, and all the worrying about which plates are wobbling and which plates are getting ready to wobble, is exhaustion, and the Weaverbird version of pain: stress.

When Weaverbirds see themselves as part of a family, they start spinning plates for other family members who seem, to them, to need help with their own plate spinning. They do the same thing for co-workers too. It's mostly Weaverbirds that need the billions of dollars worth of Prozac and books on effective living and stress management. Stress itself becomes another big plate to spin as it causes so many other plates to be at risk of falling. Because Weaverbirds are so good at keeping plates spinning, keeping ahead of problems, staying in control, they can appear to have few serious problems in life: with being who they are, with having a positive sense of self-esteem.

As we have seen, there is a big price to pay for trying to have a totally secure and predictable life. Appearances are, almost always, deceiving. Who would believe that worry, anxiety, and stress could come because of a desire for security, responsibility, family and community? As we have seen, valuing ourselves as equal to others has enormous strengths and corresponding weaknesses. Weaverbird values are enshrined in their finest creation: Democracy, Constitutions, Bills of Rights and Freedoms, and The United Nations Charter. All these try to codify the Weaverbird view of the world. Religious commandments try to do the same thing. We owe our civilization to Weaverbird rules of order and respect. We also suffer from the limitations those rules impose on us as a society and as individuals.

Weaverbirds We've Known and Loved

Jerry Seinfeld is a great Weaverbird who has raised worrying to the realms of high comic art. He showed his Weaverbird sense of equal value when he played down his own contribution to his program, and emphasized the contribution of the ensemble of supporting characters who, he says, are the show. As a good Weaverbird, he didn't have to be the star and get all the attention, and it was that fact that made the show what it was.

Dwight Eisenhower was far down the list in his class at West Point. His Weaverbird integrity, hard work and pragmatism moved him past all the hot shot generals to become Supreme Allied Commander in World War II. His greatest asset as Supreme Commander was his Weaverbird ability to get consensus among many egocentric Generals trying to get the most glory for themselves. When he ran for president, he had a great Weaverbird campaign slogan: "I like Ike." For a Weaverbird, that's almost hype. As president, he led a boring, effective government where security and conformity were seen and accepted as great virtues.

The one great stain on his Presidency was his inability to stop the McCarthy witch-hunts that the Junior Senator used to destroy many lives, lives destroyed for the sake of his own personal glory. McCarthy used the great Weaverbird fear for the nation's security, and the powerful Weaverbird instrument of the legislative committee to ruin people for just knowing or associating with members of that enemy flock called communists. His lack of interest in the great Weaverbird values of justice and fair play marked him as anything but a Weaverbird. This is another example of how Weaverbird rules and institutions can be used for corrupt purposes.

We forget that Adolph Hitler masterfully used the process of democracy to get himself elected the head of Germany. He also used the democratic legislature to pass the laws that he would use to enslave and destroy millions. Having seen this, Eisenhower was such an extraordinary Weaverbird that he warned against a military-industrial complex forming in the United States that could threaten democracy in the same way. He knew that neither the military nor industry subscribed to Weaverbird rules of justice. This danger was best expressed in the idea

"What's good for General Motors is good for the USA." That sentiment is anything but discredited today, and is far more threatening to Weaverbird democracy than any Neo-Nazi plot.

George Bush Sr. may be the only person to ever become president by working his way through the bureaucracy of government. His family had the money and the connections to enable him to become a Senator or Governor, but he chose to go from one cabinet post to another until he got the ultimate civil service job of vice-president. Then he got the ultimate promotion. He was a good Weaverbird president. His favourite saying was, "We could do that, but it wouldn't be prudent." There is Weaverbird caution in a nutshell. He lost to Bill Clinton because of his Weaverbird limitations. He wasn't able to inspire people. It was "the vision thing." He was unable to say what made his ideas special, much less, what made him the special person to make them happen.

Weaverbirds mistrust vision and inspiration. It isn't prudent. Yet, to give President Bush Sr. his due, when Iraq threatened the oil supply for America with the invasion of Kuwait, he put together the biggest international consensus to raise the most powerful army in human history. It was truly an inspiring Weaverbird achievement.

Paul McCartney is an extraordinary Weaverbird. To hear his "aw, shucks" humility for his incredible accomplishments is true to his nature. He really sees and values people as equals. With all his money and fame he still worked hard raising a big family on a sheep farm in Scotland. A vegetarian, his prime social cause has been to get people to eat better, to be healthier. Rock star says eat your peas. His song "When I'm Sixty-Four" is a touching anthem for all Weaverbirds, ordinary working people who scrimp and save to have two weeks at a summer cottage with grandchildren on their knees. And there is the worry whether one's spouse will be there, needing them and feeding them when they're sixty-four.

Most McCartney songs reflect his Weaverbird values. In Elinor Rigby, he can't understand where all the lonely people come from. Surely they have families, surely they must be part of some flock. "Yesterday," the most recorded song in history, is about the Weaverbird incomprehension that anyone would want to leave someone who loves them. "I said something wrong," was the only reason the relationship could possibly have ended. A delicate balance, indeed. Yet his songs express the simple, practical family values of Weaverbirds so well that they are touching and unforgettable.

A Weaverbird's Front Door

The front door of your house reflects how you choose to present yourself to the world. For a Weaverbird, choosing a new front door is tough. First, there are the practical considerations: security, reliability, insulating value, installation and cost. Then there are the aesthetic considerations: colour, design, style, appropriateness to the house and the neighbourhood. Then there are the social considerations: who to consult, neighbours and friends; then most importantly, getting input and consensus from everyone in the family.

There is a lot to worry about in just picking a new front door. Imagine if all of life required such worry. For a Weaverbird, it does. There is no end to the stack of plates to be spun.

A Weaverbird Wins an Oscar

"I would like to thank my parents, my wonderful wife and children for their unending support. I would also like to thank every person who was involved in this film. Each person's contribution, no matter how small, was essential in making this happen. I want to thank my agent, my teachers, my friends, the caterers, the teamsters, the best boy and every person who has ever done anything to help me get to be here today." For Weaverbirds, there really are no little people.

A Weaverbird at Home

At home, everyone pitches in to help, at least that's the theory. There are rules and schedules, chores and responsibilities. Weaverbirds work together so they can play together: One for all, all for one. Responsibilities in a Weaverbird house are supposed to be shouldered equally by the husband and wife, with each of them accepting, unasked, an equal share of the work and worry. Being Weaverbirds, the unasked aspect is as important as the doing, because it is so hard for a Weaverbird to complain, to raise a stink, to ask for more consideration. It's easier to just start spinning the other person's plates than risk the unknown consequences of starting a fight. A Weaverbird will only complain when they feel the plates are about to start falling.

Weaverbirds give their children an incredibly secure foundation, because they work so hard to do it. And, because they work so hard, they have a difficult time balancing work and family. That is why most Weaverbirds feel guilty that they are not doing enough. It is true about almost everything they do but, most especially, about being a spouse and a parent, because that's what life is really about. And, feeling guilty makes them try even harder, spinning more plates, and getting more tired and stressed out.

Ordinary, Extraordinary, and Extreme Weaverbirds

No matter how we compare ourselves to others there is the potential to take that way of seeing ourselves to extremes. It may seem impossible that conformist, responsible, hard-working Weaverbirds could ever take such family values to extremes, but it happens.

When you take the idea that everyone is equal in value to an extreme, you create a community that crushes individual differences and needs under the imperative of maintaining a common set of rules and behaviours. Extreme Weaverbirds feel everyone should conform to one set of absolute, inflexible rules. Dress, speech, work, entertainment all must have strict rules for what is acceptable or what is not. Anyone breaking the rules is forced to repent and to return to the accepted path.

At the extreme, when all people are exactly equal in value, no differences can be tolerated. To be different is to be sinfully proud and self-centred. We all know of religious communities that behave in this way. Some businesses, schools, clubs and families behave in this way as well. The price of being different is always the same: punishment or proscription.

Fired, excommunicated, expelled, shunned, or worse; everyone has to obey the rules. At the extreme, the rules grow in number and in inflexibility.

The Sound of Music is about a loving, extreme Weaverbird father who enforces a rigid, regimented, yet fair and equitable, set of rules his children must obey. Efficient, secure, and fair, this way of looking at children cannot recognize their different needs and personalities. Julie Andrews's Maria brings an end to this extreme view, for everyone's benefit, most certainly including that of the father.

Japanese society is the best example of an entire nation taking Weaverbird values to an extreme. Childhood is lost in the brutal demand on children to work hard so they can get into the best schools. Without graduating from these special schools their future will be permanently limited in opportunity. There even used to be rules about when a person must kill him/herself for breaking serious rules of honour. There were even rules for how to do it and a special knife that was used only for that purpose. Hara-kiri is Weaverbird rules of conformity taken to extreme.

Rigid conformity is so entrenched that creativity must be imported into Japanese corporations. No one would dare risk suggesting a new or better way to do something. Efficiency, productivity, and self-sacrifice have made Japan incredibly successful. Those same Weaverbird ways, taken to extremes, preserve a rigid inflexible society that crushes individual difference and creativity. Until recently, it was actually against the law to fire anyone, because everyone's equal worth must be respected.

The famous story about the two Japanese vice-presidents who accepted demotion to janitor by the new American owners shows the absurdity of this extreme law. Because they could not be fired, it was thought demotions would get them to quit. When they did not quit and were asked why, they said that if the company felt the best way for them to serve was as janitors, they were honoured to do it. Fortunately, such self-effacing, extreme behaviour is ending in Japan. Any value taken to an extreme can have extreme benefits, but the price of those benefits can also be extreme. Perhaps the most important goal of this book is to help the reader to realize and identify when the ways that we have of valuing ourselves and the world in which we live is going to an extreme.

The world and society take great benefit from ordinary and extraordinary people and institutions. But it usually pays a terrible price for accepting and following those that are extreme. When Barry Goldwater said that there were no extremists in the defense of liberty, he expressed the clear absurdity of the extreme position that even despicable means can be justified by noble ends.

Identifying Weaverbirds

Weaverbirds worry!

Weaverbirds are always polite.

They rarely swear.

They talk about their kids--a lot!

They leave the last piece of cake, if someone is watching.

They organize . . . organize . . . organize!

Weaverbirds recycle, and like to do it.

They apologize a lot, even when they are really not sorry.

They pack with care and precision . . . and for every eventuality.

They think people should work for welfare.

Weaverbirds worry about the parasites of the world, insect and human.

They think government is too big, but necessary.

They think getting there is half the fun, even when it's not.

They save and use recipes.

They read instructions.

They balance their cheque books.

They send in warranties.

They cut their lawns and kill their weeds.

They like group sports.

They value their privacy.

They worry about what people will think.

They hate speaking in public.

They believe in queues and never push ahead.

They won't yell at someone who does.

Weaverbirds keep their promises.

And, they say a whole lot less than they mean.

They take daily vitamins.

They are really good neighbours.

They work too hard and do too much.

They are always getting ready.

They give others the benefit of the doubt.

They rarely expect to get it.

They want help, but are afraid to ask.

They have lots of insurance.

And they can't wait to retire.

Chapter2

Peafowl

We all know about peacocks: Loud, aggressive birds with spectacular plumage, and strutting impressive displays, but most of us would not recognize a peahen if we saw one. The peacock is indeed loud, aggressive, and constantly ready to display his size and beauty. He does this display for other males to drive them away, to hold onto the hens he has won. Peahens, on the other hand, are comparatively drab, non-aggressive, submissive, and timid. They endure domination by the peacock and take all the responsibility for hatching and raising chicks. Where the peacock tries to find a place in the world by displaying its size and glory, the peahen tries to hide in the bushes and be safe. Peafowl are anxious birds that deal with that fear in opposite ways: the peacock by pretending to be brave; the peahen by running away.

Human Peafowl

Human Peafowl are also very much afraid of life and of how they feel they compare to others. Regardless of how gifted they are, human Peafowl do not have a personal sense of their own self-worth to make them feel they are wanted and valued. Consistently, for whatever reason, Peafowl underestimate their value as human beings. No matter how gifted, how good, how attractive, how intelligent, how talented or creative they are, they never believe anyone could want them for who they are. Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Picasso and Madonna, Elvis and Michael Jackson and Miley Cyrus are all gifted Peafowl who try desperately to be loved, to be worth loving.

Peafowl believe there are only two ways to earn attention, respect and love. Peahens like Princess Diana and Mother Theresa want to give and give, Peacocks like Picasso take and take.

Peahens are inexhaustible givers, sacrificing more and more for acceptance and love. When you meet someone who can't seem to do enough for you, it is probably a Peahen who thinks nothing they do can be enough. Peacocks however, do more and more to get the attention they want and need. They do whatever they can, whatever they have to do, to be seen to be someone worth valuing. They perform. They take risks. They make noise. They create new things. They act out. They dress to kill. They sometimes do kill. They hate to take no for an answer. They can be oh, so charming and oh, so cruel. They can be overwhelmingly generous, and cheap as can be. Attention! Attention! Attention!

Either selflessly giving attention to others or selfishly demanding to get it, Peafowl live and die in other people's eyes, in their reactions to what they do. Without an innate sense of their own self-worth, Peafowl believe absolutely that their value as people has to be earned, that it's in the power of others to give. For Peafowl, who are without a strong inner sense of self-worth, their Innate Self-esteem is virtually the same as their Social Self-esteem. Because they don't dare to admit to themselves or others that they can't help permanently undervaluing themselves as people, they look to the trappings of Social Self-esteem for their worth.

Peacocks think that you are who others think you are. Status, money, power, success, glory, fame; you do what you have to, to get the affirmation you need. If you've got it, flaunt it! Peahens also think you are who others think you are, and so will sacrifice their lives for someone who has status, power, money, success, glory, or fame. Or, as with some Peahens, they sacrifice their lives to the needy. They give to many rather than one, but the reason is the same: to earn a sense of personal self-worth. The person that thinks they are someone because they drive a Rolls Royce and wear an Armani suit or the person that thinks they are someone because they drive a Harley and wear a Hells Angel's jacket sees life as an intense, reactive experience. The highs of attention are great; the lows of rejection, brutal.

Just as Weaverbirds can never have enough security, Peafowl can never get enough approval, or reassurance, or attention. There's always more and better attention. Win a Golden Globe and it's no good unless you win the Oscar. Win an Oscar and you have to have another and another.

Yet the world rejects us all the time. Some people reject us for things that other people like about us. Weaverbirds and Wolves can understand and accept that easily. Peafowl can't. As George Costanza, that great Peacock on the Jerry Seinfeld show said, "I have to be liked. Everyone must like me." He was willing to reject someone who liked him for the chance to win over someone who didn't. He even was able to admit that he found a strong emotional attraction to someone who had absolutely no use for him. For a Peafowl, coming to feel a real sense of security and self-worth is almost impossible.

In human Peafowl, the Peacocks are not always men, and the Peahens are not always women. Madonna and Michael Jackson are Peacocks; they will do anything for attention. Princess Diana and Jackie Kennedy were Peahens; they couldn't do enough to get the love they needed so much. Peacocks want attention, reaction, and love. Peahens want to give attention, reaction, and love. Gender doesn't determine how people feel they compare to others or how they respond to these three things.

For Peacocks, It Is Always about Me;

For Peahens, It Is Never about Me.

Both approaches to self-worth demand constant work to prove to others that the Peafowl is worth having around. For a Peacock, one can never get enough attention. For a Peahen, one can never give enough attention. That's why they invariably find one another. Peafowl hate to be alone because of the fact that they need to be giving or getting attention to affirm that they exist.

If a Peafowl falls in the forest there's no sound unless someone is there to hear it. An entourage is a Peacock with a group of Peahens in attendance. Mike Tyson feels he's nobody when he's alone. His entourage feels they are nobodies who become someone in his presence.

It's Okay to Be a Peafowl

Although it is against every idea of psychological common sense, being a Peafowl and underestimating, undervaluing how they feel they compare to others is just as valid and, in fact, just as legitimate a way to measure self-worth as either of the other two types. As we have seen with Weaverbirds, every strength has a corresponding weakness when it comes to comparing ourselves to others. With Peafowl, the weakness of feeling they don't measure up is compensated by how much they will do to prove they do measure up. John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, Picasso, Hemingway, Faulkner, and Princess Diana were all Peafowl. What they have given the world so they'd feel they deserved to be loved is undeniable. It is also undeniable that they suffered and caused others great pain.

Peafowl make up most of the world's great heroes. They also make up the list of its great villains. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Napoleon were Peacocks. They were extreme Peacocks who found, in absolute power and total self-hatred, the inhumanity that made them monsters. Extreme Peafowl are the most dangerous of humans whether they are dictators or serial killers.

Beyond the total self-hatred in extreme Peafowl that lets them feel nothing for others, there are Ordinary and Extraordinary Peafowl with all the humanity and feeling of any Weaverbird or Wolf. The depth and sensitivity and contribution to life that Peafowl make are undeniable. It is also true that the world is fascinated by them. Most of the people that appear in the media are Peafowl. We love them for their successes and also their screw-ups. Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died the same week. For whom did the world mourn more intensely?

Ordinary and extraordinary Peafowl are just as valuable as anyone else. The problem is to understand and to believe that being a Peafowl, feeling you have to earn your self-esteem, is just as good as feeling you are equal in value to others or that you are, somehow special. So, it's OK to feel inferior? YES! If that is what you are, and there's nothing you can do about it, well, there it is.

It's like a black person saying they wish they were born white because it would be so much easier. It's like saying you wish you weren't intelligent so you could be like everyone else. It's like saying you wish you weren't beautiful because people don't care what's inside you. Who would say that being black or smart or beautiful isn't worthwhile? Who would say that being Elvis or Diana or Picasso isn't worthwhile? The question is, would they have been who they were if they did like themselves, if they had a positive sense of self-esteem? Clearly not.

So, the choice is to either respect undervaluing oneself as a way of comparing oneself to others, or to try to change what may be unchangeable. Would Elvis or Picasso have wanted to feel good about themselves if they'd had to give up that insatiable drive for approval? Janis Joplin said she made love to twenty-five thousand people in a night but went home alone. Who is anyone to say she shouldn't have paid that price to be Janis. She was willing to do it, and really had no other choice but to be who she was.

The reason it is so hard to accept that undervaluing oneself as a person is just as valid a way of comparing oneself to another is because of the pain that Peafowl suffer. Those whom Peafowl touch suffer as well. Unlike Weaverbirds whose weaknesses lead to stress, being a Peafowl invariably comes with pain. And when pain comes from such deep feeling, such deep needs for love, that pain can be incredible, debilitating, and sometimes unendurable.

Only Peafowl ever know what it's like to want to die just for being who they are. Is this as good, is this just as valid, does this deserve just as much respect as feeling that all people are created equal? It is more than arguably true.

Firstly there is the logic of recognizing that it is no more true to believe all people are equal than to feel some people are inferior. Neither is true in fact, but both are true as far as how people feel about themselves. People aren't all equal in value, but some people feel they are. People aren't worth less than others, but some people feel they are. The same is true for Wolves, those people who feel special but, in fact, may only be special because they believe that they are.

It can even be said that earning our self-esteem by what we do, is at least a more honest and measurable way of seeing our value than by a simple personal belief. Attention, acceptance and praise, in this world, mostly come from what a person does, not from what a person is. Peafowl think you have to do something to be someone, whether it's Ted Bundy or Princess Di. Actions are things no one can deny; therefore, we are what we do.

Most Peafowl want some kind of fame; they want it to prove their worth; they want to become someone, to make it. They crave success to prove they are someone, then resent and mistrust people for only being interested in them for what they have done. For Peafowl, life invariably has a Catch 22. It can make you crazy, or at least eccentric and volatile.

Picasso had millions but made his wife support herself and their children to prove she wasn't there for the money. His valet was allowed no time off, was paid a pittance, and had to pay his own way whenever Picasso travelled. Yet he stayed with his master 25 years, Peahen to Picasso's Peacock. Peacocks and Peahens are co-enablers forever.

The famous psychiatrist Fritz Perls was tormented for life by his first meeting with his god Freud. "I've come two thousand miles to meet you," he said.

"When are you going home?" was Freud's reply. Perls never got over the rude remark. He carried the pain forever. He couldn't get over it, because Freud's recognition would have made him someone worthwhile. His rejection made him worthless. That's hard to live with, indeed.

Yet if it's so hard to be a Peafowl, if they are so hard to live with, why do we admire them so much; why do we tell them they are so special, so wonderful? Elvis, Janis Joplin, Hemingway, Princess Diana all lived lives of terrible self-inflicted pain. They also inflicted it on those they loved. Yet it is not pity we feel or felt for them, but admiration, the admiration they needed so badly.

This tells us as much about us as it does about them. It is difficult not to admire and sometimes even envy the humanity and the depth of feeling that Peafowl explore in their need to find something inside themselves to offer us for our love. It is Peafowl who are the only ones who feel compelled to search for the depth of their humanity, and those who see what comes of that search are enriched in ways they could never find for themselves. If you are pretty happy with where you are, you probably won't stray far from home. Peafowl aren't happy at home, and so are drawn to new and greater places in the heart, the mind, and the body.

There is one other reason that our society has such a prejudice against the pain and price of being a Peafowl, and that is because it is Weaverbirds that have decided what is a healthy and unhealthy way of looking at life, of comparing the self to others. Weaverbirds need rules and, in the academic world of psychology, it is they who decide what the rules are.

Psychiatrists once said that being gay was a mental illness. They once said that being an addict was, too. They decided that these and other conditions were illnesses, not so much because they involved a distortion of reality, but because they caused incredible pain. Weaverbirds understand the feeling of stress as a healthy reaction to problems, but pain has to be stopped or one still needs therapy. That therapy can go on for decades without curing the pain should make psychologists realize the obvious: Some pain just doesn't go away.

It's a strange Weaverbird view of the human psyche that says it is unhealthy to think too well of yourself and also unhealthy to think too little of yourself. Only the Weaverbird middle ground will do. And, as always, they get to decide the rules.

The movie and play Equus is about a psychiatrist helping a boy who had hacked out the eyes of a herd of horses. The psychiatrist discovers that the boy had created a religion in which horses are gods. This is a clear distortion of reality in our world, yet the psychiatrist comes to envy the boy his passion and complete worship. The boy hacked out the eyes of the horses in a desperate attempt to be normal, to destroy his god's ability to see him. Understanding the boy's ecstasy in his worship makes the psychiatrist feel his own life is pale, sterile, and passionless in comparison.

Even in madness the passion this poor Peafowl boy felt could not be seen as anything but awesome, being alive in a way Weaverbirds can never be. Envying the boy his depth of feeling, the psychiatrist decides to help him because the boy is in undeniable pain.

Self-inflicted pain is undeniably unhealthy and must be relieved forever. It doesn't matter what you feel or accomplish, it's never worth self-injury. This comes from people who inflict on themselves so much stress that it takes endless prescriptions, and no end of drinks to get through life. And the answer to Peafowl pain is the same as for Weaverbird stress: drugs and therapy. For a Weaverbird, pain is an extreme that must not be allowed to continue. For Peafowl, pain just comes with the territory. It comes with being a person. It is the flip side of joy. The thing the psychiatrist envied in the boy was not his pain but the incredible joy and ecstasy that he himself could not even imagine. That is the reason Peafowl don't really want to change.

For Janis Joplin it wasn't possible for her to go home with one person who loved her if she had to give up making love to twenty-five thousand people in a night. You can't have your cake and eat it too. But, in this Weaverbird world, incredible highs are not worth the price of terrible lows. Yet who are they to decide? They decide because they have set the rules and interpret them. It's the Weaverbird way. It is clear that there is a definite Weaverbird bias about self-esteem, and it is just as distorted as the view once held of homosexuality and addiction.

Ordinary, Extraordinary, and Extreme Peafowl

Ordinary Peafowl are like ordinary Weaverbirds in that what makes them ordinary is the degree to which they will risk themselves to satisfy their needs. Ordinary Weaverbirds won't risk any more security than they have to. Ordinary Peafowl won't risk rejection to give or get the attention they want. Extraordinary Peafowl will risk everything, even total rejection to get the attention they need. They accomplish great things because their need to be someone is so deep and profound.

Both Ordinary and Extraordinary Peafowl can be fine and loving parents and spouses, citizens, artists, psychiatrists and presidents of the United States. Though theirs is more difficult in some ways than other ways of feeling about oneself, the rewards are often rich indeed. Anyone who has had a Peafowl parent knows that it can be difficult. But the closeness that comes with the intense joy and pain is also profound.

The real danger with Peafowl, as with Weaverbirds, is in the Extreme. Taken to the extreme, a Peafowl feels no sense of self-worth and no sense of the worth of others. These are the people that can kill, either themselves or others. We'll examine the Extreme Peafowl more, later.

Right now it is important to understand and accept that Ordinary and Extraordinary Peafowl are the ones who let us see and understand the full range of joy and pain; the dark side and the glorious side of the human heart. This is a gift, not a disease. It needs respect, not cure.

Perhaps our prejudice against the Peafowl way of feeling about how one compares oneself to another is like any prejudice, based on the fear of accepting anything that is different from how we see and feel. If what's different is right, then maybe what I feel is wrong.

If we are to understand self-esteem, it is essential to understand there are three different types that see the world in three different ways. Who does not respect the humanity of Van Gogh, Faulkner, Dylan Thomas? There are so many other famous people who have felt and shown us the joy and pain in their unending search for the heart of gold they felt only as lead within themselves.

The Century of the Peafowl

The twentieth century was the century of the Peafowl. Thousands of years of Weaverbird conformity has given way. Style, not substance, is the anti-Weaverbird rule. What one is seen to be is now the same as reality. Spin rules. Image is everything.

Why?

Corporations were the first institutions to model Peafowl values. As the century wore on, the Corporate Model became the one adopted by all social institutions. Governments, schools, even religions adopted the corporate structure and set of values. It is difficult for a corporation to have an innate sense of self-worth, but it is the corporation, having taken over the means of communication, that has taken on the role of deciding our cultural values. They want cultural values to serve and express their needs, and will spend what it takes to convince us they are right, and anything else is un-cool, out-of-it.

Gloria Steinem is right: The personal is political and the political is personal. Peafowl live in an eternal present, whether it is as an individual or as a corporation, because attention and reaction only exists in the moment.

For Peafowl corporations, the past is obsolete and the future is unknowable, so they live in a single quarter, bottom-line mentality where the only reaction that really matters is that of invisible fickle stockholders whose judgment and attention, acceptance or rejection, has infinitely more to do with image than reality. The greatest assets of a corporation, its employees, are seen as replaceable cogs, faceless assets and liabilities. Corporations quickly realized that the success of a corporation has far more to do with the image of the corporation that the quality of its goods or service.

Michael Jordan, a basketball player, by endorsing a company's product can drive up the price of the company shares thirty percent overnight. Hiring the best CEO would have a fraction of that effect. If Michael Jordan likes this product, it must be good. If I buy this product, I'll be as cool as Michael Jordan. Image is everything because the reaction of others makes you someone.

The people inside corporations soon realized that image was everything for them too. Success and promotion came with the highest profile. That's why corporate presidents started being pitchmen in commercials. What you did became far less important than how you were perceived. The sixties musical How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying was about just that, and was more truth than fiction. By the eighties there was Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street for whom ethics, morality, or a company's best interest had no meaning beside what it would get him financially. Greed was good.

Because all our social institutions follow the corporate model, and because we have seen Gordon Gekko run presidential campaigns and turn public debate into attack ads and spin doctoring, we have lost faith in our social institutions. Few people believe government will deliver what it promises, few people believe they can trust anyone with power, whether it be leaders of business, government or even religion. Like all Peafowl institutions, they are there for their own sake, not for the sake of those they serve. In the financial bank crisis of 2008, millions of ordinary people lost trillions of dollars because of a financial system geared to the benefit of a few self-serving extreme Peacocks.

Cigarette companies stopped research on a safer cigarette because it might seem to be an admission that the present cigarette was unsafe. Churches have covered up and left unpunished, sexual abusers rather than risk damage to their image. Citizens, students, patients are now all called clients. Market share has replaced effectiveness as a measure of service. Doctor's visits can average three minutes each, for years. The American IRS has made up false tax assessments so agents can make personal quotas. Legal departments work with ad agencies to do whatever they can to deceive the consumer and decide the cost effectiveness of standards of safety. How many people have to die from our product before we have to worry about it?

When governments and businesses realized that people could be so effectively manipulated by image, they quickly focused massive resources into doing that. The ad agency and the polling agency have become the means for deciding public policy. It is no coincidence that the biggest businesses in the world are the Entertainment and Communications industries, the image-makers and the image servers.

Machines get reliable service now, people get as little as necessary. The tools a person uses are more important than the things you use them for. Millions buy designer, high-tech running shoes but never run. Children kill for them.

Peafowl only care about personal glory or reflected glory, being Champs or being in their entourage. Corporations now sell themselves as the Champs. We get to be in the entourage if we wear their logos, help them market their image to others. Box Office, bottom-line endorsements and merchandise deals are the measure of value. People are brands. Common interest is communism.

Dennis Rodman, that great Peafowl, made a corporation out of making himself ridiculous. Being ridiculous comes to be more valuable than having talent because it is easier to market a ridiculous image than to appreciate real talent. Who was the better athlete, Dennis Rodman or Cal Ripken? Who had movie deals and massive endorsements?

Look at Howard Stern. He will do or say anything to make you react. It's a Peafowl culture for sure.

It says a lot when the ideals of human accomplishment are represented by actors, fashion models, athletes, and rock stars. There is a terrible price to giving our culture into the hands of Peafowl corporations. But there are also the incredible benefits that have come with the creation of the Entertainment and Communications industries that have been built to get and hold our attention. Just as we have paid the brutal, tragic price of our Peafowl culture following Extreme Peacocks into unimaginable slaughter, we've also gained the explosion of creativity in things of war and things of peace. Look at this century and you see the incredible upside and the terrible downside of the Peafowl way of looking at the world.

The Boomers

The first generation to grow up with, and to understand the power of the image and the media, Boomers were initially shocked and outraged at corporate values and priorities. Using what they knew, they stopped the Vietnam War, the war fought for America's geo-political image. The slogan was, "Tune in! Turn on! Drop out!" It didn't take long before they had taken their brilliant understanding of the media and became Peafowl servers of their Peafowl companies. Dylan's caustic "The Times They are a Changin'" has become a jingle for a Canadian bank. LOVE, PEACE, and GROOVY soon became PEACE and GROOVY. We are now left with GROOVY.

The phony corporate image became the phony personal image that identified with all the abandoned ideals of rebellion and anti-materialism. Work jeans became designer jeans. Peafowl really believe you can have your cake and eat it too. You can have an image that makes you authentic.

People became their entertainment. Who you are became whom you liked became what you wore and what you drove. You were hip or you were a loser. High school culture has been dragged into middle age. The most educated, cynical generation in history has become the absolute masters of convincing themselves that the naked king has style because he dresses just like they do. Truth is what a Spin Doctor can make you believe it is.

Extremes

The greatest weakness of being a Peafowl or living in a Peafowl culture is not so much the shorter and shorter time intervals that are seen as relevant, but the greater and greater extremity of behaviour that is required to get attention from another person or the world. If people have to keep raising their voices to be heard, then soon everyone is shouting and finally the only one heard is the loudest, most strident voice. Blake's dictum, "Enough, or too much" has come to be policy in everything from ad hype, blockbuster movies, to corporate acquisitions. MORE IS BETTER! Everyone knows that isn't true. But we all live as if it were.

Children dress up in camouflage gear and slaughter other children. The measures of rage and being a schoolyard bully have escalated with everything else that a person has to do to be noticed. The Weaverbirds of the world can't understand what is happening. Their three-thousand-year run is over. Nice guys finish last. Peafowl rule. Our culture is now structured on the Peafowl model.

Morality, ethics, good and evil are seen as just competing images. There is honest-to-God Sympathy for the Devil in this world. When Michael Jackson grabbed his crotch and sang, "I'm Bad," he really meant, "It's good." No attention is bad attention. It could be the Peafowl slogan: I am noticed, therefore I am.

The law of extremes is inexorable. If you have to do this much to be noticed today you have to do even more to be noticed tomorrow. Every teenager knows it. Our Peafowl culture has that as an axiom of truth. Like teenagers, we come to believe the alternative to extreme experience is boredom. What do you do when it is no longer new?

The Extreme Hero

In this century, millions of good Weaverbirds have been led to slaughter. They have been slaughtered and have done the slaughtering. Extreme Peafowl leaders have charmed, frightened, bribed, or murdered their way to power, then used it to coerce or convince their people to do monumentally brutal acts. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and a host of others are and were the most extreme of Peacocks. Their only purpose was the glorification of their own empty egos. Other people had no value beyond reflecting their cults of personality.

It is absolutely crucial to understand and appreciate when Peafowl individuals or institutions are going to extremes. At the extreme they will use anything and crush anyone that gets in their way. They pursue the incredible highs of conquest and glory, and even if they succeed, tragic lows of defeat and destruction inevitably follow. The high is never high enough for someone who feels worthless and has to prove they aren't.

Weaverbirds have followed Extreme Peacocks because of their inability to challenge authority, their gullibility about the danger they were told existed, and because they did not dare risk their family's security by confronting a ruthless authority. We have to understand the power of our Peafowl culture before we can resist its extremes. We have to understand the diminishing attention span and the escalating sense of boredom that Peafowl culture contains. We have to understand that we can't stay adolescents forever without paying a terrible price.

Having examined the price and dangers in our Peafowl culture, and having been warned of the dangers of extreme Peafowl institutions and individuals, we have to now look at Ordinary and Extraordinary Peafowl who deserve the same respect that anyone deserves. Because they are so focused on their personal needs and often so sensitive to the feelings they want so much to earn, Ordinary and Extraordinary Peafowl make wonderful contributions to the world and to the people they touch. Their sensitivity is unmatched. They should be no more looked down on because of the excesses of extreme Peafowl than Weaverbirds should be looked down on for the excesses of extreme Weaverbirds.

Peacocks and Peahens

Billy Holiday was an extraordinary Peahen whose songs reflect the beauty of her spirit in joy and in pain. Her song "My Man" says it all. He takes her money, betrays her, beats her too, but she says there is no point in saying she'll go away, because she knew she'd crawl back on her knees, someday. I am nothing; my love is everything. Sad, sad song. Who can condone abuse?

Yet who can deny the depth of feeling, the love that is there? That's why that song and she are immortal. Even suffering the extremes of heroin addiction and physical abuse, she maintained her humanity, opened her heart so we could all feel and share its depth. You don't have to have the blues to love them.

Peahens give and give so someone will love them. They will endure suffering that is hard to imagine. But when he takes me in his arms, the world is bright, all right.

Peahens who need so much, and have so much to give, often look for people who need it most. And the people who need it most are Peacocks who need and want to be given more and more attention and love. Psychologists have called this co-dependency. Co-dependency is two people helping each other to maintain each other's weakness because they get something out of it. The other person's weakness provides something they need, so they preserve and encourage it.

The Peacock belittles and berates and takes advantage of the Peahen to make sure the Peahen doesn't get the strength to leave and stop providing attention. The Peahen doesn't want the Peacock to be strong and confident or loving because the Peahen doesn't feel they deserve such a partner. Besides, when a Peacock is screwing up the most is when the Peahen is needed most.

This may sound sick, but it's no sicker than a Weaverbird trying to be super-mom or super-dad and living on Prozac, or a Wolf bankrupting his family once more.

Peafowl may pay a serious price to live a life dependent on giving and getting attention, but they gain incredible rewards for it. They look for love in all the wrong places and find it as surely as anyone else. And they experience it as no one else. We listen to the songs they write, and read and see the books and movies they create, and we find the depth of our own feelings there. It isn't their sickness we find so touching--it is their depth of feeling.

Princess Diana was an Extraordinary Peahen. With the love and attention of countless millions she still saw herself as a worthless, fat blob, whose only real moments of happiness in her life were the births of her children, the ultimate act of giving. She gave and gave and never felt it was enough. She gave to her family and to individuals she touched and to strangers in hospitals or suffering from land mines. Betrayed by her Peacock husband, who never loved her, she poured out her heart on television, just like the bizarre soap opera her life had become. And were we embarrassed for her? No! We loved her for it. She was not sick. She was not co-dependent. She was the People's Princess.

Having married a Peacock in Prince Charles, she did the worst thing she could have done to betray him. She became more popular than he was. His adultery was noblesse oblige; her complaining about it publicly was inexcusable. Her adultery with the Peacock riding instructor, Hewitt, was yet more misplaced worship of another man who would do her wrong. No wonder most people felt the pain she was so willing to share.

It is heartbreaking to believe that she felt the only moments of happiness in her life were the births of her children. Here was a person with the love and attention of millions and it still wasn't enough for her to feel worthwhile. Charles, in the infamous taped call with his then mistress, reassures her when she says she has achieved nothing in life by telling her that her great achievement was in loving him. Peacock to Camilla's Peahen.

Charles and Diana make it clear that there is never enough attention to satisfy the needs of someone who underestimates their own worth. Soap Operas happen in high places and low. Even a palace can be the wrong place to look for love if you don't believe you deserve it. But Charles and Diana, regardless of their Peafowl mistakes and pain, were fine people, good parents, deserving every respect. The mountains of flowers for Diana's funeral show the love she could never believe she deserved. They also show that most people understood and respected her for the depth of feeling and courage she showed in facing a loveless marriage. Peafowl are often strong in ways that are truly admirable and fine.

Individual Peafowl

Everyone knows Ordinary and Extraordinary Peafowl, the sweet person married to the big jerk; people who always seem in the process of screwing up and getting their lives together. For Peacocks and Peahens that's the process that can't seem to be avoided. Because there is no being rich enough, famous enough or loved enough for someone who only believes that love comes from what you do to get it, there is no final stable life that doesn't include great highs and great lows.

Parents that martyrs themselves for their children, or the parents that create one new family after another are searching for what can't be found, a sense of their own self-worth. A parent who has to continually remind their children of all they have done for them, all they have sacrificed, does it to earn love. And if they have to keep replaying their sacrifices, they don't really feel it has paid off in the love that they were supposed to get back.

Sad Songs Say So Much

Sad songs are almost always Peafowl songs in Country, Rock, Pop, Heavy Metal, or Opera. "Stand By Your Man" is the anthem of Peafowl. "You'll have bad times. He'll have good times doing things you just don't understand. But if you love him you'll forgive him." Whether it's picking up life's pieces, or having one less bell to answer, sad songs are about the inability to understand why love can end and why it's so hard to get over when it does.

It's the Peafowl dilemma. You only hurt the ones you love. There is a lot of pain in a Peafowl life and in a Peafowl family. But there is not necessarily any less love. It's just, sometimes, a lot harder to appreciate. Most Peafowl function well in society and as members of families. All Peafowl don't belong on Jerry Springer. Their highs are not manic and their lows are not destructive. Peafowl can have more problems with everything from school, to work, to marriage and parenting, but that doesn't mean that greater problems have to lead to failure. Peafowl, whether they admit it or appreciate it, succeed far more than they fail.

Extreme Individual Peafowl

Like Extreme Weaverbirds, Extreme Peafowl are dangerous. Extreme Peahens are dangerous to themselves. Extreme Peacocks are dangerous to others. If a person's sense of self-worth is extremely low, and if their environment reinforces this belief, then you have a bomb that may implode in self-destruction or explode in violence.

O.J. Simpson is an Extreme Peacock who could charm his way out of murder. Anorexics starve themselves because they feel so unlovable. Janis Joplin, John Belushi, Curt Cobain had all the attention they could ask, and still killed themselves because it wasn't enough. "Is that all there is my friend? So let's keep dancing." Sometimes Extreme Peafowl just can't dance any more. A loving family, money and fame didn't help to fill the void.

Extreme Peafowl are enormously dangerous. Recognizing the danger is not always easy for themselves or others. It is easy to see the self-destructive tendency in anorexics and junkies. It is not always easy for them to see what seems so clear and frightening to others. It's almost impossible to see the time bomb ticking in people who might one day just put a bullet in their head or in someone else's. The thing that makes individual Peafowl Extreme ones is that they tend to have an amplified reaction to failure or criticism. They take rejection and frustration as if they were absolute and complete.

Extreme Peafowl, like serial killers, may have no way to feel their own or other people's value as human beings. Whether there are some bad seeds, is hard to know. But most Peafowl, even Extreme ones, do have a sense of humanity. Even when they go over the line into real violence, they come back. They feel remorse. Even anorexics want to be loved. What may be important is for them and for others to realize that how they see the world means they need far more attention and reassurance than most people. They need structure and reminders that tell them they are valued and valuable. And more than anything they need to have their way of seeing the world understood and respected.

Elvis and Michael Jackson are Peacocks. They both created walled fantasy worlds with great paid entourages. They hated their bodies so much that Elvis destroyed his with drugs and food, while Michael attacked his with surgery and starvation diets. The Kings of Pop were ultimately very lonely, frightened people wanting desperately to be noticed and, at the same time, terrified of what people would see. Even with their extreme behaviour, it is possible to realize that they did not have to be extreme to be extraordinary. Their highs and lows were a part of them, their pain and their joy overwhelming at times, but that was the price of being who they are.

The last thing a Peafowl needs is blame or tough love. That just proves to them that they are as worthless as they sometimes feel. What they need is consistent, constant attention and the realization that extremes of violence or self-injury don't lead to the love they desire.

Appearances

Even though Peafowl know the human heart so well, they often measure life only by its appearances. The way you dress, the car you drive, the house you live in, your make-up and jewellery says who you are. Lyle Lovett wrote it with wonderful irony, "If I can forgive the temporary weight gain of excess water retention, I could forgive the rest, too." The rest being the inability to stay faithful. We can see how important appearance is to a Peafowl. Peahens may spend very little on their own appearance but want their children and spouses to have designer clothes.

For Peacocks, one is one's plumage. It's back to image and reality being so closely linked for Peafowl. They drive and create style, and we owe them for it. Attention! Attention! Attention!

If that's what someone needs to feel a certain satisfaction with their lives, what's wrong with giving it? Is it any more indulgent than letting a Weaverbird fall back on Prozac to get them through the day? If we love and respect the Peafowl in our lives, they will share with us the incredible depth of feeling and understanding of the heart that they have. We just have to guard against the intensity of their emotional reactions lest we take their feelings personally. As Lyle Lovett says, "I guess it's the process of learning the excess of all those things we already know."

There's no better teacher of that than a Peafowl.

A Peafowl's New Front Door

A Peahen, having to make such a decision, would probably make it into a crisis to get the attention of others. A Peacock would, of course, want a front door that got the biggest reaction.

Whether in cost or style or colour or all of the above, a Peacock wants a front door that stands out and says the Peacock is someone.

A Peacock Wins an Oscar

"I'm King of the World."

A Peahen Wins an Oscar

"You like me--you really like me!"

Peafowl We've Known and Loved

John Kennedy was a Peacock like his parents. He had no interest in being a Senator. He spent his time womanizing and currying favour among the powerful people who could advance his ambitions. He was such a narcissist that Jackie put up mirrors all around the White House so he could spend time looking at himself as he liked to do. Good for her! Yet for all his Peacock flaws, he did save the world from nuclear war and leave a legacy of style that is remembered with such reverence as Camelot.

Lyndon Johnson was a Peacock, a big one. He was shameless in bribes or threats to get what he wanted. His Great Society was to make him immortal and loved. It was destroyed by The Vietnam war because he could not bring himself to withdraw and be the first US president to lose a war. Millions died for his ego. His place in history died with them.

Richard Nixon did great things and destroyed his presidency. If he didn't have real enemies he created them. It took losing everything and being forced out in disgrace for him to realize that if you hate those that hate you, it will destroy you in the end.

Madonna creates and recreates herself in more and more outrageous incarnations. The Material Girl is the role model for countless young women who mistake style for substance. Yet her style is undeniable.

Donald Trump, "The Donald," sees himself as so grand he subsumes all other Donalds. Picasso, Tennessee Williams, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, there is no end to the accomplishments of Peafowl. They did whatever they could to earn the respect and love they didn't feel for themselves. They did great things, their way. And we are rich indeed for it.

George Costanza on The Jerry Seinfeld Show is the quintessential Peacock. It's all about George, and only about George. He and Inspector Jacques Clouseau may be the greatest comic Peacocks ever created. Whether it's running over women and children to get away from a fire, or winning a game of Trivial Pursuit with a boy in a bubble because of a misprinted answer, George is all that matters. Riding a roller coaster, from self-loathing to self-congratulations, he responds with an intensity to even the most minor success or failure. He is thrilled that Woody Allen mentioned him, even if it was for ruining a day's shooting by his bungling.

Sympathy for the Peafowl

It is true that life is often difficult for Peafowl, and that the difficulties are often their own creation. But that is true of Weaverbirds and Wolves as well. For every strength there is a corresponding weakness. For all the things Peafowl do to deserve the attention, respect and love of others, there is the corresponding weakness of what they suffer to realize their considerable accomplishments. It is hard to see people who deny their own worth. It is even harder for them.

We can't deny, however, the beauty, wisdom and humanity they have found in themselves, that they have shared with us in all the things they have created. It seems a shame they can never appreciate it as the world does. But that is the way of the Peafowl. More difficult for them than for those who love them, their trials often reveal great wonders again and again. Let us give thanks for Peafowl!

Identifying Peafowl:

Peacocks

It is always about them!

Their clothes make a statement, whether pimp or president.

Peacocks have short tempers.

It is never their fault.

They have big dreams.

They are always afraid.

They charm.

They intimidate.

They have to win.

They hold a grudge.

They can be generous to a fault.

They are sentimental.

They forget to call.

They forget birthdays, except maybe that of the boss.

Peacocks like contact sports.

They drive the flashiest car they can afford.

They spend more than they have.

They can make you laugh.

They can have big problems with alcohol and drugs.

They probably smoke.

Peacocks don't take care of their health.

They won't go to the doctor, unless someone makes them.

They can be very different people in different situations.

They drive too fast.

They love their toys.

They love their kid's toys too.

They know how to party.

And they hate to be alone.

They can be your best friend.

They can leave you in the lurch.

They know all the angles.

They would die for their kids, but could miss their graduation.

They do it their way.

Peahens

It is never about them!

They hate making decisions.

They can't decide what to pack.

They are always afraid.

They give till it hurts.

They think it is always their fault.

They are always afraid of what someone is thinking.

It pains them that they are so unappreciated.

They never forget a slight

They hate housework.

They are often disorganized.

They hide in the weeds, and like it there.

Peahens love sad songs and they spoil their kids.

They blow up when they can't take any more.

They find it hard to say no.

They feel guilty when they do.

They are intimate friends.

And, they take in stray cats.

They love to shop, especially for others.

Peahens take things hard.

They often hate to cook.

They stand by their spouse.

They are generous to a fault.

And they think they are always being taken.

They probably smoke.

They always come back for more.

They can be wise and compassionate.

They want others to make their decisions.

Chapter 3

Wolves

In nature, wolves and their society are similar to human society in many ways. In some ways, they are in fact arguably superior. Wolves never destroy their environment. Wolves never destroy members of the pack. Wolves never mistake appearance for reality. Wolf society is both hierarchical and competitive as well as co-operative and compassionate. Orphaned wolf pups are often adopted by a nearby pack.

Because wolves only mate when there is a territory to support the new family, packs are often just extended families. Their populations never get out of hand. Suppressing the power of the sex drive, mature males and females are content to share in the care and nurture of the pups of the alpha male and female. Wolves are devoted parents and fiercely loyal to the pack. They are curious, intelligent, and playful, with a sophisticated ability to communicate with each other.

Power and aggression are a large part of the social structure, but aggression is almost always in a ritual form that does not harm the individual or by extension, the group. Wolves know that the health of the group is profoundly influenced by the health of the weakest member of the group. How many millennia has it taken human being to figure that out, even in a poor, imperfect way?

In wolf society, the alpha male and alpha female mate for life. If a member of the pack mates with the alpha female when she is in heat, that male is driven from the pack forever. Being a lone wolf is a virtual death sentence. The alpha male and female become the leaders of the pack as superior equals, the female in fact, having most of the authority for making decisions for the group.

Leadership among wolves is not gained by being the strongest or most aggressive. Leadership comes from the confidence and authority alpha males and females feel is innate within them. The others sense that confidence and authority and follow because of it. Wolves lead by inspiration not bribes or coercion. Self-confidence, optimism, and a concern for the welfare of the entire group gives a wolf the authority to lead.

Human Wolves

Warren Buffet, the second richest man in the US, is hardly a household name. In the l960s, he took ten thousand dollars and began investing in companies, so that by the late nineteen-nineties, he was worth many, many billions. Stock in his investment company trades at almost sixty thousand dollars a share. In a lecture at Harvard Business School he posed a question to a graduating class. "If I were to promise to pay you ten percent of the yearly earnings of one of your classmates for life, how would you choose that person?" The best and brightest young business minds were stumped. Buffet, the Wolf, had no problem with the question. He said that he would pick the person that he would most trust with his life, the person who wants to work for the success of the group, the loyal, confident, compassionate optimist who wanted to lead because the goal is worth reaching. A Wolf!

Aspects of character, not intelligence or power or resources, make a successful leader. In a wolf pack, that is invariably true; in our world, far from it. But human Wolves don't care about that. In the realms of their own control, in the territory where they feel they belong, they have their own measures of success. And that measure includes far more than personal success or money or glory. Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Twain, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Wayne Gretzky, Golda Maier, Helen Keller did well for themselves, but they did far more for their team and their society. Lady Gaga is a wolf whose mission is to offer self-esteem to her peafowl "Little Monsters" as part of an entourage that recognizes the shared dignity of all people.

Extraordinary Wolves are inspirational in whatever territory they feel is their own. Whether the team is the Chicago Bulls, Microsoft or the people of Israel, Wolves lead for the sake of the group and its purpose. Human Wolves lead because they have the confidence and optimism, the vision and purpose that make them worth following. Whether it is circumstances or Fate or God's grace that gives them their mission, Wolves feel the imperative to get out in front, to risk absolute failure, to believe in even impossible dreams. Ambition! Ambition! Ambition!

Wolves have enormous ambitions, but their personal ego satisfaction is completely secondary in those ambitions. It is Edmund Hillary going up Everest because it's there. Wolves know they are special, but being special is not the point.

Bill Russell, the Hall of Fame basketball player said that the thing that separates the superstar from the exceptional athlete is rhythm and confidence. By rhythm he meant the ability of a player to see the game as a whole and to personally control its tempo: slow it down when necessary, speed it up when necessary. Confidence, to Russell, was wanting to be the one to make decisions when they were absolutely crucial. This kind of self-confidence takes an absolute faith in one's ability to make the right choice when it matters the most. Even when Wolves make the wrong choice, they want to be in the same position the next time a crucial decision has to be made because they have an absolute faith that they are still the best one to make it.

Wayne Gretzky, in a team test of athletic ability, was dead last in every measure when he was compared with his teammates--dead last, except for one ability. The greatest hockey player to ever live had one special ability: ten minutes after a game was over he could remember the entire game, where every one of his teammates had been and what they had been doing. Gretzky sees the team as a whole, he sees himself as the pivotal part of that whole. The player who once scored ninety-two goals in a season has more assists than any other player has points. One of the smallest, slowest, weakest players to ever play professionally is The Great One because he is a Wolf whose prime purpose is to lead his pack. When Gretzky attacked it was not one, or three, but all five teammates attacking, because only he saw them as a unit seeking a specific goal.

Optimism and confidence clearly has little to do with having the most skill or talent. Gretzky had no reason to believe that he should be the best player, but he was. Like most Wolves, he is very humble about his achievements, calling them the product of hard work and having a certain gift for doing the right thing at the right time.

Wolves, Territories, and Missions

Wolves need both a territory and a pack to lead on a mission, whether it's the New York Rangers getting a Stanley Cup or Gandhi freeing the people of India. Wolves, because of their confidence and optimism, want to go where no one has gone before. Wolves want to discover and consolidate new territory for the benefit of the group whether it is a team, a country, a company, or humanity. The Starship Enterprise was truly well named--of course it was named by a Wolf, Gene Roddenberry.

Whether territories are intellectual, practical, emotional or spiritual, Wolves want to explore and consolidate new territory so the pack can have the benefit of what's there. Whether it's making an instant camera like Robert Land, or inventing a personal computer like Steven Jobs, whether it's ways of seeing the human heart like Shakespeare or leading excluded people to a share of humanity like Martin Luther King Jr., whether it is Moses or Jesus of Nazareth leading people to a greater connection with their God, Wolves feel the desire, the passion, and the great purpose of a mission.

Without a mission, leadership has no point to a Wolf beyond ego gratification. Wolves that know they are special find simple ego gratification pointless. Glory comes with the realized goal, not from being the one to lead the way. As the Wolf Robert Kennedy said, "Some people see the world as it is and ask, 'Why?' I see worlds that have never been and ask, 'Why not?'"

If you build it they will come.

There is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Dream the impossible dream.

A Wolf is always searching for a mission. A Wolf finds that mission in discovering the territory where he or she belongs. Michael Jordan wouldn't be much of a philosopher or even a baseball player, as he found out when he tried to be one. Mohammed Ali wouldn't be much on skates. Yehudi Menuhin may, in fact, have been a so-so pianist. Wolves need to find the territory where they belong.

There is a book called The Soul's Code, by James Hillman that says that everyone has a special purpose in life. That may or may not be true, but it is true for Wolves because that is how they feel. Wolves feel special. As The Soul's Code points out about many famous people, they felt special, felt called to a certain purpose even as children.

Yehudi Menuhin wanted a violin the first time he heard one played. When his parents gave him the appropriate violin for his five-year old hands, he would not use it because only the adult instrument would do. He did learn to play it passably well. Wayne Gretzky's father had to drag his five-year-old son from the ice day after day so he could be put to bed. Whether it is the call of a violin or a hockey stick, a book of philosophy or the voice of God, Wolves are always waiting for that call.

Wolves that haven't found their territory and heard the call of their own special pack, often drift from one dream to another, one small mission to another, searching for the place they belong, where they will make a difference, for the purpose they feel they are destined to fulfill.

Every Wolf Wants to Be an Alpha

Top dog, top gun, top hand, top of the mountain, every Wolf wants to be the best because being the best means you are in the best position to help realize the aspirations of the group. It is wanting to be the one in the position to decide what should be done when the decision is the most crucial one to make.

Martin Luther King Jr. did not say, "We have a dream," he said, "I have a dream." Even though he prophetically knew he would not get there with his people, it didn't matter because the goal would be realized, his dream would come to be. His mission would be accomplished even in death. And that is what matters to a Wolf.

The Weakness of Wolves

When your reach almost always exceeds your grasp, it is almost certain you will have terrible falls. And because Wolves fall from such heights, they can cause terrible injuries, not only to the leading Alpha Wolf, but to the pack that has followed into new, dangerous territory.

Don Quixote, The Man of La Mancha, was such an Extreme Wolf that he was delusional. To the destitute Don who was a nobleman in any situation, a donkey was a fine thoroughbred, a prostitute, a noble lady, and a windmill a great giant calling him to combat. His battle with the windmill is the literary metaphor for all foolish, lost causes. Yet, even mad and delusional, Wolves can be truly inspiring. No one wants the Don to give up being mad because his Wolf madness affirms the greatness that can be found in oneself and in life.

The song "The Impossible Dream" from the Broadway show captures the glory and the futility of reaching too high, going too far. Dreaming impossible dreams, fighting unbeatable foes, bearing unbearable sorrows, being willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause seems absurd and self-destructive. It often proves to be so for Wolves and their followers. But when the cause is worth attaining, when the cause is truly worthwhile and admirable, there are few who can help but admire those who risk everything for a better world. That's why people follow Wolves. As Jimmy Stewart said in the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, "The lost causes may be the only ones really worth fighting for." Yet Wolves are anything but suicidal. Even Jesus asked that He be spared his fate.

Only a Wolf's confidence and optimism makes it possible to believe that impossible dreams can come true. Wolves have made impossible things come true often enough that we all hope for leaders who will lead us to a better world. Still, a lot of Wolves do get shot or hung or nailed to a cross, and their followers and families often end up being destroyed as well.

Dianne Fossey's passion to save wild gorillas got her murdered. Medgar Evers and many, many others joined Martin Luther King Jr. in martyr's graves. The families of Wolves, and the families of those that follow them, pay with sorrows that they often had no choice in assuming or bearing. Risk is natural for a Wolf, because there is no change or progress without it. Money, power, intelligence, skill, talent, only means something to a Wolf because they offer opportunities worth pursuing.

No matter how much success a Wolf has, there is always more to be achieved. For Michael Jordan or Jimmy Carter or Gandhi or Oprah Winfrey or Mother Theresa, or Barak Obama success only demands greater risk because success brings with it even greater opportunity. When you live like that, unlike four-legged wolves, who have neither the ability or the need to dream impossible dreams, two-legged Wolves often have terrible falls. And when they fall, many often fall with them.

It is the families of Wolves who often have little choice in bearing the consequences of the risks that Wolves will assume. Parents, spouses and children of Wolves, not only have to watch their loved ones destroyed, but also, sometimes, face the same fate themselves. Wolves have to know that even babies sometimes die for causes they never knew even existed. Whether it is financial bankruptcy or emotional loneliness, Wolf families invariably pay a high cost. Because Wolves are so inspiring and their cause is usually so worthwhile, Wolf families can have little to do but bear what is asked of them.

The second aspect of Wolf behaviour that can be difficult for others to understand or control is the relationship of a Wolf to power. Because a Wolf's confidence and optimism often gives them positions of leadership, they have power over others that can be misused. A Wolf believes in hierarchies of power, and can come to feel that such a position carries with it special privileges.

Wolves feel they have the ability and right to decide when and which rules of behaviour apply to them. Part of being a Wolf is having the confidence and authority to decide when rules should be challenged for the benefit and progress of the group. But with power come opportunities to decide when and what rules apply to the role of the leader.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Bill Clinton are good examples of Wolves who felt that their roles as leaders allowed them to have special rules for themselves when it came to marriage. They seemed to believe that their very real commitment to their marriages were not affected by their belief they could have special exemptions for marital infidelity. " I did it because I could." was the way Clinton explained his infidelity. He felt empowered to decide what rules applied to him.

Power corrupts, and Wolves are vulnerable to the corruption of feeling their special role, as leader, comes with special privileges. Of course their authority and credibility among the Weaverbird majority is severely affected. But it is interesting that times have changed so much in our recent Peafowl century that even Weaverbirds seem to have little outrage about a leader's personal weakness, if the security and integrity of the office they hold is not affected. The idea that personal morality does not affect the perception of a leader's public morality is new indeed.

There is always a risk for Wolves that they will feel they can make special rules for themselves. There is also the risk that Wolves will see their very real commitment to the greater good as justifying ruthlessness in attaining those ends. Wolves might see those who oppose the creation of worlds that have yet to be, as deserving to be pushed aside in the words of Malcolm X: "By any means necessary." Bobby Kennedy, Margaret Thatcher, Ho Chi Minh all exhibited the kind of ruthless behaviour that advanced the goals of their people. There were great costs born by many innocent people because of this.

That same ruthlessness can also exhibit itself personally in a Wolf as arrogance and bossiness. Wolf confidence can and does intimidate and control people who haven't the power or confidence to resist. And, seeing no resistance, Wolves assume that no reluctance or opposition exists, and so they end up taking people to places they would not choose or necessarily want to go.

Wolves are often forgiven and forgive themselves for excesses of power because of their undeniably good intentions. But having good intentions does not guarantee being good. The road to hell is paved with them. And Wolves who end up there are probably well acquainted with that particular path. It is easy for Wolves and their followers to accept that there are special rules for those who lead. But those rules must never carry or imply a special morality that contradicts that of the pack.

For Wolves, it is the corruption of power that they must guard against most carefully. It is also what their followers must be most careful about accepting and justifying.

There Are No Little Wolves

Tim "The Toolman" Taylor on the old television show Home Improvement was a Wolf. His self-confidence and optimism make him constantly attempt things that he has never done before, that he has no idea how to do. Always on a mission to improve everything, he tweaks every motor and engine until it is so much improved that it is a disaster. Vacuums suck up everything smaller than a bread box and lawn mowers tear up the lawn with their tires. Tim is the comic representation of the Wolf tendency to be unable to see the limits in a good idea.

Jefferson never understood the limits of an inflexible Bill of Rights. Ronald Reagan never understood the limits of supply side economics. Every grand idea and noble cause has an extreme that is terrible. The Christian ideal of love could end in The Inquisition. Mao Tse-Tung could liberate millions from feudalism to make them slaves or slaughtered victims of his Utopian ideal. Like Tim The Toolman, it is easy, with a great idea, to forget who and what the ideal purpose is to serve. Like all Wolves, Tim believes in what he is doing, and regardless of his unending failures, he is willing to risk his and his family's security again and again.

The hardest thing for a Wolf to realize is when enough is enough. Just as Weaverbirds can never have too much security, and Peafowl can never have or give too much attention, Wolves never find an end to their ambitions. More is always better because the tool man's vacuum will clean deeper and faster, and greater liberty will make people happier and more fulfilled. As with the other kinds of self-esteem, the strengths of Wolves are often their weaknesses as well.

Confidence and optimism are a Wolf's strength. Wolves often succeed more than others because they are far less afraid of risk and failure. Yet Wolves aren't necessarily smarter or more gifted than anyone else. They are special because they believe they are. Because of their confidence and optimism, they inspire others to follow them, to believe that they have the right ideas. So that when they are wrong, as they often are, others suffer the consequences of giving authority to a Wolf.

Wolf confidence makes them feel that they have the right answer, even when they have little knowledge or experience on which to base that confidence. Wolf confidence can make for a certain bossiness when dealing with others' concerns because leadership doesn't depend upon consensus for them. Because others are impressed with a Wolf's confidence and optimism, serious, legitimate concerns are often brushed aside.

Wolves are insensitive to fear because they don't feel it like others do. Wolves usually don't have to learn to overcome fear, but learn to respect it in those they may happen to lead. Wolves see the world through rose-coloured glasses and often create rose-coloured worlds that others can enjoy. But they can also create worlds that only they can see and believe to be better ones.

The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux is about a Wolf who takes his family into the jungle to create a new, better society for them. He destroys them and himself in a desperate attempt to make that happen. The suffering he demands of his family is cruel and uncompromising. His best intentions justify his worst behaviour. His family members let themselves be destroyed because they love him for the passion in those best intentions. If you want to read a heart-wrenching account of the best and worst in the Wolf way of seeing the world, it is all there in The Mosquito Coast.

In this world, Wolves have always been leaders, the ones that inspired the pack to explore new territories of thought or action. But like Tim The Toolman, they are dangerous. They are dangerous to the status quo because they are all revolutionaries in their own way. Hockey is a different game because of Gretzky. The world is a different place because of Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, Mohammed Ali. They saw worlds that never were and said, "Why not?"

Seeing oneself as being special, and inspiring others to feel the same way about themselves, has an incredible power and potential, but it also has terrible risks. Change is always hard on those it happens to affect most profoundly. Wolves don't understand or appreciate that as they should because they are comfortable with change, because it means the creation of a better way, a better world. Those being forced to accept the changes of new ways often resist forcefully. This leads to conflict and suffering and violence.

The hardest moral question for Wolves and their followers is what do you do with those who resist a new and better world? The French Revolution that was to be built on reason ended up cutting off the heads of those who refused to see the logic of Equality, Liberty and the brotherhood of all people.

Goodness doesn't necessarily come with good intentions, and that is a difficult thing for Wolves to appreciate or understand sometimes. Ordinary, frightened people often have to pay the price for a better world that fearless Wolves propose to create for them.

Little black children have had to walk the gauntlet of vicious racists to desegregate schools. Unasked, they too had to fight the battles engaged by Martin Luther King Jr.

Ho Chi Minh seems to have been a Wolf who wanted a better life for his people free of Colonial rule from the West. He had the optimism and confidence to believe his poor little nation could prevail against the greatest military power in human history. And prevail he did. But at what cost? Millions of his people died to make Ho Chi Minh's vision become real.

Only a Wolf has the confidence and optimism to ask people to pay such a price on such seemingly impossible odds. What if the US had won the war in Vietnam? Would it have been worth the sacrifice? Was it worth the sacrifice to have won? Only Wolves feel the authority to decide such things.

The One True Wolf Society

There is only one institution ever created that is based on the values and attitudes of the Wolf pack--the modern Western military. Squad, Corps, Nation, God, and individual loyalty to those four things in that order is the essence of true Wolf society. The individual gives way to the purpose of the pack, and to the chain of command that has the authority to direct that purpose.

All military values reflect the bond of common purpose: discipline, bravery, honour, and absolute loyalty to the group. The military is the Wolf pack that gives up Weaverbird equality in society to protect that society from its enemies. Wars cannot be engaged or fought by consensus. Leadership in the military is gained, at least in theory, by having the confidence and authority to make decisions for those of lesser rank, and the confidence and loyalty to follow without question the decisions of those of a higher rank.

Weaverbirds and Peafowl also rise in the chain of command, but this does not detract from the ideal of the Corps; they too must try to give and follow orders in order to serve the purpose of the greater mission. Eisenhower was an extraordinary Weaverbird General. McArthur was an Extraordinary Peacock General. Colin Powell is probably a Wolf. Their particular kind of self-esteem affected the way they made decisions, but they each had to do that in the context of the greater purpose, the conduct and preparation of war.

Ordinary, Extraordinary, and Extreme Wolves

The difference between an Ordinary and an Extraordinary Wolf is measured in the qualities that make Wolves what they are: confidence, optimism, and the authority they feel to lead others.

As with Wayne Gretzky, it isn't raw talent or skill that makes a Wolf special. When you consider the great Wolves of history, they often did not have extraordinary intelligence or skill. What they had was the ability to make people want to follow them, no matter where that might lead. Ordinary Wolves choose lesser goals; Extraordinary Wolves choose great ones. It is the size of the territory a Wolf sees as his or hers to conquer and hold with the pack that is the measure of their prowess. Even with incredible self-confidence and an unshakeable optimism, Wolves never feel the power of those great qualities until they find the mission that is their own, a purpose they were called to achieve. Often ordinary Wolves simply haven't found the mission, the territory that they recognize as their own.

The woman who founded Mothers Against Drunk Drivers might never have found her extraordinary ability to lead and change those laws and attitudes that accepted the curse of drunk drivers. Her own daughter's death at the hands of a drunk driver gave her that mission, her territory, a new and better world to create. Many laws have changed because of her and countless lives have been saved because she had the confidence and optimism to believe she could do it.

Many times, children have picked up a ball or seen someone dance or seen a movie or touched a wild horse and known what they would do with their lives. Sometimes the mission comes later in life; sometimes it never comes at all. When it does appear, a Wolf knows with absolute certainty this is what they were meant to do; this is where they belong. The fates and their opportunities determine a Wolf's life as it does no other type of self-esteem. Oprah Winfrey said that even in the terrible, abusive period of her youth, she always knew she would make her mark in life. That knowledge, that confidence was what made her take advantage of the opportunities the fates offered her. Her territory of success was not as a talk show host, but as an instrument to create a new and better world at four o'clock, five days a week.

Extreme Wolves

Of the three kinds of self-esteem, it is most difficult to distinguish between what is extraordinary and what is extreme in the psychological self-esteem of Wolves.

Can a person feel too special, too gifted?

How much optimism and confidence is too much?

What dreams can anyone say are really impossible?

Most of the great creations in history have begun with one person with an impossible dream. How could one skinny man with a spinning wheel free 600 million people from the colonial rule of the greatest empire in human history? Without an army, eschewing all violence, with only his confidence and optimism that he could do it, Gandhi did the impossible.

Were the tens of thousands of people who died in sectarian violence after the British left India worth the creation of Pakistan and a free India? There is a terrible price to change, even when that change has great advantages. Wolves lead because Wolves aren't afraid of risk. They are willing to let individuals pay a great price, even death, to improve the circumstances of the group they lead. Jesus of Nazareth was willing to lay down his life like a common criminal to prove to mankind his message of love. Considering who he was and when he lived, his was as impossible a dream as there has ever been. Certifiable! Today He wouldn't be nailed to a cross; He would be on lithium.

So who is to say what is Extreme when it comes to Wolves? Sometimes the price of following impossible dreams is that the cause, i.e. the mission, may demand self-destruction or the death of countless innocent people. There is one thing that can be seen as extreme in striving for a greater good, and that is forcing people to follow where they do not wish to go and punishing those who resist. Almost every revolution comes to the point where non-believers are imprisoned or killed.

Christ's church, built on love and forgiveness, ended up creating the Inquisition. The French Revolution based on equality, brotherhood and individual freedom ended up killing people because of their class, and eventually because some were seen as less committed than they should have been to the revolutionary ideals. Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. lead as great Wolves by the power of their ideals and the confidence they could inspire in them.

Violence may be necessary to fight an oppressive State, but when violence is done to the very people that are supposed to be better off, when the mission becomes more important than the ideals that it represents, then that can and must be seen as an extreme to be avoided and condemned.

Wolves We've Known and Loved

Of course there are the great ones, the Wolves that saw all of humanity as a part of their pack: Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Lao Tzu, all the great religious leaders who had the optimism and confidence to say each person has an absolute value that can not be denied. Like them, but more practical, are the great emancipator Wolves: Jefferson, Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. Nelson Mandela. There are the great compassionate Wolves: Mother Theresa, Albert Schweitzer, Helen Keller, Oprah Winfrey. There are the inventive Wolves: Jobs, Tesla, Ben Franklin, Einstein. There are the creative Wolves: Mark Twain, Tolstoy, Shakespeare.

All great Wolves, each in their own territory, changed the world because they had the confidence and optimism to believe they could do it. Even a seemingly abject failure like Vincent Van Gogh inspires tens of thousands people today with the passion and vision of the world he imagined and shared with humanity. Wolves create the new ideas that inspire others to see their connection to the pack, see a common purpose and value that includes and affirms and goes beyond their value as an individual.

A Wolf's Front Door

A Wolf will want the door to be the best door for the house it is to serve. A Wolf will go through a complex set of considerations and decide quite quickly what the right door should be. If it can't be found, it has to be created. Considering the architecture of the house, the practical considerations that have to be met and the individual style they most prefer, the door becomes a mission that is achieved when it satisfies all those considerations.

A Wolf Wins an Oscar

"I'd like to thank everyone who was a part of realizing this important achievement, the writers, actors, editors, and crew whose individual contributions were so important. I'd like to thank my own family who believed so much in me and in this project and gave it and me, such unwavering support. We are all a part of a great achievement. Together we made this possible."

Identifying Wolves

Wolves are loyal, first to their mission, then to people.

Wolves are fearless, sometimes recklessly so.

Wolves marry people they think are their equals.

Wolves are confident, even in the face of very risky opportunities.

Anything a Wolf can imagine, a Wolf thinks it can do.

Wolves often dress badly.

They are insatiably curious.

They can be charming when they want to be.

They can be bossy as hell.

They think they know more than they do.

They are compassionate and fair.

They talk too much.

They are faithful friends.

They love to tease.

They share credit and take blame.

They pack only as little as they may need.

They are usually fun.

They love to laugh.

They pick a car for its design not its status or price.

They are devoted parents.

They have a childlike spontaneity themselves.

They are dreamers.

They make dreams come true.

Chapter 4

Social Self-esteem: The Things We Do For Love

The traditional way to look at self-esteem is as a product of our interaction with the world in which we live. The way people treat us has a very direct effect on how we feel about ourselves. This can be called Social Self-esteem. It is how all we feel about ourselves when we're praised or criticized. It is natural for all people to feel better when they are praised, and feel worse about themselves when they are criticized.

The pain, self-doubt, and lower social self-esteem that come from being rejected by the people who are part of our lives can be profound, regardless of whether we are a Weaverbird, Peafowl or Wolf. People internalize both the pain of rejection and the satisfaction of praise. In tribal societies people often die of a broken heart if they are rejected by their own. People sometimes die in our modern world for the very same reason. We often believe what we're told about our value as human beings.

The importance of Social Self-esteem cannot be underestimated. Far and away the most devastating effects of believing what people say about us happens before we are adults. It is also during this time that praise and support can be invaluable in forming a positive view of ourselves.

Both as children and adolescents, we have no experience, no basis to feel good about ourselves other than how were treated, how much and how well we are loved. Even normal brain development depends on nurture and interaction with adults. Children try very hard to please their parents and friends, to earn and deserve their love.

What we do for love and acceptance, to gain a measure of Social Self-esteem, how we react to praise and criticism, will depend on our Innate Self-esteem, whether we are at Weaverbird, a Peafowl or a Wolf. Our Innate Self-esteem will determine how we react to criticism and praise. Feeling good about ourselves and feeling badly about ourselves will exhibit themselves in completely different ways depending on our Innate Self-esteem. Yet, it is important to understand Social Self-esteem and how it works, before we try to understand how our Innate Self-esteem will interpret and react to praise and rejection.

Social Self-esteem: The Structure

Social Self-esteem is gained by doing, having and wanting the things that those who matter to us say are important. People say it by example and by the way they behave. They say it directly by approving our 'correct' choices, and disapproving of our 'bad' ones. Social Self-esteem is, in fact, entirely made up of other people's reactions to the things a person does and the things a person has. It is the reaction of others to the person we present to the world. It is the social mask we create to gain acceptance.

Social Self-esteem comes from the things we do and have that the world can see and judge. Our attractiveness, our money, our style, our education, our social class, our dress, our sense of humour, are some of the things people look at when they decide how they feel about us. These are the things we use to create the structure the world sees when they look at us and judge us. It is the house we live in. It is not who we are.

The views and biases of the people who make up our lives will determine what we feel we can and should make of ourselves. These views and biases come from the way those people decided to build the house that they live in. This is called culture. Society decides the zoning laws and the community conventions about what is acceptable in being a person and what is not acceptable. There is enormous social pressure on people, as they grow up, to create structures that society accepts and approves.

In an Amish culture, material possessions will be seen to be dangerous things, whereas in New York City they will be seen to be valuable and good. To be proud and brave and aggressive in one culture is to be egotistical, arrogant and violent in another. The structures of value the world creates are powerful forces acting on each individual. For some, what their culture tells them to make of themselves will seem to be wonderful; to others what their culture tells them to make of themselves will seem to be a prison. The more rigid the society a person is born into, the more violent the reaction will be to any deviation to anything that society feels is unacceptable.

Within any society, smaller groups form to express deviations from the norms and values of the greater society. These smaller groups also develop rules of what is acceptable and what is not. With Social Self-esteem, who an individual is, what an individual feels is the last thing that is considered in judging a person's worth. Small interest groups fight to express values that are different from that of the general society, and individuals have to fight to express values that are different from both.

Somebody is always being hurt, no matter what norm or value the culture asserts as the norm. The world is one big high school where cliques form to assert values not accepted by the greater powers that be.

The Power of Families

A family is the first, and most powerful, expression of culture an individual meets in life. It expresses, most powerfully, the things that are important to a culture and passes them on to their children. How a family fits in to its society is very important to the self-esteem of the individual. How individuals fit into their family is just as important.

In childhood, we emulate those we love. We learn our family's attitudes and behaviours, their beliefs and expressions and copy them. Parents are the first role models children have, although sometimes siblings and grandparents can be powerful role models children try to copy as well.

Grandparents are often a good example of people behaving differently than who they really are when they feel they have to try to satisfy a particular social role. With their own children, grandparents may have very different attitudes and behaviours than with their grandchildren. Freed of the ideas of who they should be as parents, with their grandchildren, they become much more who they are as individuals. They give their grandchildren praise and approval that they never dared offer their own children, lest they betray their duties in passing proper social standards on to their children.

Monkeys see and monkeys do. Often children use this simple strategy in building the first structures of their Social Self-esteem. Some children see respect and civility and copy it: some see anger and conflict and copy that. They do the things that gain the approval of those they love, and in so doing, they become culturally socialized. At first, a child will feel his own self-worth to be directly related to the praise or the disapproval of the people in their families.

Sometimes these copied behaviours are soon left behind, sometimes they last a lifetime. Sometimes the things we copy from our parents fit who we are, sometimes they don't, and we may be imprisoned by those behaviours until we are strong enough to make choices for ourselves and decide who we are and how we compare to others regardless of what our families say. This first happens when peers exert an influence on the individual that is contrary to, and expresses values that are different from, a person's family's values. Family pressure turns to peer pressure, as an individual tries to make the best of the social environment around him or her.

Peers are ruthless enforcers when it comes to difference; differences in colour, speech, sexual attractiveness, intelligence, dress, any and all behaviour can come under the brutal assault of peer groups. Few children can bear such attacks without pain or terror.

A person's Social Self-esteem will be formed in the cauldron of society: families and peer groups, and social institutions. Praised by some, criticized by others, growing up is a very confusing and demanding task for an individual. It is easy to understand why it is so difficult for teenage children to understand and appreciate who they are. There is no end to the conflicting and differing estimations a child faces as to his or her worth. It is an incredible can of worms. Whom is a person to believe?

When an important person in our lives praises us for something for which we find no personal satisfaction, what are we to do? When another criticizes us for something we find satisfying in ourselves, how are to we to respond? Everyone, eventually, comes to the point where they feel they are misunderstood and unappreciated by those who care for them. Everyone who is not a member of a cult comes to understand that, as an individual, they will always be, in some measure in conflict with the people around them--with the groups to whom they do and wish to belong.

In the measures of Social Self-esteem, it is always a balancing act between praise and criticism that an individual must do, every day in life. In the end, perhaps the greatest task a child faces in life is learning how to deal with the fact that they feel different, and are different than the world says they are. To be different, in any way, is often an invitation to an attack from parents, siblings, teachers or peers. As we make life choices to please and fit in, gain approval and avoid the rejection of those who matter to us in life, everyone tries to mitigate and avoid and anticipate those possible attacks.

Whether a person is a Weaverbird, Peafowl, or a Wolf, society will use its powerful carrots and sticks to get people to conform to the way a person is supposed to be. Each person often has to choose between competing forces in society telling him or her or what is acceptable and what is not. This makes life a crushing set of contradictions that are impossible to avoid.

What our families may say is good our friends may say is terrible; what our teachers praise us for doing may be the opposite of what other people have done to succeed. Even morals, ethics, and the rules of law may favour one group and reject another group for similar behaviour. The O.J. Simpson trial made clear how people of two races viewed, accepted or rejected the same set of facts.

Each of the three kinds of Innate Self-esteem responds to the forces that make up Social Self-esteem in their own particular ways. Weaverbirds strive to accommodate difference but are, in fact, terribly threatened by it. Weaverbirds know the price of being different and so, try to conform and get others to conform as well.

In one American high school, two students who were new to the school were suspended because they became the object of terrible hazing and threats from a small group of peers. The parents of the hazed children appealed the decision, but the offenders were not punished. A decision was made to allow the victims of the hazing to return to school with two armed guards to accompany them. This of course, would have made the victims stand out and be even more different than they had been when they were suspended. The victims of the hazing felt so stigmatized that they were forced to change schools.

Weaverbird institutions, like schools, can't bear conflict, and have a difficult time finding resolutions to it. Too often, the Weaverbird solution is to blame the victim, even as they give them their sympathy. Too often, this is true of rape, murder, robbery and extortion. The victim could have avoided getting into trouble if they had been more of a Weaverbird and protected themselves more carefully.

Peafowl, who are desperate for approval and acceptance, will do anything to please those who matter to them. They adopt the values of the group completely, hoping to be accepted. When they're confronted with the conflicting values of different groups in their lives, they are thrown into turmoil. The frustration and confusion that comes when Peafowl try to gain some measure of Social Self-esteem can be monumental. Peafowl live for acceptance and so take any rejection deeply to heart.

Wolves, on the other hand, are best able to deal with the problem of gaining Social Self-esteem because they have an innate sense of their own worth, and the confidence and optimism to believe that what they're doing is what they should be doing. Wolves are not afraid to risk, not afraid to fail, not afraid to rebel, and not afraid to be different. A Wolf's biggest fear is letting down the pack in the mission they have agreed to share.

Innocence and Experience

Innocence and inexperience are the reasons children are so vulnerable to social pressure, the need to fit in and belong. Because they have no innate sense of their own psychological makeup, their own innate Innate Self-esteem, Social Self-esteem is all-important to a child and to an adolescent. Without power, money, education, status, or independence, a child has little to point to as an external measure of why the world should value him or her.

Acceptance and rejection are based on such tenuous, arbitrary things for young people, that it's easy to understand the fear and anxiety they have about being worth anything at all. More and more children are killing themselves rather than live with the pain of rejection, the demands of Social Self-esteem, and the price of feeling different.

Everyone can remember how helpless a person was, in school, when the bullying would begin. There was no defense, and there was no way to defend those who were the victims of social coercion. The coercion of schools and families relies on the innocence and inexperience of young people to get them to do what they are told, what others say is best for them.

As we get older and develop a sense of our own individuality and our own Innate Self-esteem, it is interesting to note that the measures of self-worth become, more and more, those of Social Self-esteem, the values of the group to which a person belongs. Money, status, education, attractiveness, power, become the measure even adults use when discussing their self-worth.

Having gone through a childhood with limited measures of Social Self-esteem, with only one's individuality and what reflected glory came from their parents, most people don't realize that the individual satisfaction of learning who they are and what is important to them is not a measure of Social Self-esteem at all, but a measure of the personal values of their Innate Self-esteem.

It is not surprising then, that Social Self-esteem has become almost the universal measure of a person's self-worth, and that Innate Self-esteem, how we compare our value as individuals, is a thing that is little understood.

Innate Self-esteem

Beneath the social structure we build for our Social Self-esteem is the unchanged, permanent foundation of our Innate Self-esteem. How we react to the social boot camp of growing up will depend on that foundation, whether we're Weaverbirds, Peafowl, or Wolves.

One of the greatest challenges and tasks a person faces in life is to change. And most often the things we must change in ourselves come from having built inappropriate structures, in earlier life, to satisfy our needs in gaining Social Self-esteem. We do what others tell us we should do; we become what others tell us we should become. Sometimes, the people and institutions that touch us are right for us. Sometimes they are dead wrong, and the things we've done, the things we believe to be true, turn out not to satisfy, but to stifle us. The person we have become, in building the structures of our Social Self-esteem, may not fit on the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem.

The Weaverbird growing up in a Peafowl house will have to change the things they do and the things they believe that came from their Peafowl parents. A Weaverbird will want a secure life most of all, and so, the need for attention they saw and emulated in their parents is something they will grow to reject, sooner or later.

The Peafowl child growing up in a Weaverbird house will find his or her need for attention stifled by the needs of Weaverbird parents for harmony, equal treatment and fairness. The child may feel the need to act out to get the attention so necessary to feel good about themselves. For a Peafowl child, fairness can lead to either frustration or guilt. They don't want fairness and equality, they want to be noticed and reassured of their worth.

The Wolf child growing up in a Weaverbird house or a Peafowl house, will feel frustrated by the fact that their very optimism and confidence is stifled by the innate pessimism those parents feel about facing the challenges of life.

Children believe what they're told to believe, and because of their innocence and inexperience, they are unable to assert the needs of their true Innate Self-esteem, as they try to gain Social Self-esteem by trying to please their parents. The more a person acts in accordance with the values of those around them, the more approval they will receive. So, that's what children do.

Growing up may be, in fact, the point at which we stop believing we are what other people tell us we are, stop believing what other people tell us we should be, and start to base our decisions in life, on our Innate Self-esteem rather than the needs we have for Social Self-esteem.

In trying to please others, Weaverbird children may try to behave like Peafowl or Wolves. Wolves may strive to behave like Peafowl or Weaverbirds. Peafowl often try to be Weaverbirds or Wolves. We believe we are who we are told we are, because few children are able to make the choice between social acceptance and their individual feelings.

Almost always, our need for social acceptance wins out while we're young. We have little choice and less understanding of who we are and what it means to express that individuality, our own Innate Self-esteem, how we feel we really compare to others. So many people grow up building social structures of character and personality that don't fit their personal identity, that "finding yourself" becomes a common part of growing up. It is growing up.

Most people have to search to find their identity, and most people find it. And what they find is the basic foundation of the self, whether they are Weaverbirds, Peafowl, or Wolves. As we live and grow up, we find the limits of the house we live in, the limits of the structures in life we've created to gain a measure of Social Self-esteem. We eventually find the limits of the life we've made for ourselves, the limits that do not satisfy us, we also begin to realize the things that would give us more satisfaction and fulfillment.

First we discover who we aren't, then we can begin to discover who we are. This often means considerable change, serious renovations and alterations in what we do and what we want. This is the period in life when exploration and experimentation are necessary. This is the period when we learn to say yes to our sense of who we are and realize more fully the foundations of our Innate Self-esteem.

Weaverbirds come to realize the importance of family, security, and work. Peafowl come to realize that they need others to respond to their choices in life to give them real satisfaction and meaning. Wolves find a mission. Only when they find their mission will they feel the authority to assert their confidence and optimism and take up the leadership role that gives them real satisfaction in life.

Peacocks and Peahens

There's one change that happens only to Peafowl as they discover who they are. It may seem like quite a radical change, but in fact it's not. The fundamental change that happens only to Peafowl occurs when Peacocks become Peahens or vice versa.

Peacocks, in trying to gain attention, sometimes act so badly, as their need for attention grows and grows, that they find no end of frustration and failure. The attention they get is never enough, so their pain and frustration may have led them to crash and burn so often and so badly, that they may decide it just isn't worth it. They seem to change in a fundamental way. They become Peahens. They decide to give their life to service, to another, to a cult, or they become part of the entourage of some hero in whose reflected glory they will now find meaning. Where once it was always about them, now it is never about them.

Peahens, on the other hand, have given and given and given to gain the acceptance and approval they need so deeply, and yet they may find that all their giving did not get them the feeling of satisfaction and acceptance that they so hoped to have. The worm turns. No more soft touch. No more Mr. Nice guy. Peahens may suddenly decide that it's time everything was about them, that it's going to be about what they get, not what they give. They become Peacocks. Where once it was never about them, now it is always about them.

These changes in an individual can seem profound to both themselves and to others but in fact, it's only turning over the same coin: Peacocks becoming Peahens, and vice versa.

Janis Joplin was a classic example of a Peahen who became a Peacock. In high school, she was shy, introverted, joining group after group in her attempt to belong. She joined the future nurses' club, the future teachers' club, the social club, she was a model of conservative deportment as she tried to find meaning by giving and giving so people would like her. Then the worm turned, Peahen became Peacock, and the person so eager to please became more and more demanding that others please her. Neither choice made her happy. She did not miss the irony of that when she said, just before she died, that she could make love to twenty-five thousand people in a night and then go home alone. Becoming a Peacock didn't end the pain. She became an extreme Peacock, and it killed her.

Living a Lie

How do we know if the social structures we've built for our lives fit on the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem? We know it by the pain we feel. We know it by the stress we feel. We know it by the feelings of frustration and heartache that seem to come from doing the things we do to gain our measure of Social Self-esteem. We know it when the things that we believe and do that should give us a satisfied fulfilled life are neither satisfying nor fulfilling. That's when we know we've made some bad choices.

Weaverbirds will suffer terrible stress and guilt in reacting to Peafowl or Wolf individuals or institutions. Peafowl will find Weaverbird institutions and individuals completely unsatisfying, never giving them the attention they need. Wolves will feel unsupported and frustrated by the fact that Peafowl and Weaverbird institutions and individuals have so little purpose, such limited goals, such a complete lack of a mission.

Yet Weaverbirds, Peafowl, and Wolves, in trying to gain a measure of Social Self-esteem, will believe and act as they are expected to act, in gaining the approval of individuals and institutions that may be different from the foundation of their own Innate Self-esteem.

Being who we aren't, doing things we don't believe in, trying to believe what others say is worthwhile that isn't what we feel is worthwhile, is painful. Pain is the reason we change. Pain is the reason the satisfactions of Social Self-esteem no longer seems enough. Our efforts to change and build suitable structures that fit on the foundation of our own Innate Self-esteem can be hard to do because it may bring severe opposition from others. But the pain of living a life that doesn't express who we are, is usually more painful than defying that opposition.

The millions of people reading books and going to counsellors and searching for programs to relieve their pain and stress and build a true and satisfying life on the foundations of their Innate Self-esteem grows every year. People want to get out of the giant high school of life and find a personal satisfaction beyond winning a greater measure of Social Self-esteem.

Anger

If we are living a lie, or a partial lie, by acting in ways and believing in things that don't fit the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem, we will probably be pretty angry about it at times.

The first reaction to continuing pain is anger. We are either angry at ourselves or we're angry with our situation, or we're angry with those who have asked us to act in ways and believe in things that do not fit the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem. It can be our culture, our families, or our work environments that causes this pain and anger. The way a person reacts to that pain and anger will, again, depend on their Innate Self-esteem.

Weaverbirds will be angry that they have an unsafe, irresponsible, inconsistent family or social environment. They will be angry because their life is out of balance and unfair. Peafowl will be angry that no one cares for them or appreciates their need for reassurance and approval. They will be angry that nothing they do seems to be enough to give them the Social Self-esteem they so desperately need. Wolves will be angry that they are always told that they are only dreamers, that their aspirations are too high and impractical. They will be angry that their missions are not taken seriously and that they themselves are not taken seriously.

Pain leads to anger; anger leads to confrontation; confrontation leads to change. Personal renovation of the house we live in eventually begins that change. When the cost is bearable, when opportunity permits, when innocence turns to experience and we start to sense who we are, and realize the things that are important to us, we begin the painful process of re-constructing ourselves.

Affiliation

In the world of self-esteem, the opposite of anger is not peace of mind, but a much bigger idea, affiliation. Whereas anger comes from feeling rejected or misunderstood, or from living in ways that others tell us we should live that don't fit the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem, affiliation is the positive feeling that comes from being accepted, understood and feeling we belong to someone, something, or someplace that knows us and accepts us for who we truly feel we are.

Love

The primary and greatest feeling of affiliation is love. The power of love is feeling that we are being seen, understood, and valued for who we are.

The enormous force of first love is that, for the first time in life, we care for someone for what we believe they truly are, and we believe that person cares for us for what we truly are. The anger and frustration that comes from being misunderstood can be miniscule compared to the power that we feel in the first affiliations of love. Social Self-esteem is built by others validating what we do and what we have, whereas love validates who we are. "You're everything to me."

"There is no one but you." "You are the song I sing, my breath, my life, my all." All great love songs are about this mutual recognition. Torch songs are the lack of this mutual recognition. "Wise men say young love's dream never comes true, but to prove wise men can be wrong, I concentrate on you." The wise men may be right, but they consistently underestimate the need people have to be understood and cared for as individuals. The first and most profound question love asks of us is who we are. We have to ask it of ourselves, we have to ask it of the one we love. The answer that love gives is that one person's love can measure an individual's value.

Loving and being loved is the ultimate measure of self-esteem because it is the only kind of self-esteem that sees people as individuals. It is substance not style that we believe is the measure of love. It is our true worth that is measured, or we believe is being measured, when we are in love. That's why it is so devastating when love's great hope is disappointed. As we get older most people's expectations for the total understanding we hope for in love, fades with experience.

Love's young dream rarely comes true, but it's never forgotten because we never lose the deep desire to be seen and to be understood and loved for who we truly are. The romance novel, the torch song are the art forms of that old longing. "Without you, I'm nothing. Without you, I'm nowhere."

When you consider the 60 percent divorce rate in North America and the countless failed relationships that come before them, it seems insane that people keep looking for love so long and so hard. But when you realize this prime affiliation is the closest we get to a real feeling for our individual value as a person, it's easy to understand why people keep trying, keep hoping.

Whether it's romantic love, family love, platonic love, or God's love that people find most affirms who they are, people will always continue to search for some greater understanding and acceptance and appreciation of themselves as individuals.

We are all looking for the person or place or belief that matches the hidden foundation of our Innate Self-esteem, the one that sees the individual that rises above that foundation. There are so many mistakes; it takes so much trial and error to find the place we belong, the persons we belong with, the people who know us for who we truly are, that many people give up or settle for much less than what they hoped would be. The fact that loving another is truly how we come to love ourselves, know ourselves and to feel an unshakeable sense of self-worth, is what gives love its power, no matter what compromises we choose to make.

Growing Up

In the end, most people do find the foundation of their Innate Self-esteem. They let go of the things that people have told them they should be that they do not find satisfying. Most Weaverbirds, Peafowl, and Wolves eventually find people and places that affirm the foundations of their Innate Self-esteem, respect their values, affirm their choices. Although they may not understand the hidden foundations of their own Innate Self-esteem, almost everyone, through experience, learns the solid feeling that comes with standing above that foundation.

Nevertheless, most people never get over the compromises they made to gain Social Self-esteem, or to gain the approval of people or institutions that had power and control over them in their development. These are the hot buttons that are so hard to stop reacting to because of the pain and effort it took for us to learn to rebel our restrictive circumstances and assert the values that underlie the foundations of our Innate Self-esteem.

Having, at last, gained enough control over our life, most people make choices that fit the foundation of their Innate Self-esteem, rejecting the things they can that do not fit that pattern. In controlling the choices that will make up our lives, we set up the self-fulfilling bias that affirms our choices. Weaverbirds create Weaverbird worlds, Peafowl create Peafowl worlds, Wolves create Wolf worlds, and reject values that don't fit them. When confronted with different species, there's usually rejection or conflict, as people try to make a world that fits the patterns of their own Innate Self-esteem.

The circle closes, the oppressed becoming the oppressors; the unsure and insecure end up terrifyingly self-righteous and sure of themselves. The things that our parents said to us that we swore we would never say to our children, we say. The rejections we felt, the misunderstanding we suffered, we inflict on others, in trying to assert the values of our Innate Self-esteem.

As with all belief structures, Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves are all sure that their way of seeing the world and measuring its values is the only one that is true and real and absolute.

Such is life. All that we can hope is that we learn from love that, as Dylan said, "You're right from your side, and I'm right from mine." Still, that too is a sad recognition of the perpetual misunderstanding and lack of appreciation we have of another's fundamental set of values.

Unfortunately, growing up often moves from affirming the foundations of our own Innate Self-esteem, to denying the value of the other two kinds of Innate Self-esteem. In affirming ourselves, too often we feel we must deny the value of others. Where once we felt the pain and frustration of others imposing values on us that did not satisfy our own sense of self, we come, too often, to the point where we are the ones imposing our values on others who do not have the ability or experience to affirm their own kind of Innate Self-esteem. Hence, it is most important for everyone to realize that the foundation of their Innate Self-esteem is only one of three equally valuable and different ways of comparing the self to others.

It is, therefore, most important for everyone to understand the attitudes and biases of both their own and the other two kinds of self-esteem. If we are ever to break the circle of misunderstanding, the cycles and patterns of acceptance and rejection that come with our need for Social Self-esteem, then we must realize what it is to be a Weaverbird, a Peafowl, or a Wolf.

We must realize that, from understanding and appreciating the two other ways of seeing and valuing oneself, comes the hope and possibility that we too will be understood and appreciated by those who are different from us.

Chapter 5

Friendship, Love, Marriage and Divorce

Friendship, love and marriage are the social relationships we choose to express who we are. In Western society, it is those relationships that are meant to satisfy our deepest feelings of self-esteem. The people who care about us, and the people we choose to include in our lives are the best indication of how we feel we compare to others. How valuable we feel to others, and how valuable they feel to us are crucial measures of our life's worth.

We choose people to be close to us because they see and respond to the person we feel lies beneath the trappings of our Social Self-esteem, the one that is built on the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem. We trust these special people to appreciate the best in us and to understand our deepest fears and weaknesses. We hope it is for more than our superficial gifts, the properties of our Social Self-esteem that these special people value us as individuals. Intelligence, power, money, attractiveness and style are secondary in importance to our friends and lovers.

Who We See Isn't Who We Get

When we choose friends, or lovers or spouses, we most often come to believe that they share a common way of seeing the world. Sometimes, that's true. Sometimes, it's not. Because our feelings for those we let close to us comes from our Innate Self-esteem, we often see those people through the filter of our own biases. Because they see and accept us for who we think we really are, love us for those very things, it is very easy to believe that they must share a common view of life and its value. But it isn't always so.

Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves sometimes love people who have their own kind of Innate Self-esteem, people of their own species. But often, people love members of the two other kinds of Innate Self-esteem. In friendship, that can be easy to accommodate.

In romantic love and in marriage, that can lead to profound confrontations. Every species projects their own view of the world on those they love. Those who feel equal to others, those who underestimate their value, those who feel they're born special in some way, will think those they love respond to the world just as they do. It comes as a shock to find out that those we care about deeply may see the world very differently than we do. It is one of the major causes of the enormous difficulty people have communicating with and understanding one another.

The issues of sex, money, personal responsibility, and parenting are issues that have many correct answers and a few very bad ones. With those we love, we confront our own values as well as share them. We test them with our loved ones because these are the people we trust will respect, consider and value our opinions.

Sometimes we're shocked to find out that those we care about most deeply have very different or contrary opinions about these issues. When someone you love challenges the way you feel about sex and money, parenting and personal responsibility and their importance to you, it is easy to be confused and upset by those differences of opinion. When someone you love tells you that the way you are spending your money is ridiculous, it implies they think that your values about money are ridiculous. It also implies that they think that you are ridiculous. Contrary opinions about sex and personal responsibility and parenting can lead us to question our opinions, but also to question whether we have made a mistake in our opinion as to whether our loved ones actually do share our deepest values. It also may get us to question how well those people actually know and respect who we are. Our conflicting opinions with those we love can be a severe shock and assault to our self-esteem.

You've Changed

When we're confronted with the knowledge that those we love are violently opposed to the way we feel and think, after believing that those people loved us for the way we feel and think, the only way we can account for this paradox is by thinking that these people have changed. In our relationships with those we care most about, it is most often true that it is not the people who change, but rather our perceptions of them that have changed.

Where we once used to see a generous person with a deep caring for others, we may come to see someone who is trying to buy the love they don't feel they deserve. Where once we saw a person driven by idealistic compassion, we can come to see a dreamer with very little sense of what's really possible to accomplish. A charming, attentive, dynamic person may come to be seen as someone who is vain and phony and driven by strange demons to be someone that they are not.

We may be drawn to people for strengths that we don't feel we have, and discover that those people's strengths were built on sand, or they may come with weaknesses we never even considered. It is hard to understand another person's way of seeing the world if it is very different from our own.

For someone who isn't a Weaverbird, it is hard to understand their constant need for security, their overriding respect for authority, and their desperate need to conform. For someone who isn't a Peafowl, it is hard to understand such a person's constant need for attention and reassurance, their seeming addiction to a life of such extreme emotional highs and lows. For someone who isn't a Wolf, it is hard to understand why there always has to be a mission in life, why one risk must be followed by an even greater risk, why there is never any end to the demands of opportunity.

Interspecies friendships, loves and marriages always end up confronting those very deep differences in value. It is one of the greatest challenges we face in our perceptions of others, one of the greatest challenges we face as friends and lovers, spouses and parents.

Friendship

Friendships are the first affiliations we make with people who like us for who we are. The need for a connection with friends happens even before the age or reason. The volatility of childhood friendships does not take away from their very real feeling and the very profound need that they satisfy. By the time we are entering high school, the deep needs these friendships satisfy can be truly profound. Adolescents share, with friends, the thoughts and feelings they wouldn't dare share with others, most especially their family.

Friendship is the training ground for the discovery of our true personal value. The love of friends is not unconditional; it is something we earn. It is the first great thing we've earned for ourselves in life. It is with friends that we first feel truly valued as individuals, and it is with friends that we first begin to discover and appreciate who we are. Even as friends are judged and measured by the values of Social Self-esteem, what happens as friends come to discover who they are as people is a gradual uncovering of the foundations of their Innate Self-esteem.

People tell their friends hopes and fears that they might never even tell a lover or a spouse. And so it is with friends that the greatest moments of self-discovery may come in a young life.

The ancient Greeks felt that friendship was the highest human affiliation because it was closest to the truth, to who we are as individuals. Without the biases of hormones, friendship was seen to be an even superior relationship to that of romantic love. Anem Cara was the term the ancient Celts had for a person who was a soul-friend, a person who knew and accepted us completely as a person. As we go through adolescence and into early adulthood, people often find an Anem Cara, a best friend who can be a cornerstone for a person's entire life.

Why We Choose the Friends We Do

Lifelong friends are ones we usually meet before we've made up all the broad structures of our Social Self-esteem; before we're married, before we're parents, before we have money or a career or power, before we have status or position. These are the people who knew us when. And the when was when we were just plain old us. Although, as adults, we try to build a world of Social Self-esteem that fits upon the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem, it is not these social accomplishments for which we feel our friends find us valuable as human beings. They cheer our successes and feel for our disappointment and losses, but we believe that a real friend, ultimately, relates to the person that exists behind all the social trappings. The older we get, the more difficult it becomes to be really sure that people want our friendships because of who we are, rather than the social trappings that have become so much part of who we present to the world.

As with all of life's values, what friendship means to us as individuals, and how we choose to express it will depend very much on the strengths and weaknesses of our kind of Innate Self-esteem, how we ultimately feel and believe we compare in value to other human beings: whether we're Weaverbirds, Peafowl or Wolves. How the three species recognize, interact and communicate as friends will be the testing ground for the more profound and challenging affiliations of romantic love and marriage.

Many people have said that if we treated our families as well as we treated our friends, those relationships would be immeasurably improved. The reason that is true is because the price of friendship rarely has a direct impact on the life of either of two friends. Our lovers and spouses and children all pay a very direct and immediate cost when they confront our values in respect to money and sex, personal responsibility and parenting. It is those we live with who pay directly for having conflicting values to our own. Living with those we love demands a continual compromise, from everyone, that is rarely achieved without conflict and pain. The respect and trust true friends find so easily, is hard won and difficult with lovers and spouses and children, who demand more than acceptance; they demand patience and understanding and ultimately wisdom.

What friendship offers, even though it asks so much less of us, is priceless, as anyone who has a true friend certainly knows. It is said that to have one true friend in life is a great fortune to have more than one is wealth beyond measure. It is true.

Weaverbird Friends

Because Weaverbirds see everyone as equals, they're open to all three species as friends. With another Weaverbird, they will share the confidence and security of common goals, equal respect, and practical worries. They'll talk about parents and spouses and children and work together in many practical ways, sharing thoughts and feelings about all the practical concerns in life.

Weaverbirds are always looking for the best strategies and rules to make life more secure for themselves and their families. Weaverbird friends don't go too deeply into personal feelings, especially ones that are negative. They see problems as personal ones, ones that are their own responsibility to solve. Even a spouse knows only a part of the worries that are constantly troubling a Weaverbird. Weaverbird friends do things together; they bond over informal events and life situations like birthdays and vacations and, most especially, shared parental support and responsibility.

When they are friends with a Peafowl, Weaverbirds try to ignore their friend's many ups and downs, although they also try to sympathize and make many practical suggestions. All of the demands of a Peafowl for deeper, more intimate connections will make a Weaverbird friend very anxious and stressed and defensive. The lack of rules, and the lack of respect for authority, will trouble a Weaverbird about their Peafowl friend. Often a Peafowl's continuing needs will make a Weaverbird feel exploited and helpless, as Peafowl demands for more attention escalate. But a Weaverbird, who believe so much in the rules, will find it difficult to set limits on the expressions of friendship that a Peafowl friend sees as part of the relationship.

Because they respect everyone's right to live life in their own way, Weaverbirds try to accommodate their Peafowl friends, as they try to accommodate everyone else in life. The deep care and affection that a Peafowl friend brings to a relationship is appreciated by the Weaverbird, and makes them reluctant to reject the Peafowl's obvious need. And Weaverbirds can also get a vicarious thrill from the emotional intensity and high-risk behaviour that is a Peafowl life.

When they are friends with a Wolf, Weaverbirds will feel the same vicarious thrill of being with someone who is willing to break the traditional rules. Taking risks, and breaking conventions is a Wolf's way of life. The Wolf's optimism and enthusiasm on a mission is admired by Weaverbirds. They will envy their ambition, and their sense of responsibility, and the sense of confidence they have in making decisions. Although they will be drawn to a Wolf's ambition and confidence, they will never be able to share, or even understand, the risks that do not seem to concern a Wolf at all. Wolves model risk-taking behaviour that Weaverbirds are sometimes very tempted to try. Sometimes, they even do try things that they would never do without the Wolf's encouragement and confidence. Because Weaverbirds have such a respect for authority, they are vulnerable to following the natural leader, the Wolf.

Here are some Weaverbird friends from old television shows: Ethel Mertz, B.J. Hunnicutt, Jerry Seinfeld, Mary Richards, Rob Petrie, and Bob Newhart.

A Peafowl Friend

Peafowl have intense, emotional friendships, and their friendships, in fact, can sometimes feel more important to them than their relationships with their own family. Friendship has so much more acceptance, and so much less conflict about the practical issues of life. For that reason a Peafowl is most comfortable with friends who will love them without demanding that they give anything back.

Peafowl are always open to anyone who offers support and acceptance, and so they will accept Weaverbirds and Peafowl and Wolves as friends. But the conforming pragmatism of a Weaverbird limits what they can offer a Peafowl in satisfying their intense emotional needs. A Wolf's confidence and optimism will eventually be too threatening to a Peafowl's ego. They will resent the way a Wolf dismisses their anxiety. They will resent that a Wolf exhibits an innate sense of superiority and leadership. Unless the Wolf is a star, and the Peafowl can bask in the glow as part of their entourage, the Peafowl will resent the Wolf trying to lead, to assume the centre of attention that the Peafowl desires. Peafowl often end up with other Peafowl friends because they have the same needs, and the same problems, and the same emotional depth and sensitivity.

Peafowl don't judge one another. They understand and support each other as they experience the highs and lows of life, often taking turns, 'being there for one another.' Although they will have many friends that are Peafowl, Peacocks, the takers, will invariably end up closest to Peahens, the givers. Like all their relationships, Peafowl friendships are volatile and move between intense closeness and bitter disappointments, between a Peahen's resentment and sympathy and a Peacock's anger and protectiveness. As with all Peafowl relationships, the joy and the heartache that comes in friendship is both the reward and the cost of living. Like Janis Joplin says, the experiences of friendship, like love, are transactions involving just another little piece of one's heart.

Some Peafowl friends from old television shows: George Costanza, Lucy Ricardo, Ted Baxter, Archie Bunker, and Frazier Crane, Charley Sheen.

A Wolf Friend

Wolves make fast friends and these friends are like members of their pack. Wolf friendships are deep and loyal bonds that entitle one another to whatever support may be needed in the mission of life. Their confidence and optimism makes their support valued and respected.

They see friends like a wolf sees a pack on the hunt, trying to communicate and stay in contact with each member of their pack so they can do whatever they can to help bring down the prey that life brings along. Wolves are loyal: Once a member of the pack, always a member of the pack.

Whatever concerns one member of the pack is a concern of all the other members. If a person can resist being caught up in a Wolf's latest ambition, a Wolf is a very good friend to have.

To a Weaverbird, a Wolf offers encouragement and support and reassurance that their worries are manageable and that they can rise to any challenge. Wolves respect and admire a Weaverbird's sense of responsibility and their commitment and bond with their family. What they don't understand is a Weaverbird's timidity and reluctance to seize the opportunities of life. They also find it difficult to understand why anyone would be afraid to exploit their best gifts.

Weaverbirds, of course, love the outrageous idea that they are special, and that their Wolf friend sees them as such, even though they are anxious about what the idea of being special implies. They feel that a Wolf's intensity has implied expectations that they can't help worrying they will fail to meet.

Wolves are attracted to special people who have accomplished significant things. Peafowl often do just that, as they try to earn the attention and admiration of people. Wolves mistake Peafowl for other Wolves because they seem to be so committed to a particular mission. But a Peafowl friend is more interested in the glory than in the accomplishment. A Wolf friend, nevertheless, will do as much as they can to support the Peafowl's ambition because they see it as a worthwhile mission in life, rather than as someone trying to be seen to be worthwhile. A Wolf's loyalty to a member of the pack will preserve a relationship with a Peafowl long after the Wolf realizes the Peafowl's insecurity and need for attention. It is when a Wolf finally realizes how little interest the Peafowl has in the purpose they've chosen in life, and no real loyalty to anyone but themselves, that the friendship fades. The friendship may survive on a personal, emotional level, but it is probably unlikely that the Peafowl will find a Wolf trying to help them advance their needs for attention.

A Wolf, as a friend, is a loyal, emotional rock, even as they are a risky practical crapshoot, if one happens to be drawn into one of their missions. Then again, one might just end up being part of Trivial Pursuit or Microsoft. Wolves will never betray anyone emotionally, but are quite willing to let others share the risk that comes with seizing opportunities they can't help but find.

Some Wolf friends from old television shows: Hawkeye Pierce, Cosmos Kramer, Michael Stivic, Maude, and Tim "The Toolman" Taylor. Bill Cosby.

Romantic Love

As everyone knows, there is a great difference between falling in love, and staying in love. There seems to be an enormous difference between love's young dream and its reality. The practical reality of life seems to have a terrible effect on the best blooms of love. Why?

If we look at the difference between romantic love and practical love from the perspective of our ideas of self-esteem, two things are striking. Romantic love is initially based on our sense of Social Self-esteem; our intelligence, attractiveness, education, accomplishment, our manners and opinions, are all aspects of our personality that are the common currency in our thoughts when we're falling in love. Everyone imagines the qualities that they're looking for in a person to love. The things that we feel we have in common with someone we love can cover a great breadth and depth of feelings and interests. The joy such a profound affiliation can make can be intense indeed.

Love is a structure a person builds to live in, a structure we feel we can truly share and enjoy. Most people cannot imagine that beneath this structure of Social Self-esteem is the foundation of our Innate Self-esteem. The flaw that people discover about falling in love is that what we really want to have understood, what we really want those we love to appreciate, are the attitudes and opinions that rest on the hidden foundation of our Innate Self-esteem.

Only when we live together do we find that the big underlying issues of sex, money, personal responsibility, and parenting are based on a feeling of self-esteem that has nothing to do with the way the world sees us, but rather has far more to do with how we compare ourselves, in value, to all other people. Arguments about sexual behaviour, and credit card bills, and taking out the garbage are about the differences we discover in our Innate Self-esteem. If you are a Weaverbird, the absurdity of taking personally an unchanged toilet paper roll is not absurd at all. When the person you love doesn't understand a simple, practical consideration like that, there is obviously going to be anger and resentment.

There is no right way to keep house or share duties, and there is no right amount or right way to have sex or enjoy one's sexuality. But we take issues and opinions on those topics very personally indeed. When we disagree about the issues of money, sex, personal responsibility and parenting, we often feel our partner is either attacking us, or is to blame for having a different, untenable point of view. Discovering these differences is both a shock and a threat to the basic understanding and appreciation we have of each other. This is true of all interspecies love.

Even with people of the same species, these issues lead us quickly to discover that, even if we agree with each other in principle, we may have very large disagreements about how important each of those principles is to us. When two people of the same species fall in love, the strengths of their natures are reinforced, but so are their weaknesses.

Weaverbirds will defer to the most timid one of the pair. Wolves defer to the greatest risk taker. Peafowl will swing in even greater arcs of the pendulum of pleasure and pain, feeling very wanted, and feeling very alone and rejected. No matter who a person loves, it will come with a significant measure of anxiety, suffering and stress. No matter whom a person loves, there will be the demand for compromise, understanding and change. That is why being in love is so much harder than falling in love.

Self-esteem Biases

Because our Innate Self-esteem is such a fundamental foundation of our natures, most people think that, when we fall in love, our lover sees the world in the same way that we do.

When we fall in love with someone who is of our own species that is, of course, true. But when we fall in love with someone from a different species, it does not take very long to realize there's a fundamental difference in how each partner views the world, and that these differences appear almost impossible to change. This is a crisis that puts our deepest feelings and judgments to the test, the test that comes with rejecting, and feeling rejected by, the person we love. Tough stuff!

To get through such a crisis, we must learn to listen, to understand, to see and to respect a way of looking at the world that is very different from our own. It's learning to love someone for values you would never choose for yourself! It's learning to do things that aren't important to you because you appreciate and respect how much it matters to the person you love. It is expecting that they love you so much that they will do the same for you. That is what interspecies love demands, in the end. It is a lot.

If we happen to fall in love with someone of the same species, the degree to which our personalities conform to the characteristics of the species will probably be different. Among all three species there are ordinary, extraordinary, and extreme members. Each individual falls somewhere along that continuum and this will affect the other partner's response to them. In some ways, it is easier to be with someone of the same species. But, in love, when we confront the limitations of our species weakness, a member of our own species will have little strength to offer because they share those very weaknesses.

No matter whom a person loves, there will always be the challenge of understanding and appreciating the strengths, and the corresponding weaknesses of the three different kinds of Innate Self-esteem.

A Weaverbird in Love

A Weaverbird falls in love slowly, reluctantly, step-by-step and, as in all things, with a great deal of anxiety and worry. They fear and mistrust extremes, because extremes throw the delicate balance of life off kilter. Love, being an extreme emotion, with untold, unknowable consequences, has to be done very carefully, if a person is not to make one of the great errors that are possible in life. Step-by-step, the Weaverbird worries about each aspect of a deepening commitment in love. They try to follow the good rules of dating, moving from informal, casual dates, to more formal, practical expressions of dating. There is a time to double date, a time to go steady, a time to meet the parents, a time to go from first base, to second base and all the way.

The Weaverbird will be very interested in their lover's approach to money and personal responsibility, because these issues are very indicative of a person's need for security, and their respect for authority. A Weaverbird won't like it if their partner is extravagant with money, as they themselves try to be very careful and share expenses as equitably as possible. They obey speed limits, and get very nervous when they are with someone who does not. The issues of sex and parenting will, of course, not be so important until the Weaverbird has gone so far as to consider their partner as a potential mate. Initially, they will be most concerned about health issues and their reputations as far as sex is concerned. They will neither understand nor accept someone who does not share those particular concerns.

If they are drawn to the intensity of a Peafowl, or the confidence and optimism of a Wolf, the Weaverbird may feel swept away in the short-term, but their anxiety will grow as they realize how reckless both are when it comes to money and respect for authority. If they are involved with another Weaverbird, they will feel far more comfortable with the pace and with the shared attitudes about money and personal responsibility. What will concern them is that their partner also shares an indecisive nature and a whole lot of worry and stress. And as usual, the Weaverbird will tend to take for granted the shared strengths, and worry obsessively about the shared weaknesses.

Weaverbirds always try to say yes, and they hate to say no, because they don't like to be the cause of any disappointments. They will put aside, and keep quiet about, any reluctance or anxiety they feel in a relationship when it is new. As the relationship progresses and they trust their partner more, their anxieties will grow exponentially, because they are increasingly worried about how serious the relationship has become. Weaverbirds think everyone has Weaverbird values of family, consistency and responsibility, respect for authority, and an overriding need for safety and security. When they fall in love with someone who isn't a Weaverbird, they try to see differences and disagreements as being different aspects of the same basic values. Because they will not confront anyone, because they think everyone has a right to their own opinion, they have a hard time coming to terms with basic differences.

Weaverbirds are champion rationalizers. In order to limit confrontations and affirm their respect for each person's individuality, they get themselves into deep, difficult situations. Only when their silence and vacillation means that they will probably have to put up with the consequences of those differences, and suffer the insecurity and danger that comes with those differences, will they be forced to act.

When a Weaverbird falls in love with a Peafowl, it will take some serious rationalizing, and some deep anxiety as they confront a Peafowl's reckless behaviour with money, and their continual disregard for authority. Just as they are drawn to the emotional depth of a Peafowl, a depth that is so much more expressive and passionate than their own, so too will they be frustrated and angry at how dependent their partner is on them for approval and reassurance. The Weaverbird will try to spin the plates in a Peafowl's life for them, but will grow increasingly frustrated with the fact that the Peafowl shows so little interest in, or responsibility for, spinning their own plates.

When a Weaverbird falls in love with a Wolf, they will feel buoyed and supported by a Wolf's confidence and optimism, their ability to make quick and effective decisions. They will love a Wolf's insatiable curiosity, and their interest and commitment to issues greater than their own lives. What they will not like, what will frighten them greatly, are the risks that a Wolf takes so easily, and dismisses so casually.

Feeling tremendously secure with a Wolf's commitment and responsibility, a Weaverbird will be tremendously threatened by a Wolf's almost complete indifference to safety and security. The intensity of a Wolf is often too much for a Weaverbird to maintain; their passion and intensity far more than a Weaverbird can ever sustain. The longer and more committed the relationship, the more this difference will demand a compromise from both, a compromise that of course, never completely satisfies each other's needs. Sex, for a Weaverbird, is a state of commitment that has to do with mutual trust, respect, and also follows the rules of good morals, ethics and secure personal hygiene. Sex is a lot more than personal attractiveness to a Weaverbird. It affirms emotional responsibility and personal security. You only have sex with people you trust, with people you care for emotionally. Sex is the expression of honour and fidelity that may come to be permanent in marriage. Weaverbirds see romance and love as the practical base on which to establish a family, the most important purpose of a Weaverbird's life.

A Weaverbird's Personal Ad

"Hard-working, responsible, financially secure individual with strong family values is seeking a caring, secure person to be a partner, best friend, and lover, who likes romantic dinners, long walks, good books, and family outings."

A Weaverbird's Theme Song

"When I'm Sixty-four."

A Peafowl in Love

A Peafowl, in love, is looking for the same thing that they seek in all aspects of life, they're looking for more. As Madonna once said, she was looking for more fame, more success, more money, more boyfriends, because she felt only with having more would her life be better. With a new relationship, the first thing that a Peafowl will want is the attention that comes with more sex and with spending more money.

For a Peafowl, falling in love is a matter of style. People love each other for their attractiveness, sensuality, money, social status and power. Peafowl think that love is the ultimate attention, the highest affirmation of Social Self-esteem.

Peacocks want to be loved for the image they present to the world. It is what they believe they deserve because of what they have made of themselves, what they have accomplished, what others see them to be. Only Peacocks would want a trophy wife or husband as proof of their own worth.

A Peahen wants to find someone who needs them, someone with style and accomplishment and sexual attractiveness whose life is incomplete because they have not found the one person that will really appreciate them and give their life meaning. This is what they see their role to be in love. They want to complete an otherwise incomplete person just as they feel they themselves will be completed by having someone choose them.

When Peacocks and Peahens find one another, there is usually an explosion of positive and negative intensity. They both fall hard. When they split up, they can't let go. Peacocks are intense romantics who find in love the intense actions and reactions, and the powerful drives that they can explore in their need for affirmation. The intensity of connections and disconnections makes the heart go deep into itself in order to survive and to understand the intense feelings and needs that come with love. Breaking up and making up, beneath all the crying and the laughing is the desperate hope that with the intensity of love will come the fulfillment and satisfaction of being truly worthwhile at last.

When Peafowl fall in love with Weaverbirds or Wolves, it's often the deep need for stability, or the deep desire to become someone that is the depth of the attraction. When they fall for Weaverbirds it is difficult for them to maintain the even-handed, even-tempered life a Weaverbird wants. Weaverbirds resist intensity desperately, because it throws off the delicate balance of life. Peafowl desperately want intensity because they hope it will give them the satisfaction they are unable feel in their life. That is why Peafowl, even when they love a Weaverbird, will look outside to friends and illicit romantic relationships to satisfy their needs for intensity and reaction.

It is hard for Peafowl to stay faithful, and this makes a relationship with a Weaverbird or a Wolf difficult to maintain over the long run, because Weaverbirds need the security of faithfulness, and Wolves see it as the recognition and affirmation of their primary bond. Old attention to a Peafowl however, can be as unsatisfying, at times, as no attention at all. And so, with a wandering eye, there comes the downside of intense jealousy and the constant worries about losing one's attractiveness and appeal.

Though it is a difficult balance to come to in love, the Peafowl battles with their intense highs and lows usually settle with age, with the forced responsibilities of work and parenting. Although they are still much more prone to divorce and breakup, Peafowl nevertheless do, in fact, take up their responsibilities both to their spouses and to their children. The war never ends; the battles never stop as Peafowl go deeper and deeper into the resources of the human heart. In the end, they know love as no other species ever knows it; they know its price and its depth as they come to know incredible things about themselves and others. The one thing they never know and can never learn is why, no matter how much you have, it is never really enough.

A Peacock's Personal Ad

"Sexy, successful, attractive, funny, charming individual ready to show someone the good times and the good life, looking for someone young and attractive, with a great sense of humour who enjoys being with good friends, someone who is ready to try anything, someone who lives for the moment, someone who knows a good thing when they see it."

A Peahen's Personal Ad

"Have a whole lot of love to give, looking for honest, considerate, tender, sexy, fun-loving person who is looking for the same. Like long walks, lazy days and lazy nights, and good times with friends. No head games."

A Peacock's Theme Song

"Born to Be Wild" or, "My Way."

A Peahen's Theme Song

"Stand by your Man" or, "My Man."

A Wolf in Love

As in all things, a Wolf in love is looking for an ideal opportunity. A Wolf is looking for an equal, superior being, is seeking the union of an alpha male with an alpha female. Usually tentative and reserved in general dating situations, a Wolf knows he or she is looking for a total commitment, an absolute bond. Only a Wolf really believes that a complete and perfect union is possible in love. That is why, when Wolves falls in love, they fall hard, and when they fall, the feeling is usually permanent.

Because of a Wolf's confidence and optimism, they believe everything is possible in a romantic relationship. They believe things can only get better. They believe that love can only become deeper. More than even Peafowl, they see love and romance through the intense filter of the rose coloured glasses through which they see all of life. Because of this, they usually see and consider only the best qualities in the person that they love. They see weaknesses as temporary and irrelevant compared to the deep and absolute bond that is love. They also think that everyone in love sees the world in exactly the same way. They think everyone is looking for an absolute, perfect union that can conquer worlds.

When a Wolf meets an extraordinary Weaverbird or Peafowl, they, of course, see their extraordinary gifts, and think they're Wolves. When a Wolf meets another Wolf, and they fall in love, they can bond with speed and confidence, making a lifetime commitment with what may seem to be irrational speed. The depth and the intensity they bring to romance can be the stuff of legends, at the extreme even completely losing touch with reality the way Don Quixote, in his own mind, could turn a rough prostitute into the finest lady.

Falling in love with a Peafowl, a Wolf sees their need for attention and accomplishment as not a matter of the ego, but a belief in a greater mission and purpose in life. They see a Peafowl's remarkable sensitivity and perception and the intensity with which they face life in this world, as the optimism and confidence that they feel themselves. Never giving up, the Wolf thinks that the Peafowl only needs their support to feel the confidence that comes with the absolute affiliation of love, an affirmation that can make them whole and happy. A Wolf can see a compulsive need for social interaction as social interconnectedness. What a Wolf will not understand is how love's intensity can fade for a Peafowl. It is difficult for a Wolf to understand a Peafowl's complicated emotional life, the remnants of old loves, the undeniable romantic interest in other people.

When a Wolf falls in love with a Weaverbird, they are encouraged to believe Weaverbirds are Wolves by the hard work and responsibilities they assume, so diligently, in life. They are faithful and committed, and so a Wolf sees this as the alpha male, alpha female bond of superior equals. But Weaverbirds feel a terrible anxiety when they are confronted with both intensity and the idea of anything being superior, especially themselves. The Wolf will try diligently to convince the Weaverbird of their obvious superiority, to make them see that they would never have been chosen by the Wolf unless this superiority was there. And though the Weaverbird may initially be swept away by the Wolf's confidence and optimism, the risks and intensity that come with being involved with a Wolf can soon become rather overwhelming. Ever the optimists, Wolves do whatever they can to accommodate and reassure the Weaverbird's concerns, all the while unable to understand that the absolute intensity of love does not override the Weaverbirds' need for caution, security, and prudence.

When Wolves are dating, they are invariably faithful and loyal partners in love and romance. Their monogamy comes from the fact that they see love as a complete romantic union. They are so monogamous, so loyal, so committed, they terrify anyone but another Wolf.

It is after a Wolf is married that they are prone to stray, to rationalize their behaviour as being an acceptable connection with another member of the pack. Some, like Bill Clinton, who grew up with a Peafowl mother and stepfather, end up acting out their Peafowl's need for attention for a very long time. But his confidence and optimism, and his obvious choice of a superior equal as his wife, identifies him as a Wolf. Because Hillary is a Wolf, commitment to her mate was absolute, at least until the reports that he encouraged Monica Lewinski to believe they had a future and to believe that he loved her. Bill Clinton did this, even when he did not have to do it, because of his Wolf's need to see love as an ideal thing. He had to lie to himself even more than he had to lie to others.

A Wolf's Personal Ad

"Person with great passion for life seeking someone with a good mind, a wonderful heart and a passionate body to share all the wonderful opportunities that life has to offer."

A Wolf's Theme Song

"The Impossible Dream" or, "Climb Every Mountain."

Marriage

Marriage is the greatest personal affirmation of our Social Self-esteem that is possible because it is the deepest affiliation we ever make with another person. We pledge to share the structures we build for ourselves, committing ourselves to sharing the concerns of every important aspect of life. It is also the greatest test of our innate Innate Self-esteem, how we really feel we compare in value to other people. Two lives become one life, but that does not mean that those two lives are built on identical foundations.

The very real commitment of love and marriage does not necessarily mean that those two people who love each other see and value themselves and the world in exactly the same way. Very soon, people come to realize that the issues of money, sex, personal responsibility and parenting, which are so important when we share our life with another, are often matters of profound conflict and disagreement. The compromises that these disagreements demand of us test the very foundations of our values and beliefs. There is a tremendous cost to giving in to your spouse in these very important matters. That is why marriage very soon comes to be seen as a territorial contest to see whose ideas, whose values prevail.

In older, traditional patterns of marriage that follow the patriarchal model, the man had the authority and power to decide these issues. The woman could only take power over these issues if a man abdicated his. In modern, Western marriage, where one marries for love, how we value the issues of sex, money, personal responsibility, and parenting will depend almost entirely on whether we are Weaverbird, a Peafowl, or a Wolf.

If we marry someone of the same species, the strengths and weaknesses of our attitudes in those areas will be enhanced. Two married Weaverbirds will build a much more secure family environment, but they will also be subject to far more worry and stress than if they had married someone of another species. Two Peafowl will swing in far more extreme arcs of positive and negative emotion. Two married Wolves will take on far greater missions, have greater successes and greater failures than if they had married one of the other species. When Weaverbirds marry each other, they form powerful family units with a shared responsibility and a deep commitment to everyone's emotional and practical security. Security! Security! Security! Weaverbirds work harder and harder to provide a good home and be an equal partner to their mate. But because there can never be enough security, the Weaverbird couple tries to satisfy the needs of the biggest worrier of the two.

Practical concerns always come first, so money and personal responsibility become issues that revolve around the concerns of the most insecure partner. Although both parties worry about the costs of all their practical concerns on their emotional relationship, they accommodate each other as best they can. They defer their personal, emotional needs for the sake of the practical necessities and unavoidable stress that comes with life.

Because Weaverbirds are the plate spinners of life, responsibilities naturally grow with time, with success at work, and with the acquisition of material comforts and a home, and, of course, with the arrival of children. There gets to be less and less time for the emotional expressions of love. Because it is so difficult to stop spinning all the plates one is responsible for spinning, Weaverbirds put their personal needs aside so they can keep running, even as the guilt grows inside them, even as their stress level grows with it.

Sex can be pushed further and further to an emotional back burner because of time constraints, because of fatigue, and because of the inevitable stress that comes with life. To make matters worse, guilt can become another plate to spin with those of schedules and work and family demands. As one magazine put it, "If it is important enough to schedule the laundry, then it is important enough to schedule sex." Only a Weaverbird can think of laundry and sex as just two more things requiring their own compartment.

So, for married Weaverbirds, the satisfactions of a secure family life are gained by having less and less time and energy for their own emotional needs. And so, it goes. Weaverbird couples worry and worry and mostly suffer in silence. They do not want to rock the boat, and they do not want to stop running and spinning the plates of life because of their fear that some might fall if they did.

Married Peafowl

When Peafowl marry one another, they are guaranteed to have a relationship that is intense and problematical. Action and reaction! Passionate in connection, passionate in rejection, Peafowl swing back and forth on the pendulum of approach and withdrawal. They can't live without each other and they can't live with each other. They find that the person they love so much is someone that seems almost impossible to live with.

Swinging on the eternal positive and negative pendulum, Peafowl put each other through so much they get to know each other's deepest weaknesses, and also their greatest strengths. Pushed as they are, Peafowl can hurt their partners most deeply of all because they know their deepest fears and their greatest insecurities. The one secret they share is that each one, ultimately, fears that they do not deserve to be loved. A profound attachment forms between two people who can hurt each other so deeply, reach the most vulnerable part of their being, and still feel an undeniable love for each other. Peafowl need each other, desperately, because they so desperately need another person whose love will validate them and give their life meaning.

Peafowl are always testing the limits of love in marriage, because no reassurance, no gesture, no word or action, is ever enough to be a final proof that love is real and permanent, that this is something each partner really deserves. So, like two athletes constantly pushing each other to do more, to try harder, Peafowl partners can discover tremendous endurance in both pleasure and pain. Peafowl can suffer and inflict more pain on one another than any Wolf or Weaverbird could stand. Yet, the reassurance that comes from knowing that someone still loves you, even when you've hurt them so much, or have hurt you so much, is truly profound. Peafowl have great makeup sex because they've touched the depth of their feeling for each other in conflict.

Sex is profoundly important to Peafowl, because it is a direct measure of their value and attractiveness. Even when they stray, even when they are attracted to others, Peafowl can come back to their partners with profound, unquenchable passion. When they say that an illicit episode meant nothing, it is almost, in fact, true for Peafowl. It was just a little more reassurance that one is worthwhile, that one is desirable because they got someone to desire them.

Money is the second big source of conflict for Peafowl, in marriage. The conflict is over the fact that both partners need to spend far more money than the couple ever possesses. The more money there is, the more has to be spent to show others what one has accomplished. If you've got it, flaunt it! When two people subscribe to this philosophy, the material joys are inevitably accompanied by mounting, uncontrollable debt. And with this, comes the inevitable conflict and blame.

Sometimes when extreme Peacocks marry extreme Peahens, the Peacock insists on the right to take and take, while the Peahen feels the irresistible need to give more and more. Pablo Picasso, when he was earning millions of dollars, forced his wife to pay for all her own needs, as well as the needs of their children, even though he would not let her work because he needed her attention. In 25 years, he did not give his manservant one day off. When they traveled from Paris to the south of France, the manservant had to ride in third class on the train, and pay his own way. It takes an extreme Peacock to treat someone they care about in this way, it takes an extreme Peahen to put up with it.

But most Peafowl are not extreme like that; they try to love and be loved, to both give and to take, to be as generous as they are demanding with their spouses and children. Often when Peafowl actually come to a divorce, even then, they often are forced to realize how much they love one another, how much of the good times survive even in the ultimate rejection of divorce.

Personal responsibility is a minor frustration to a Peafowl, compared to the battles that come with sex and money. Even conflicts over parenting can be much more easily resolved than those. Taking out the garbage, and dealing with the kids is just ammunition in the ongoing war each partner uses in fighting to gain a measure of reassurance of their own worth.

Most of the love songs you will ever hear will be about the positive and negative feelings in Peafowl relationships. Peafowl love profoundly, even though they usually don't do it wisely or well. They look for love in all the wrong places, and yet amazingly, they actually find it. They not only find it, but they sometimes live out their entire lives going back and forth on the emotional pendulum that measures their days, their life and their loves.

Married Wolves

A Wolf's optimism and confidence is at the absolute limit in love and in marriage. A Wolf idealizes both the chosen partner and the concept of marriage. Looking for a life partner that is truly exceptional, a Wolf will want someone who shares the same total, intense commitment that they feel.

Marriage, for a Wolf, is the greatest personal mission there is in life, and so they have very high expectations of what marriage is, and what it must offer. Seeing a mate as a superior equal, a Wolf believes that nothing in life could possibly resist the resources of such a pair. With the perfect mate, a Wolf feels that everything is indeed possible, in both marriage and in life. Opportunities taken sometimes lead to failures and this only strengthens the marriage of two Wolves, even as the financial security of the couple inevitably suffers.

What is most important to a Wolf, in marriage, is loyalty; first in terms of sexual faithfulness, but even more so in terms of being able to count on the partner's support and understanding and trust. To a Wolf, the most important thing is to know that each party recognizes, affirms, and supports the special nature of the other, and the important nature of the mission they've chosen in life.

When Wolves marry each other, they reinforce their strengths of optimism and confidence, but they also reinforce the weaknesses of over-confidence and the willingness to risk far more than would rationally seem secure. Where Peafowl swing on a pendulum of positive and negative emotions, Wolves swing on a pendulum that moves between great success and great failure. Even though Wolves have an absolute ideal concerning sexual faithfulness, they are also prone to have affairs. Even though they are devoted to their partner, Wolves believe that they have the right to interpret and redefine the rules of life, because they are the ones with the authority to make individual distinctions and choices that break moral and practical rules. When they meet another superior equal, it is easy for a Wolf to abuse their own sense of authority, and let bonds form that may contradict their own ideals. Wolves do not have casual affairs. Even Bill Clinton's affairs seem to be warm and ongoing, and not exploitive.

Of course, his Peafowl past may make his behaviour, at times, more like his idol, the Peacock Jack Kennedy, than the Wolf he naturally is.

A better example of two married Wolves is Roslyn and Jimmy Carter. Their joint partnership, their absolute respect for one another, their abilities to see themselves changing the world by inspiring people, even in government, to love one another and affirm all human rights, are all obvious signs of two truly remarkable Wolves. If anyone reads President Carter's poems about his wife, it is easy to see the obvious Wolf ideal in love. He has said that it has taken them forty years to accommodate their differences of approach, and this only affirms how much each one of them believes that they have the authority, and the duty to see their way followed, because it is the right way.

The only way they could write about their experiences in the White House was by taking turns when talking about the same incident. It was their disagreements about the meaning of the particular incidents of their joint mission that Jimmy said brought them closest to divorce. His admitting to lusting in his heart for another was seen by him, and I'm sure by Roslyn, as a betrayal of their ideal of absolute faithfulness. Jimmy and Roslyn represent the best that is possible in a Wolf's great ideal of life, love, marriage, and parenting. His loyalty, to even those who hurt and embarrassed him, is also characteristic of Wolf behaviour.

Mixed Marriages

When people of differing species marry one another, the one species' weakness may be complemented by the other species strengths. A Wolf's confidence and optimism will support and encourage the natural pessimism and anxiety that Weaverbirds and Peafowl suffer. A Wolf's recklessness and careless risk-taking may be balanced by a Weaverbird's need for security and caution.

Of course, it will be difficult for members of difference species to understand and appreciate both the strengths and the weaknesses of their partners. Wolves will be exasperated by a Weaverbird's caution; Weaverbirds will feel exasperated by a Peafowl's constant need for social affirmation; Peafowl will be exasperated by a Weaverbird's need for financial security. When different species marry, the territorial adjustments in values, as they face the issues of sex and money, personal responsibility and parenting, can be excruciatingly difficult.

Because everyone intuitively defends the values that are based on their Innate Self-esteem, and because we do not realize the person we love may have a completely different kind of Innate Self-esteem, we are very quickly placed in the position of having to defend our most basic beliefs. We do not understand or appreciate that the other person's strengths may actually be helping us overcome the liability of our own weaknesses. What we feel is that, what we always believed to be our own strengths, are seen to be just terrible weaknesses by our partner. This can feel like the most basic and absolute betrayal possible. We believe we should be loved for our strengths, not have them thrown in our face as something that threatens our partner's most basic beliefs and values.

The battles that result from these basic differences in value will probably never completely end in a marriage, but after the great early battles that identify these differences when each person realizes that the person they married isn't the person they thought they were marrying, the war may actually come to an end. It can only truly end when we realize that our differences are not personal attacks, but rather represent two different, legitimate ways of viewing the world. "You're right from your side, and I'm right from mine," is a wisdom that usually comes only after long and frustrating battles.

Weaverbird Mixed Marriages

When Weaverbirds marry Peafowl, they are in for a whole lot of the anxiety because of a Peafowl's attitude toward money, rules and sex. A Weaverbird will see these attitudes as selfish and reckless. But, because they believe, so firmly, that everyone has an equal right to do things in their own way, they do the three things that Weaverbirds always do when they are under stress; they suffer in silence, they try to negotiate a more equitable deal, and they work harder and harder to prove to their partner that they are doing more than their share, so they deserve to have their partner compromise their attitudes towards money and personal responsibility and sex.

When a Weaverbird is married to a Peafowl, their level of anxiety and insecurity only grows exponentially if the Peafowl insists on breaking the rules of financial and personal responsibility. The insecurity that a Weaverbird will suffer will only diminish if the Weaverbird can negotiate a set of rules that the Peafowl will accept and follow. Accepting and following rules, of course, is very difficult for Peafowl. The Weaverbird's continuing compromises, if they are not matched by the Peafowl's willingness to appreciate and understand their partner's need for a consistent, predictable secure environment, can, after enormous Weaverbird anxiety and suffering, lead to a breakdown in the relationship.

When a Weaverbird marries a Wolf, the confidence and optimism and the passion and commitment that a Wolf brings to a relationship is enormously comforting and satisfying to a Weaverbird. The Weaverbird will test that commitment, and have trouble believing in a Wolf's romantic ideal of love and marriage, simply because it is so extreme. Where with a Peafowl they will worry that they are consistently being short changed in the relationship, with a Wolf, they will worry that their partner's expectations are too great for them to satisfy.

Where their worries will be well founded in a marriage with a Wolf will be in the risks that a Wolf is so easily and so readily willing to take. For a Weaverbird, life is not an unending set of opportunities waiting to be seized, but rather a set of risky circumstances that can entirely disrupt one's life and one's security. Reluctant to rain on anyone's parade, the Weaverbird may be swept along by a Wolf's confidence until the inevitable time comes when things do not turn out as planned, when risky opportunity has led to serious consequences. Usually, this has to do with money and personal security.

Wolves believe they can handle dangerous situations; Weaverbirds hate dangerous situations. It takes a long time for a Weaverbird not to feel that their concerns are being ignored or belittled, that their partner's confidence is not really a large measure of arrogance that, in effect, hardly treats them as equal partners. The Wolf's insistence that their whole ideal of marriage is one of superior equals united, does little to comfort the Weaverbird when they are confronted with someone who is so sure of themselves and so forceful in defending that certainty.

The compromise that must happen between the Weaverbird and the Wolf, ends up being of benefit to both of them, even though neither one feels there is much advantage in compromising one's basic beliefs. Because of their optimism and ambition, Wolves will in bring their Weaverbird partner along so that they do avail themselves of opportunities they would never dare seize on their own. The Weaverbird will also act as a tremendous restraining influence on their Wolf partner's ambitions, so that, even though it limits the opportunities that a Wolf will seize, it also limits the number and the severity of the failures that would have come about without their Weaverbird partner's caution.

Because both Weaverbirds and Wolves believe that marriage is an equal partnership, they, will probably, in the end, be able to find a compromise that both can live with. In finding such a compromise, they may come to realize that there is a different way to see an equal partnership, that there is a different way to view responsibility and security that is just as valid as their own. Each may even grudgingly come to realize that the strength of their partner is a good balance for their own weaknesses.

Peafowl Mixed Marriages

When Peafowl marry Weaverbirds and Wolves they will always feel like they are under attack. A Weaverbird's caution and need for security, their respect for authority, their blind faith in the rules of good conduct and proper behaviour will be seen by a Peafowl as nothing more than a personal attack. The way they spend money, the way they are so inconsistent about personal responsibility will drive the Weaverbird crazy.

Peafowl want the person who loves them, to treat them as if they were special, because they need very special attention and reassurance to prove that they are not in fact, as they fear, inferior. Weaverbirds are glad to give reassurance and attention, but become increasingly frustrated with the fact that the reassurance and attention that they may need is not forthcoming. The Weaverbird will endure in silence when they can, fight to maintain a measure of security when they can, will work harder and harder to make the Peafowl believe that they have earned the time and care and attention that is due to them in an equitable relationship. Peafowl will see this as nagging, as an assault on their own personal needs.

If and when these two come to some compromise, it will be after an enormous amount of frustration, pain and anger. If the Weaverbird can come to see the Peafowl's need for attention as just another plate to spin, a need that can be put in the compartment outside of equitable behaviour, then there is a chance for the pain and frustration of one-sided relationship to be diminished.

For the Peafowl, compromise will come when they are confronted with the very practical needs of parenting and financial responsibility. Responsibility is the thing that eventually makes the arc of the pendulum of positive and negative behaviour for a Peafowl stop swinging so far in each direction. Having to share money with their partner over practical responsibilities is the best thing that can happen in a Peafowl marriage. Most Peafowl end up settling down when they have a family. The battles will continue, but the war may eventually end.

The emotional crises that a Peafowl creates from their own needs for attention and reassurance will probably never end for them. But what may end for them, is the extreme consequences that came with reckless decisions when they were younger and did not have undeniable responsibilities, undeniable feelings of love for a spouse and for children. In the end, Peafowl need rigid rules and unavoidable responsibilities to control their wild emotional swings.

When a Weaverbird sees that there is some consistency and responsibility and respect for the rules from their partner, they may be able to accept how much attention and reassurance their partner needs. They may be able to understand that these needs come from a sense of insecurity, an insecurity that personal and family love can, in fact, help diminish.

When a Peafowl marries a Wolf, it will be a different kind of attack that the Peafowl feels is being directed at them. Because a Wolf is on a greater mission, because the Wolf doesn't understand fear and anxiety, because a Wolf doesn't understand why anyone would do anything just to satisfy their own need for attention, a Peafowl feels the Wolf partner is always trying to grab the spotlight, and put them down. The constant crisis that makes up a Peafowl life, a Wolf will dismiss as self-generated and self-defeating. Peafowl see problems as personal and intractable, where Wolves see them as just things requiring a solution.

Money will be a problem only in that there is never enough of it for both the Peafowl and the Wolf. They both spend recklessly, but for different reasons. For Peafowl, money is style. For a Wolf, money is opportunity. As the debts pile up, neither will be able to understand why it is such a problem. When the money collectors come, the Peafowl will want to run, the Wolf will see it is just another problem to be solved.

Sex is important to both Peafowl and Wolves, but for different reasons. To a Peafowl, it is the reassurance of one's desirability. To a Wolf it is a re-affirmation of a profound emotional bond. Both lead to great sex, but for a Peafowl it will be difficult to accept and respond to the fact that the Wolf sees it as such a profound personal affirmation. Wolves make a lot more of sex than a Peafowl can respond to consistently. This romantic difference may make both very prone to stray: the Peafowl when they find someone a little more basic in drives, the Wolf when they find someone they can't help but feel is special.

If a Peafowl marriage to a Wolf is to survive, it will be because a Wolf will never give in to failure, and because a Peafowl may, in fact, find reflected success and glory in the entourage of their successful partner. Although they do not seek it, Wolves get a lot of attention because they are natural leaders, and so reflected glory may be enough for the Peafowl spouse. The emotional heartache may endure throughout the marriage, but neither may want to give up on it because of how they see the other benefits of marriage. The one thing that will be very difficult for either one to understand or accept is that the one can't help feeling special, and that the other one can't help feeling inferior.

Wolf Mixed Marriages

When a Wolf marries a Weaverbird or a Peafowl, the thing they will have the most difficulty understanding is where all the emotional anxiety comes from. Why all the worry? Why all the anxiety? Because they see marriage and love as such ideal states, Wolves feel that the bond of superior, equal partners should eliminate most of life's worries, most of life's real anxieties. With a Peafowl partner, there is no end to anxiety, no end to the drama that is life.

Drama, for a Wolf, comes with the opportunities of the hunt, the trials and accomplishments of the mission. When one finds a great love, a great marriage, that mission is accomplished. Anxiety should end rather than be just beginning. But with a Peafowl partner, there is no end to the drama, no end to the need for attention and reassurance. It will be difficult, but a Wolf can make these reassurances part of their mission, seeing their own confidence and optimism as things they can offer their partner to help them with their life mission. They will undoubtedly be blamed for being arrogant and selfish and putting their mission ahead of their partner's needs and this will, of course, be exasperating to them. But Wolves and Peafowl have much in common, in that they both have a need to move to the head of any group to which they belong, the one for attention, the other for a greater purpose.

In a marriage with a Peafowl, a Wolf may find a rather intense balance of emotional conflict and emotional connections. They will spectacularly satisfy their needs in some ways, and spectacularly disappoint each other in other ways. Their strengths reinforce one another, and their weaknesses also reinforce one another. The relationship will be explosions and fireworks: the one partner looking for the thrill that gives life meaning, the other partner, the Wolf, trying to give meaning to the thrill and the joy of life's experience.

Personal Responsibility

Personal responsibility, the way we share tasks and perform the daily duties of our lives is seen by the three different kinds of Innate Self-esteem in completely different ways. A Weaverbird, a Peafowl, and a Wolf have completely different ways of doing things, and this shows even in the common duties and responsibilities every person assumes in life.

When packing a suitcase for a trip, each will do so according to his/her own particular natures.

Weaverbirds will organize and pack for every possible eventuality that they can imagine. A Peafowl will pack things that will make the best impression. A Wolf will pack as little as possible and probably forget some basic, important things.

In mixed species marriages, each spouse will look at the other's suitcase and be either confused or appalled. A Weaverbird will see a Peafowl's suitcase as ignoring practical realities, and see a Wolf's suitcase as being hopelessly inadequate. A Peafowl with see a Weaverbird's suitcase as filled with boring nonessentials and a Wolf's suitcase as hopelessly inadequate in conveying any sense of style. The Wolf will see a Weaverbird's suitcase as representing a compulsive need to plan, and see a Peafowl's suitcase as one filled with stylish nonessentials.

When one or the other of the married partners offer some opinion or judgment about the other's suitcase, the lack of understanding of what and why they are doing things as they are, may easily result in annoyance and resentment.

When you consider that each species does everything in very different ways, for very different reasons, it is clear that the ordinary actions of daily life are filled with innumerable opportunities for conflict and misunderstanding. From replacing toothpaste caps to the way a person deals with one's own clean and dirty clothes, to the way one drives a car, each type of Innate Self-esteem will see their own acts as eminently sensible and defensible and those of their partner as odd or infuriating.

Weaverbirds will attach enormous importance to the personal responsibilities of each marriage partner. It is through the ordinary acts of daily responsibility that they see maintained, the practical balance of life that is so important. They will see their partner's refusal to share the feeling that this balance, that these responsibilities are crucial to life's order and security as very threatening indeed. Even as they respect their partner's right to their own choice, they will feel that a fundamental aspect of life that is important to them is not being respected and shared. They will be caught in the dilemma of disturbing the balance of their marriage by complaining, or accepting behaviour that they believe is ultimately unfair.

For Peafowl, personal responsibilities and duties are measures of status and attention. Peacocks do the things that give them glory, and they hate chores and duties that don't offer that. Peahens work hard to earn their partner's approval so that their work will be praised and appreciated. To a Peacock, the ordinary duties of life are belittling, and to Peahens they are small offerings they want noticed. It works out.

For Wolves, personal responsibilities are unnecessary distractions. Although they accept their duties and responsibilities, they are so busy with more important things that they often put off and ignore the little details in life. Ever conscientious in the details of a great mission, Wolves are, nonetheless, quite negligent about things outside of the mission.

Wolves also have a great sense of how all things should be done. They are always willing to give advice to their partner on the best approach to do anything. Weaverbirds and Peafowl find this absolutely exasperating. The poor Wolf can't understand why their helpful advice is not appreciated.

Even when married to their own species, the weaknesses of each type of Innate Self-esteem can be exasperating to a partner. Wolves miss too many details and spread themselves too thin, Weaverbirds spin more and more plates and get more and more stressed out, Peafowl need to be appreciated even for the smallest acts.

Nagging

One person's nagging is another person's gentle reminder. Weaverbirds, the great worriers in life, will always have high expectations when it comes to personal responsibility. Their greatest anxieties involve keeping those responsibilities and duties well managed. They will worry that their married partners will let their plates of responsibilities slip and fall, and so will feel the need to monitor their partner's behaviour because to them, this is nothing but the same quality control they demand of themselves. To anyone but a Weaverbird, this is nagging.

Peafowl, because of their hypersensitivity to criticism, see all demands and expectations as nagging.

Wolves do not see their partner's questioning of their responsibilities and their effectiveness in completing them, as anything but a lack of faith in their abilities. To a Wolf this signifies that their partner has no confidence in their ability to do their duties. A Wolf sees this at first, as insulting, and then as disloyal.

Nagging is however, actually an issue only for Weaverbirds. Because it is so important for them to keep those plates spinning, they just can't help themselves from worrying and monitoring and keeping after their partner to make sure those plates just keep on spinning. There is no other Weaverbird behaviour that is more corrosive to a relationship than nagging. And, because their motives for doing it are so are pure, it is almost impossible for them to recognize what they are doing. Even as they see their partner's discomfort, even as they see that it is hurting the relationship, responsibilities and duties are just too important to ignore. It will take the married partner a long time to see and accept that what to them is nagging, is, to their Weaverbird partner, nothing but responsible and effective monitoring that is absolutely crucial in maintaining the precarious balance of life.

Anger

Anger is a difficult thing to deal with, especially when dealing with our most intimate relationships. To a Weaverbird, anger is an extreme reaction that only comes about when they feel most threatened. When a Weaverbird sees their spouse about to let one of the important plates in life come crashing to the ground, and the spouse responds to their warnings with an undue lack of concern, the only means they have to alert their partner about what is happening is by getting angry.

Weaverbirds are often angry because others are so inattentive to their spinning plates. Because they believe everyone has a right to make their own choices, they say nothing, feel more stress, and quietly get angrier when the occasional plates in life do fall, and even angrier if the Weaverbird feels that it is up to them to clean up the pieces. For Weaverbirds, anger is far more destructive to themselves then it is to the relationship. They express it so infrequently and after such agonizing that their angry explosions don't solve the problem, but rather adds more stress and guilt to their burden.

Peafowl have the most difficulty with anger because of their incredible expectations when it comes to others' reactions and behaviours. Peafowl are constantly looking for examples of others' inconsideration and lack of appreciation for them. When they don't get the consideration and appreciation that they believe they are entitled to, they get angry. Anyone married to a Peafowl will be used to a never-ending series of small and large explosions. No matter how much a person tries, a Peafowl will always find reasons to be disappointed.

When a Peafowl is disappointed, anger is the first reaction that Peafowl bring to a relationship. It is also one of the most useful things in a relationship to a Peafowl because, in the heat of anger, a Peafowl gets a true measure of their partner's feelings for them. It is like a never-ending, ongoing test of the sincerity of their partner's opinion and feelings for them. Making up and breaking up, though it can be a very destructive process, can also be the way that Peafowl come to truly appreciate the depth of feeling there is in a relationship. It is in this dance of anger that a Peafowl develops the depth and potential of feeling they have as human beings.

Wolves rarely get angry in interpersonal relationships unless they feel they are truly being belittled. They do have fierce, angry responses when it involves aspects of their greater mission. Their expectations of other people's commitment to their responsibilities to the mission is as absolute as their own. When people don't pull their weight, a Wolf is quick to anger and quick to forget their anger. Anger is like ritual muzzle shaking that real wolves do to assert their dominance. The other, gentler method that human Wolves use to assert dominance, that can be just as annoying as anger, is teasing. Teasing is a gentle reminder that one's weaknesses are being noticed, even though they do not threaten their membership in the group or the mission.

Gender

Each kind of Innate Self-esteem sees gender issues as a direct reflection of how they feel they compare to others.

Weaverbirds adhere to traditional roles because they feel that the cultural authority must be correct and unchallenged. If the cultural role is open and permissive, they will follow along. If the gender roles in a society are very rigid and prescribed, a Weaverbird will accept and believe those. Where there are problems between cultural and personal values for a Weaverbird with regard to gender, it will be because of their inherent ideals of equity. They will want their relationship to be fair and balanced in all ways, and so they will see the gender issue in the same way.

How one comes to fairness in gender issues has an infinite number of answers. Weaverbirds will worry and work very hard until they can feel and rationalize their gender role as being basically fair. Peafowl see gender roles as being very rigid. A man is a man and a woman is a woman. The reasons that Peafowl want very rigid gender definitions is because they do not want to focus on fairness and equity, anything but that. Because giving and receiving attention is what Peafowl are all about, the idea of fairness absolutely destroys the idea that a person is doing things because they are special, or because they want their partner to believe that they see them as special and deserving.

Peafowl hate all rules because rules are made for groups rather than individuals. Peafowl only see themselves as individuals and hate the idea of being seen as part of the group. Peafowl always want to be the star, never to be just part of a common constellation.

Wolves see gender roles as being very flexible and based on an absolute idea of equity. To a Wolf, anything is possible, even in gender roles. What is not possible is that they feel that they or their partner is anything but special, in each other's eyes. Wolves will follow gender distinctions in assigning the dominant role in sexual matters: one of the partners will be most responsible for initiation and for taking the lead in sexual matters. Other than that, how they see their gender as affecting work roles or parenting roles or domestic duty roles will be almost completely flexible.

It is easy to see that our gender biases are more determined by our Innate Self-esteem than by our culture. Our culture may set patterns for gender roles, but our Innate Self-esteem will determine whether we accept or reject those patterns. That is why, as in all things, some people are profoundly influenced and controlled by cultural patterns and some people are not.

Marriage as Mixed Doubles Tennis

Marriage is the most difficult relationship any human being ever attempts. It is an absolute test of our ability to understand and accept and love another person, even though they are very different, in some ways, than we are. Even when we marry someone with our own kind of Innate Self-esteem, the strengths and weaknesses of each particular way of seeing the world and judging our own personal value will be put to an absolute test. When we marry someone with a different kind of Innate Self-esteem than our own, we will be asked to love someone who sees the world very differently than we do, and someone who will never be able to completely understand how we see the world. This, however, does not mean the differences must be always irreconcilable. People from different cultures do come to love and appreciate one another when living in close proximity.

There is an analogy from sport that gives us some idea how this may be done. Mixed doubles tennis, as a sport, requires the same kind of intelligence, patience and understanding as marriage. It is interesting that a couple playing mix doubles tennis will often display much better manners, much more consideration, and much more understanding of one another on the court than they do when confronting one of the problems that life sends across the net of responsibilities.

Nevertheless, when you look at what it takes to be a very good partner in mixed doubles tennis, you can see a good parallel in how to be a good partner in marriage. Tennis partners learn each other's strengths and weaknesses as they play. They learn to anticipate what their partners will do in different situations and learn to respond in the way that will best serve their partner in winning the point. Consideration, anticipation, accepting the partner's limitations are part of becoming a good tennis team.

Squabbling on the court, blaming one another for poor performance, showing no faith in the partner's ability by trying to take every problem that comes over the net oneself, are all ways to ensure that the tennis partnership will not survive, that the problems that come over the net will not be met with the best response a couple is able to give.

Like marriage, there are rules in mixed doubles tennis for the best way to position oneself in relation to one's partner. There are, however, no rules that can be set for how one sees and reacts to one's partner's strengths and weaknesses. The rules that apply here come from the depths of a person's character.

Perception, understanding, anticipation, patience, enthusiasm, confidence, optimism, trust, appreciation, and joy in solving a mutual problem are as necessary to marriage as to mixed doubles tennis. When a person realizes that there are three very different ways of seeing and approaching the problems of life, it is easy to see why the demands of marriage are so much greater than the demands of mixed doubles tennis.

Divorce

Just as marriage is the most rewarding and most difficult relationship that people ever undertake, the effects of the breakdown in the marriage are never easy, and sometimes even devastating.

The reasons that a person will choose to divorce, how they will respond during a divorce, and the way they will adapt after a divorce will be enormously influenced by that person's kind of Innate Self-esteem.

A Weaverbird Gets Divorced

A Weaverbird will go through hell before they will finally make the decision to divorce their partner. Their whole personality is geared to endure all the difficulties that life presents. They believe that if you try harder, spin more plates and make more compromises, then everything will turn out all right. Because they believe so much in equity, they believe any problems in marriage fall to both parties. They are so used to stress that when it happens that their marriage is breaking down, they see this stress too as something else that must be endured. Often Weaverbirds will accept so much stress that they will actually have an emotional breakdown.

Weaverbirds can't accept that, having followed all the rules for having a good marriage, it can actually be failing. The reason a Weaverbird will finally decide that they must separate from their partner usually has to do with the thing that is most important to them, security. If they or their children are in physical, emotional, or financial danger, a Weaverbird will see that the whole purpose of marriage is being shattered. The whole idea of marriage is to have a secure place for oneself and one's children. The Weaverbird can live without love and they can live without fairness, but they can't live without a profound sense of security. When they see this is not possible, no matter what they do, they will start to think that for their own sake and their children's safety, they must separate from their partner.

Even infidelity usually isn't enough to break a Weaverbird's marriage, because they will feel partly responsible for the fact that their partner strayed. Problems of fidelity will be approached as any other problem, by trying to negotiate an equitable solution, by trying to work out an equal share of the blame. Only if the partner refuses to practise safe sex, and their own personal health and security is at risk, or if the infidelity is an ongoing betrayal, will problems with fidelity probably come to a make or break situation.

Once the decision is made to divorce, a Weaverbird's greatest concern will be to ensure a fair and equitable division of properties and responsibilities. Again, their main concern is with their own, and their children security. Weaverbirds will approach these security needs by availing themselves of society's rules for just such situations. A Weaverbird will want a good lawyer.

They will want everything clearly understood and in writing. They will want to make a safe and secure compartment that they will call their failed marriage. Building the walls of that compartment means having a clear understanding of both party's duties and responsibilities after the divorce its final.

After the divorce is final and the Weaverbird has begun a new life, the Weaverbird will live with the failed marriage in a compartment that they open regularly to try to understand how it was that such an important spinning plate could have crashed to the ground and shattered. They will feel guilt and remorse, and worry and worry how it was that following all the rules ended in heartbreak and failure. They will feel guilty and wonder and wonder what part of the failed marriage was their own fault. The most difficult thing for them, in getting over a failed marriage, is letting go of the idea that half of the responsibilities for the failure was theirs.

They may never understand or accept the failure of their marriage. Yet they will live with it by putting it into a compartment of its own so that it does not affect the security of the rest of their lives. The plate of failure in marriage will be balanced on its own stick and spun with all the others in life.

A Peafowl Gets Divorced

A Peafowl divorce will have the same emotional intensity as a Peafowl marriage, only more so. The emotional pendulum will swing in the broadest arcs. A Peafowl is capable of experiencing every injury, every hurt; every positive thing that the Peafowl has done in their marriage will be brought out and thrown in the face of the partner. Anger will predominate as it never has before. Just as marriage was the greatest act of reassurance and affirmation of one's personal worth, divorce is the greatest act of disrespect and denial of a person's worth. Extreme emotional explosions and deep, profound pain will be the currency of a Peafowl divorce.

Children, unfortunately, will be caught in the middle of the emotional volcano that is divorce. Peafowl will want their children to side with them to justify and understand what they are doing and feeling. Caught between feelings of self-righteous anger and terrible guilt, Peafowl try to hold on desperately, even as they lash out violently.

Adapting to divorce is difficult for Peafowl. They will not be able to let go of their emotions, so it will be very difficult for them to let go of their partner's. Sometimes Peafowl actually remarry partners after extremely bitter divorces. Breaking up and making up is a never-ending pattern, whether it comes to divorce or not.

The amazing thing about Peafowl after they divorce and the anger subsides, is that they may come to realize and appreciate the depth of feeling they had in their marriage, the wonderful qualities they miss in their ex-partner.

A Wolf Gets Divorced

Divorce, to a Wolf, absolutely shakes the deepest, most fundamental beliefs they have about themselves. A Wolf bonds with an absolute, lifetime commitment. It is one of a Wolf's greatest ideals. The fact that they could be wrong about their most profound commitment, the fact that their confidence and optimism about that commitment was misplaced, is a devastating idea to a Wolf.

Because they respect their partner as a superior equal, it is not so much blame or betrayal that they feel, but grievous disappointment and loss. They will fight desperately to avoid a divorce, but if it can't be avoided, they will make it their mission to cause the least harm, to do the best by their partner, and most especially, their children.

Getting over the divorce is a long and bitter process for a Wolf because their most fundamental faith in themselves has been shattered. The absolute bond that turned out to be only temporary is hard to reconcile for Wolves who believe so profoundly in their own judgments and feelings.

It will take a Wolf a long time to believe again in their own judgment when it comes to love and marriage. The fact that they will continue to be as good a parent as they can, the fact that they will never let go of the feeling they had for their partner, will mean that they will be connected to their biggest disappointment for as long as they live.

Chapter 6

Parenting and Childhood

Marriage is one of the most difficult personal relationships two people ever get to enjoy. The great advantage of marriage is that its purpose, over time, is to reinforce the bond two people have in love, to use this most difficult relationship to create a personal, human jewel that will deepen them, fulfill them in all the ways that time and circumstance allows.

Parenting is much more difficult. It asks two people who love a child unconditionally, a child who is wholly dependent on them for their emotional security and well-being, to learn to move to a more conditional love in order to foster the growing independence the child will need to develop in life. This is not easy. It is asking people to change the way they love a child as the child matures.

On top of this very difficult change in focus in the parent-child relationship, there is also the underlying problem of not only understanding the child's type of Innate Self-esteem, but also understanding the kind of Innate Self-esteem each of the parents has as their own.

Not only is a parent initially responsible for a child's Social Self-esteem, but also they have an underlying responsibility to recognize each child's individual makeup, and provide the support for their best development.

Without understanding that Innate Self-esteem exists, it is difficult for a parent to recognize either their own bias, or the different ways that each child may value himself in comparing himself to others. When parents recognize their own bias, their own kind of Innate Self-esteem, they will think that these values are the ones that they cannot help but believe are important to pass to their children. Not realizing that one parent's own type of Innate Self-esteem may be different from that of their spouse, will also make it very difficult to develop a consistent model of parenting, as both parents face a child's developmental needs. Conflicts over parenting may be a deep and troubling experience to both parents and the children.

So too, without understanding which of the three foundations of Innate Self-esteem is the base on which each individual child will attempt to build the social structures of their lives, it is very difficult to understand the different needs each child may have, the different values that are important to stress for them, the different weaknesses each child will feel when confronting life's problems and opportunities.

Each child is also going through the developmental stages that move them from the emotional dependency that comes with bonding to the parents, to the independence that will be necessary for them to become a functioning adult, and this further complicates the emotional problem of development. Yet each child will approach their developmental problems from the base values of their Innate Self-esteem. If their values are understood and respected, and perhaps even coincide with that of their parents, it will make growing up much easier for that child. But if their type of Innate Self-esteem is different from one or both of their parents, it will be very difficult for the child. They will feel the continual conflicts between the subconscious values that are their own, and the conscious values that their parents are trying to instill.

When you consider that children also have siblings that may have different kinds of Innate Self-esteem, and when you consider the effects of birth order on sibling relationships, it is easy to see why an individual child might experience a sea of conflicting values and expectations. That is why it is so important for parents to understand the three different types of Innate Self-esteem and which of the three types belongs to each of their particular children. The idea of parenting as a system that must treat each child with an equal, consistent set of expectations and responses can pose difficult, if not insurmountable problems, if it is true that dependent children may actually see and respond to the world in three distinct and different ways.

The relationship between parents and their children is the most complicated and problematical because of the fact that each individual child will carry one of the three unconscious foundations of Innate Self-esteem without understanding that each of the other members of their family may view the world very differently than they do. It is a confusing mine field where people of three different cultures have to learn to come to a common understanding, without knowing that those three different cultures actually exists. That is why it is in this relationship that the ideas of Innate Self-esteem may have the most important use and effects.

Parenting

How a parent sees their role, in relation to their individual children, will depend somewhat on the model of parenting that they experienced. The lessons learned in the dependent phase of life are powerful and deep. It is clear that people often repeat the lessons of parenting that they learned as a child from their own parents. It is true that people sometimes make the same mistakes, as parents, that they suffered from their own parents. It is also true however, that we cannot escape the basic values of our Innate Self-esteem. As parents, we will assert and defend the values that we believe, in our hearts, to be the best ones to live by. We cannot help but believe that our best values are the best things that we have to impart to our children. It is, ultimately, the very point of being a good parent.

Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves will see parenting as being very different in purpose, in meaning, in value and action. The most important thing for a parent to understand is how and what that means in the day-to-day actions and reactions of ordinary life, as far as their children are concerned.

Weaverbird Parents

Weaverbird parents, of course, approach parenting with a great deal of anticipation, as it is the ultimate purpose that Weaverbirds see in life. But, because they are Weaverbirds, they also approach parenting with a significant degree of doubt and trepidation. The responsibility of such a lifetime commitment that carries with it such tremendous possibilities for both success and failure is daunting indeed. The more a Weaverbird thinks about being a parent, the more profoundly they feel their responsibilities. Even with the tremendous confidence they have that they will be able to love and nurture a child, they have the tremendous fear that they will make mistakes that will affect the child's entire life, mistakes they have no way of even recognizing as they make them. Scary indeed!

Because there is only their own, inexperienced spouse to consult about parenting decisions, because there is no committee or consensus to share the responsibility of child rearing decisions, Weaverbirds will turn to experts and authorities to give them support, to give them some idea of what these terrible mistakes may be. As in all other things, a Weaverbird's response to personal responsibility is to work harder, prepare as well as they can, and worry and worry and worry.

For a Weaverbird, worrying is a measure of the importance of one's task, and the level of one's commitment. When children come along, Weaverbirds focus on giving their children the things they themselves value most: security most of all; respect that is both given and required; a sense of discipline and responsibility; consistency; opportunity; and social and moral instructions to let their children become a conforming part of their social environment. Parenting is made for Weaverbirds, not only because of their commitment to it, but also because their values coincide so well with the needs of the child forming a dependent bond that will insure their safe and proper socialization.

As their children grow up, Weaverbirds will work harder and harder to give their children the most secure environment and the very best opportunities for their proper socialization. They will do more and more for their children, and become more and more overwhelmed with the demands that parenting adds to their life. Where their children do not come first, they will feel guilty that they are not doing the best job of raising their children.

The difficulties that Weaverbirds find in being parents will come mostly from the incredible demands they place upon themselves when it comes to their children. They will expect a great deal from themselves, they will expect a great deal from their partner, and they will also expect a great deal from their children. They believe that because they are working so hard to be good parents, the children must bear their own responsibilities in life with an equal commitment. Their sense of fairness requires equal effort from all parties when it comes to the serious task of raising children.

Because they believe so firmly that the family is a common, shared set of responsibilities that all parties must feel equally committed to satisfying, a Weaverbird is frustrated and angry if their spouse or their children do not take their roles as seriously as they believe they should. At first, they will try to spin the wobbly plates for their spouse and children but as their level of exhaustion and their level of frustration grows from being allowed to continue spinning plates that are not their own, the task of parenting may feel like it is becoming overwhelming. Family meetings, new rules, self-help books, friends and even parents will be consulted in trying to solve the problem of too much work and too little time, and not enough effort by everyone involved.

Negotiations will seek to find a common consensus that will return the individual spinning plates to the people to whom they belong. Nevertheless, if plates continue to wobble, if people do not pull up their socks, Weaverbirds will find it almost impossible to resist the temptation to spin the other family member's plates when they start to wobble, even just a little bit.

Weaverbird parents must learn to recognize that their desire to give their children the most security and the best socialization can become too demanding and even counterproductive. All children need to relax; all children need unstructured time. Quality time is sometimes not anywhere near as beneficial as ordinary quantity time. Because they are so busy, Weaverbirds focus on giving their children quality time, which often translates into more intense and focused activity. Weaverbird's spouses and their children will have to learn to deal with the pressures of time and duty and social expectations. The Weaverbird parent will feel like a reluctant taskmaster forced into a role he/she does not like.

Weaverbirds hate to be seen as being authoritarian because of their unique belief in fairness and equity and the belief that each person is entitled to their own individual values and ways of doing things. The respect that they wish to be given is one that they expect to offer. But when their efforts are not respected, when they do not receive equal treatment, they become frustrated and angry and feel guilty for doing so.

If a Weaverbird is married to someone of the other two species, their problems will be compounded because of the way their partner views their own role as a parent. They will be touched by the emotional attachment and connection that their Peafowl spouse makes with their children, but they will also be appalled that so much of the day-to-day parenting duties are left to them. They will be appalled that their partner will model behaviour that defies authority or shatters the rules of conformity and decorous behaviour. It will be the example that their Peafowl partner sets for the children that will be the most difficult to swallow because it is absolutely the opposite of what a Weaverbird believes a good parent should do.

With Weaverbird children, Weaverbirds have to learn to help their children recognize the weakness they have to be too compulsive, too organized, too much of the perfectionist in everyday life.

If they have Peafowl children, Weaverbirds have to stand up to the extreme emotional outbursts of their children and not take too seriously the idea that they might have to be more rigid with, and also more attentive to, their Peafowl children than they will feel comfortable doing.

With Wolf children, Weaverbirds have to learn to let their children take risks that they themselves might find intolerable, that may seem reckless and premature and ill considered for a child. With Wolf children, it is important not to continually try to moderate the child's incredible confidence and optimism.

If the Weaverbird is married to a Wolf, they will be delighted by the absolute commitment their partner has brought to being a parent, they will be delighted that their partner takes up an equal share of parenting responsibilities and duties. But they will be absolutely unnerved at how their partner will have such reckless confidence that their children will be safe and secure, that they will be able to handle any of life's most difficult challenges. A Wolf's confidence and optimism is not shared by a Weaverbird. The danger that comes with their partner's confidence and optimism in their children's security and ability will be seen as almost reckless, risking the emotional or physical security of their most precious child. Their Wolf spouse's easy dismissal of their concerns only adds to their anxiety. The security of their children is not negotiable for a Weaverbird, and so there will be battles until the Wolf relents.

Peafowl Parents

Peafowl are passionate about having children. They feel that the unconditional love of a child is the most precious thing they will ever have in their lives and so it inspires their most romantic feelings about parenting. And, when a child arrives, it inspires the most powerful of bonds. This is true of any but the most extreme Peafowl. Extreme Peafowl will resent anyone and anything that takes away from their attention, and so it is only with extreme Peafowl that jealousy and rejection of the baby may happen.

Ordinary and extraordinary Peafowl will greet a child with the highest emotional expectations they may ever experience. Because Peafowl have such emotional sensitivity and depth, they will bond with their children and feel the preciousness of their individual natures as no other parent can.

The problem of parenting for Peafowl is not the depth of the parenting bond but rather the emotional pendulum that continues to swing through their lives, no matter what they do and no matter what they may feel. The parenting bond also swings in the emotional arcs of acceptance and rejection. Sometimes Peafowl are overwhelmed with love for their children, sometimes they just can't stand them. These, of course, are only the natural mood swings of their own temperament, but children will take some time before they understand this. They may also model this behaviour and so, add their own emotional volatility to the mix.

Peafowl understand that children need the Weaverbird values of consistency, responsibility, respect for authority, and security. Because they have such a difficult time with those issues in their own lives, they will feel frustrated and guilty when they realize that they don't model this behaviour very well. Nevertheless, a Peafowl's love for their child will make up for a lot of poor parenting. Even with the anger and rejection the parent offers at times, a child instinctively knows when they are loved. It makes up for a lot of mistakes because it is love that is the basis of the bond between a parent and child.

To others, Peafowl parenting behaviour may come in for severe criticism because of the accepted Weaverbird model of good parenting. This, of course, tends to reinforce the emotional swing of the pendulum for the Peafowl. They angrily reject and resent any criticism of their children, or of their parenting skills. Unfortunately, people do not understand Peafowl relationships because they are so emotional and inconsistent in appearance. Children understand Peafowl relationships much better than adults because they are so focused on their individuality.

Even though their needs are for Weaverbird consistency and security, children have a good sense of whether they are loved or not. They may see Peafowl inconsistency for what it is, the emotional swings of a pendulum that actually has nothing to do with their own behaviour.

Weaverbird children are more likely to take such erratic behaviour very personally because they are so afraid of disappointing their parents. Because Peafowl parents believe that the way to influence behaviour is by positive and negative attention, they will approach disciplining their children with the idea of using bribes to reward good behaviour and threats to punish bad behaviour. Children soon learn to use their behaviour to manipulate their Peafowl parents into giving them more treats if they are not to display more bad behaviour.

Peafowl parents have difficulty realizing that bribes and threats are matters of power, and children soon learn the limits that their parents will go to in exercising their power over them. Having learned these limits, the power is transferred to the children because they will have realized when and how their parents have lost control of them. It is very difficult for Peafowl parents not to indulge their children when they're feeling positive and loving, it is also very difficult for Peafowl parents not to take it out on their children when they are feeling frustrated or angry.

Peafowl sometimes accept a child's behaviour without comment or criticism, sometimes they will be furious at similar behaviour and express it most forcefully. Most children figure this out. It is only at the extreme that Peafowl behaviour is destructive. But of course, extreme Weaverbird expectations and stress is also destructive to a child. Wolf recklessness and risk-taking may also be very destructive to a child's well being. Peafowl behaviour is the one that is most easily criticized because it seems so volatile and personal.

The television program Roseanne was a wonderful example of the best and the worst aspects of Peafowl parents. Roseanne's incredible bond to her children showed its obvious depth and strength when there ever was a true crisis, whenever her children really needed her. She also showed the self-centred mood swings, her absolute inconsistency in behaviour, her almost total self-absorption. Still, she was a wonderful mother who raised her children very successfully.

When Peafowl marry one another, there are two emotional pendulums swinging, but because they usually do not swing in phase, when one partner is down the other partner usually doesn't share their feeling. Often there is, in fact, a pattern that develops where the pendulums swing in opposite phases so that one can be there for the other when they are needed. So a child can usually count on one parent accepting them when they are being criticized by the other. This can, of course, lead to a child playing one parent against the other. It can also lead to parents fighting over their inability to deal effectively with this manipulation. The drama that is a Peafowl life has tremendous passion and tremendous insights that come with it. These passions and insights, as difficult as they are when they are being learned, may become a tremendous emotional resource to a child as it matures.

When married to Weaverbirds, the conflict in values is almost impossible to resolve because they are so diametrically opposed. Weaverbirds can't accept Peafowl inconsistency and emotional volatility. Peafowl can't understand all the criticism they receive when they love their children so much.

When married to Wolves, Peafowl find it much easier, because the Wolf will take up the slack when it comes to the practical things in life without criticizing them for their inconsistency and emotional volatility.

Wolf Parents

As in nature with real wolves, human Wolves are incredible parents. Their optimism and confidence and commitment to the pack make it a wonderful environment for a child in many ways. They will be the absolute focus of life while they are developing the dependent bonds with their parents. A Wolf will encourage their children and give them every opportunity to explore and understand and develop their natural gifts. Because a Wolf is so naturally curious and passionate about life's territory and wants to instill this in their children, they will lead them to experience what they feel are, absolutely, among the best things a human being can experience.

The difficulty will be that in their absolute confidence and optimism, and in the fact that they see only the best gifts and possibilities in their children, they will unavoidably make their children feel pressured to live up to such high expectations. The Wolf parent, of course, finds it almost impossible to understand that their encouragement and their confidence in their children's ability could be seen as pressure, when their intention is to do anything but that.

With Weaverbird children, a Wolf has to recognize the incredible caution, reluctance and fear that Weaverbird children feel in risking themselves in any new situation or environment. They must not try to force their own optimism and confidence on their children. This will be very difficult for a Wolf to accept.

With Peafowl children, Wolves have to recognize that their children are desperate for attention and so may take risks to please their Wolf parent. But, if and when they actually fail at what they are attempting to do, they will not easily brush themselves off and try again. They will be devastated. They will need far more reassurance than a Wolf may realize. The Wolf parent must learn to recognize the need for caution and must learn to rein themselves in.

With Wolf children, they must learn to do the same thing, because their own confidence, enthusiasm and optimism will only amplify that of the child. Children may come to believe they can do things that aren't even in the realms of possibility.

Wolves, when married to one another, will give their children a double dose of enthusiasm possibilities. The financial instability, the constant new opportunity, the discovery of new missions will all help to make life an incredibly volatile experience for children. Two Wolves make the volatility even more profound.

Wolves, when married to Peafowl, will take up the inconsistencies that come with Peafowl emotionalism. They will see their role as a member of the pack in taking up those responsibilities the other party is not able to shoulder. They will see the emotional depths of their Peafowl partner as a wonderful contribution to the life of their child. They see the best in everyone, and believe absolutely, in the strength of the pack, their family.

When married to Weaverbirds, Wolves will adapt very well to their partner's parenting values. The one area that will cause great difficulty will be a Weaverbird's compulsive need for conformity and security. Wolves, the natural risk takers, the natural rule breakers, will find this to be much too constraining a set of values to give their children the best opportunities in life.

They will trust their children to be able to handle risk and failure. Weaverbirds are terrified by risk and failure. This may lead to severe conflicts because they represent such fundamentally important values that will affect the children's lives forever.

As with each other type of Innate Self-esteem, a parent's first task is to understand the nature of their own weaknesses, the darkness of the shadow side of their best strengths. The second thing they must do is to understand the same thing about their children, and, most importantly, understand that those strengths and weaknesses may be very different than their own. Seeing and understanding all this is invaluable in consciously becoming the best parent that one may be.

Childhood

Whereas parenting is done mostly by adults who are able to learn and analyze and understand themselves and what parenting means, childhood, by definition, is a state in which an individual has very little understanding of who they are and what they are experiencing. Parenting can be learned, childhood can't. It just is. The child forms the bonds that tie them so deeply to their parents, unconsciously, so neither they nor their parents are able to express or understand the particular and individual needs that a particular child may have. This accounts for the incredible anxieties almost all parents feel, sometimes, when they are confronted with difficulties that they may be having with their children, or with difficulties the child may be having themselves.

Still, the parent-child bond is formed mostly of love, and so even having parents with very poor parenting skills, children may grow up to be fine, well adjusted individuals. Growing up is a tremendously complicated and difficult task, yet most people eventually do it pretty well. The unconscious mind is there to help us do a task that is beyond the conscious understanding and ability of even the best parents, of the most gifted children.

Parents may understand the strengths and weaknesses of their values as Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves, and may learn to adjust and accommodate to their children's needs from that understanding. But children, as children, will never be able to understand or appreciate the inherent foundation of their Innate Self-esteem and what it means in relation to how they see and respond to life. It is up to parents to see and to understand that their individual children may have very different ways of looking at life, ways that may coincide or conflict with their own values. Understanding that there are three cultures, three ways of comparing one's value to others is invaluable to a parent in understanding the individual needs and responses of their children. It is, therefore, most beneficial to examine and to understand how Weaverbird, Peafowl and Wolf children react as they form deep, dependent bonds with their parents.

Weaverbird Children

Weaverbirds worry. The first thing that a Weaverbird child learns to worry about is the thing that supplies their deep need for security. They worry about losing their parent's love. The way this expresses itself is in the constant worry that they will disappoint their parents. This, of course, later comes to be generalized among all authority figures such as teachers.

Weaverbird children will react to their fear of disappointing others, especially their parents, by working harder and harder to do the tasks and responsibilities that are given to them. They will be neat, they will be careful, they will tidy their rooms, they will be polite, and very nervous about expressing anger with adults. Weaverbird children are the most well behaved because it is in their very nature to conform, to respect authority, to be responsible, and most of all, not to get into any kind of trouble. Trouble destroys security. Weaverbird children are terrified of getting into trouble.

Weaverbird children listen attentively and do the best they can to please everyone. For this reason, they are encouraged and reinforced in their behaviour. This approval and reinforcement makes them try even harder to do as they are told and not to disappoint their parents. This can lead to rather compulsive behaviour in which each task and responsibility becomes something that must be done to an exacting degree of perfection. Control and perfection are necessary ideals to a Weaverbird child because they feel very dependent and vulnerable as children. They will want to control every environment and every situation that comes along in life because it is the only way they have to deal with the risk of failure, the risk of disappointing others.

The Weaverbird child's strengths will become their weakness in that they may become so reinforced for what others label as good behaviour, that they may become imprisoned by their inability to face new situations. Growing up is, by definition, nothing but facing new situations.

The best response a parent can have to the Weaverbird child is to make sure that the child, when confronted with a new situation, is reassured that they will never disappoint the parent, if they just do their best. It is also good for parents to model the fact that they will try new situations and not worry about failing and disappointing others. The most difficult challenge for a Weaverbird child is to loosen up, to give up control just a little bit, to realize that when you fall down, it is not the end of the world. Weaverbird children are the only ones who must be encouraged to risk failing in order to develop self-confidence as independent individuals.

Weaverbird children love order and structure and it is important for them that it does exist. If their parents don't supply it, they will usually do it themselves. What is most important is that the parents try to limit the number of worries and responsibilities a Weaverbird child assumes. If they are to be children and limit their tendency to be compulsive, the number of plates they have to spin has to be restricted, the idea that some plates can be spun simply for the fun of it has to be encouraged.

A Weaverbird child, of course, will respond best to Weaverbird parents. They will love the security, the order, the structure, the even-handed approach that their parents express. Because the Weaverbird parents are so reluctant to criticize, even as they make clear their expectations of the children, a Weaverbird child will feel secure that they can avoid criticism if only they do the chores and be good children.

The difficulty for Weaverbird children with Weaverbird parents is that the plates one has to worry about spinning will seem to be just a given fact of life. It will seem to a Weaverbird child that life is just a never-ending accumulation of plates to spin. Chores, classes, recreational activities, family duties and responsibilities, educational opportunities, peer group socialization, life is a never-ending accumulation of plates to spin. Life is a never-ending set of worries about which plates may fall and whom they will affect when they fall, and who will be disappointed when it is your fault that they fell.

A Weaverbird child will respond to a Peafowl parent with tremendous anxiety because they will be absolutely unable to control or understand the inconsistent responses of their parent. The thing that is fine one minute gets you trouble the next. Where one situation is accepted with equanimity at one time, it is the cause of an enormous explosion another time. With Peafowl parents, Weaverbird children have no end of worry and anxiety. They will often be moved to focus on environments where they can control what goes on, where there is some consistency of cause and effect. School may become this perfect environment for Weaverbird children to balance their internal needs.

Whether Weaverbird children develop a tendency to excessive control because of the circumstances of their life, or whether they become compulsive in behaviour because of their innate plate spinning tendencies, is open to debate. It is probably clear that excess reinforcement of their compulsive natures must add to the tendency they have to maintain strict control of every situation they meet.

Faced with their frustration with their Peafowl parent's behaviour, Weaverbird children may become secretly very anxious at home. They may turn inward, focusing on books or their rooms or their own activities. The insecurity they feel in their home environment, they will try to balance in their internal environment. They may shut down many of the reactions they have to the disturbing behaviour of their Peafowl parents, and focus more obsessively on the things they can control.

If the Peafowl parents are too extreme in the swings of their emotional pendulum, Weaverbird children can become very compulsive and obsessive. Whether anxiety is a greater motivator than positive reinforcement in the development of these compulsions, is again open to debate.

With Wolf parents, a Weaverbird child learns to make up for the poor attention to detail that their parents exhibit. They may end up doing the practical organizing the Wolf parent neglects. They feel secure in their parent's focus and attention, and also feel pressed by their parent's fearless exploration of life. They come to rely on their parent's sense of adventure to make up for their own reticence. They feel nervous and pressured to try things they don't want to do. If the parents are sensitive to the Weaverbird child's need for security, the child may try things and do things that they would never try on their own.

Peafowl Children

Peafowl children are the most difficult to deal with, in terms of behaviour, because their internal sense of their own value is so much less than the need they have to be recognized and reassured of their value. They want reassurance and attention for everything they do because they live in the moment.

For Peafowl children, instant gratification has an overwhelming power. Because they are so afraid of failing, because they have so little self-confidence about any situation in life, they may be very nervous, anxious, easily excited and terrified in new situations. If they can't maintain a constant focus of attention from those around them, especially their parents, for the positive things that they do, then they will be driven to act in negative ways to maintain the focus of attention that they so desperately need.

Peafowl children are often seen as overreacting to both the reinforcements and criticisms they may receive. Invariably, it is Peafowl children that account for the majority of the discipline problems both at home and at school. When they are bad, they are very bad, but when they are good, they can be absolute charmers. Attention! Attention! Attention! The moment a Peafowl child feels at all secure is the moment that they will seek to bring the focus of attention on to them.

Because they are so emotional, because they are so sensitive to people's reactions, they very soon learn to take advantage of whatever a situation offers them in terms of getting noticed. Humour, aggressive behaviour, and dominating weaker peers are all tools Peafowl children learn to use to be noticed. They learn that resisting authority is a means to draw the centre of attention from that authority to themselves. It is because of this that Peafowl children soon learn to distrust, resent, and resist all authority. Of course, this is anything but a beneficial thing to learn in becoming socially integrated within a group. They soon even learn to resent the authority of their parents. It is often with them that they are most frustratingly resistant because it is with them that they actually feel the most secure and accepted.

Peafowl children, because they lack a powerful emotional, internal measure of their self-esteem, will need an external set of standards of behaviour to understand what they may and may not do in any situation. More than any other children they need a clear, consistent, set of rules of behaviour that they understand. Peafowl react best to both carrots and sticks. In fact, the one without the other can cause great difficulty. They needs structure and discipline more than any other children, but they also need carrots more than any other children.

Monty Roberts, the Horse Whisperer, adopted a number of older troubled children and used the same technique with them that he used in gently breaking wild horses. Giving a clear understanding of what good behaviour entailed along with speedy, consistent penalties for ignoring the behaviour, with both horses and children, established rules of behaviour and what happened when they were broken. People always do this with Peafowl children, but what the Horse Whisperer did with both horses and children was also to reinforce and praise even the smallest positive behaviour. He consistently and quickly rewarded all good behaviour with the tasty carrots of praise. This is the part that most people forget in dealing with Peafowl children. They don't understand their insatiable need for reassurance and attention, nor do they understand that these children live in the present and hence that deferred satisfaction and postponed attention have little value or meaning to them.

Everyone has experienced the hyperactive child, the angry child, the goofy child who will do anything to be noticed. Few people know how to deal with them because they don't understand that the need for attention comes from a lack of confidence. The way most people deal with Peafowl children is to escalate disciplinary actions, try to segregate them when they are disruptive, discipline more and reassure less. Discipline and a consistent set of behavioural expectations are absolutely necessary, but no less necessary is the consistent recognition and reassurance that comes with praise and attention.

It takes a lot more work and a lot more patience and understanding to be with Peafowl children than with any other, but they also supply much of the individuality and passion and enthusiasm for the moment to any group to which they belong. That is why people most often remember the crazy kids, the class clowns, the rebels, the charmers, the attention seekers that they experience in life.

Peafowl children break the rules and run the emotional gamut of childhood experiences, and are often grudgingly admired by other children for what they do. Peafowl children learn this too, and it becomes another positive measure of attention and reassurance that they are someone worth noticing.

Weaverbird parents have the most difficult time understanding and responding to Peafowl children because they are so extreme in reaction. It would seem that Weaverbirds, with their emphasis on structure and order and their belief in fairness would make ideal parents for Peafowl children. They, in fact, have the most difficulty with them because Peafowl children have a hard time letting go of their parent's attention, and a Weaverbird's attention is necessarily drawn to the many different spinning plates in their lives. Peafowl children resent every one of them.

Because Weaverbird parents don't know what to do with intense, irrational, emotional displays, Peafowl children soon learn that escalating such behaviour may offer them the most attention that they are likely to get. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and with Weaverbird parents, the louder the squeak, the more attention they will give. This, of course, just reinforces a Peafowl child's negative behaviour.

What to do with a child who will not accept discipline? Too often Weaverbirds feel they have no choice but to give in and reward behaviour they know should not be rewarded. Peafowl children develop incredible sensitivity to their parent's discomfort levels and learn exactly the buttons to push to get the most attention. Weaverbird parents, feeling equally responsible for their children's behaviour, will second guess themselves and so rationalize their inability to control their children as they wish. It is busy, overly stressed Weaverbird parents that are the most vulnerable to the manipulation of Peafowl children. The parents will consult experts and books and try to negotiate with their children, they will try family meetings and tough love, any program, any expert that may offer some hope in dealing with their difficult children's overwhelming demands.

Peafowl children with Weaverbird parents may, in fact, tend to become more narcissistic because they are able to have greater and greater power over their parents as their demands and their unacceptable behaviour escalates. It often will take an expert to help Weaverbird parents regain control of their Peafowl children. It will be the Weaverbird parents who will have to learn consistent and enforced rules of behaviour to go with rewards and approval.

Peafowl children, with Peafowl parents, actually find a more conducive environment to the natural temperament they exhibit. Watching the mood swings, feeling the intensity of their emotional parent's responses to life, strangely reassures Peafowl children that their own emotional needs and desires are legitimate. They will quickly understand that they have to fit their own needs in between the powerful needs of their parents. Because Peafowl children live in the present moment, they can enjoy the positive love and affection when their parents give them, and quickly get over the anger and rejection that Peafowl parents express when they are unhappy.

Peafowl understand the advantages of having the power to get attention. They defer to their powerful parents who are so much better at getting attention than they are. They model the positive and negative aspects of their parent's behaviour because it is something that is very satisfying for them to learn.

Peafowl children, as they get older and more independent, will learn to challenge their parents for the attention that they want. The older Peafowl children get, the more serious the battle of wills will become. Nevertheless, even as the expressions of rebellion grow stronger, so too do the deep emotional bonds the Peafowl children feel for their parents.

Peafowl parents will foster contempt for authority in their own Peafowl children. It is only a Peafowl that will go to school and blame the authorities for the bad behaviour of their own children. Peafowl children will feel closer to their parents for this defense, for this reassurance of their love. "My child, right or wrong," is a Peafowl philosophy. Such a philosophy, of course, has incredible strength, but also a serious social price. Learning independent behaviour, for Peafowl children, is often seen as being synonymous with rebellion and defiance of authority.

When Peafowl children are born to Wolf parents, they can be assured of time and commitment, and a great deal of positive attention. Because they are seen as new members of the pack, they will be included in many of the great missions the Wolf sets out to accomplish. Such attention and inclusion is, of course, enormously satisfying to the Peafowl child but the confidence and optimism the parent feels in the child's ability and talent is also very threatening.

Unlike the Wolf parent who is never afraid to fail, Peafowl children are always afraid of failing. They may find their parent's accomplishments intimidating, their faith in them and their life's possibilities even more so.

Wolves will understand dominance and power very well and so will not easily be manipulated by their Peafowl children when they exert the power of negative attention. It is for this reason that Wolf parents will limit their children to positive expressions of behaviour to get their attention.

It will serve to get the best behaviour from their child, but it will also serve to intimidate them about what they might possibly do that may be worthy of positive approval and praise, especially in comparison to their accomplished Wolf parents. But, of the three different kinds of Innate Self-esteem, Wolves probably provide Peafowl children with the best environment because they give a clear set of expectations, a good idea of the consequences of breaking them, and also incredible praise and attention for any success the Peafowl child may enjoy.

Encouraging their children to express and explore their best gifts, Wolves see this as preparation for the children finding their own territory and accomplishing their own great deeds. Peafowl children will love the encouragement and support, but will be moved to accomplish things to prove they are actually worthy as human beings.

Wolf Children

Wolf children have a pack mentality. It is being a part of the group that is most satisfying to a Wolf child. As part of their family, they will feel deeply connected, their dependency needs matched however, by their own innate personal self-confidence.

In some ways, Wolf children actually feel like they are equal to the adults in their family. They feel they deserve equal respect and consideration. They will want their own independent decisions for taking risks and trying new things to be approved and supported. Even though they understand very well the dominant order of the family or the peer group of the school, they will feel a natural desire to want to contribute as an equal to the goals the group sets out to accomplish. They will have high expectations, and great dreams and be willing to risk failing to accomplish what they set out to do because they actually believe they can do it.

The one thing that they will have a very difficult time with is risking the rejection of the people that are part of their pack. Wolf children believe in the rules that are set for the pack, and they will never break the rules that those close to them respect and affirm.

Insatiably curious, Wolf children are always interested in new territories, in new frontiers, in finding things that are truly worth doing. It is not praise they seek, but rather true accomplishment.

They will tend to move their focus from one project to another and from one ambition to another until they find a territory that they truly feel is their own. And when they find it, there's little that anyone will be able to do to discourage them from exploring that territory and making it their own.

Wolf children try and fail far more often than other children, yet they easily pick themselves up and move on to the next mission, sure that it was only external circumstances that caused their failure, never their own lack of commitment or ability.

Until they find their special territory, Wolves will tend to spread themselves too thin, take on too many projects and ignore too many details. Wolf children are careless about details. They believe that if you take care of the dollars, the pennies will take care of themselves. Of course, this is rarely true. Parents will always have to be after their Wolf children to clean their rooms, pick up their toys, take care of their clothes and be more conscientious with their grooming. Wolf children will have a hard time understanding why anyone would be so obsessive about such minor details.

With Weaverbird parents, Wolf children will feel the enormous security of being part of such a tightly knit pack. Being treated as equals in respect and consideration will be enormously satisfying to a Wolf child. They will see the Weaverbird parent's many spinning plates as wonderful missions to help accomplish. The respect they have for authority and for the rules of the home will also be appreciated and encouraged by the Weaverbird parent.

What the Wolf child will not understand is the incredible caution and anxiety that appears to be a part of every one of their Weaverbird parent's decisions. Because they are so good at making decisions, they will feel confident enough to offer their own opinion to fill the void. Weaverbird parents, of course, love to have someone make up for their own indecisiveness, and so will often let their children make decisions for them. This, of course, encourages a Wolf child to proceed to confidently offer their opinion more and more, even when they have no idea of what they may be talking about.

The most difficult thing for Wolf children, with Weaverbird parents, is the lack of confidence they feel their parents express in the child's own abilities when it comes to new situations. Wolf children feel they will be fine, they feel they will be safe and secure. Weaverbird parents are reluctant to believe that about any situation, especially one that their own precious child wants to risk. Moving from the dependent phase of life with their parents to one of independence and autonomy is much easier for the Wolf child than it is for the Weaverbird parents. The battle between Wolf children and Weaverbird parents is the battle between confident, reckless youth, and conservative, conforming, safety conscious parents.

Wolf children, with Peafowl parents, love the intensity of their parent's emotional reaction to everything in life. They mistake the intensity of this emotional reaction for passion. Wolf children will feel the powerful, positive force of the Peafowl parent's love and feel the loyalty and bond that is very intense indeed. The difficulty that they will have with their parent's response, to them personally, will be during those times when their parents are at the negative swing of the pendulum of life and then turn on their child with anger and rejection. Wolves can't stand rejection, to be thrust from the group, especially when it is for behaviour that seemed fine before.

Wolf children suffer Peafowl parent rejection more than any others because they take it seriously. They will find it almost impossible to believe or understand the enormous negative fury their parents are capable of directing, especially when it is directed at them. Confident and optimistic about their own self-worth, this attack by someone they love, by someone they are sure loves them, is heart-rending and incomprehensible. Trying to reconcile their own positive feelings about themselves, with the negative attacks about who and what they are which is coming from their parents, is of course, impossible. Uncompromisingly positive, Wolf children have no way of coping with or understanding such profound negative behaviour and feelings.

It will take the Wolf child a very long time, and a great deal of independence from their parent before they are able to accept and understand that the negative attacks that came from their parent were about how the parent felt about themselves, rather than how they actually feel about their child. But once a part of the pack, always a part of the pack, and so no matter how great the misunderstanding, or how great the pain of rejection, the Wolf child will not turn away from the deep bond they have with their own parent.

The hardest thing for Wolf child to accept is that their Peafowl parent will never see or understand the profound positive feelings they have about their own life, about themselves, even their positive feelings about their Peafowl parent.

Wolf children, with Wolf parents, will have their strengths reinforced. The confidence and optimism that is naturally theirs will be encouraged and enhanced by the modeling of their own parents. They will feel that they are respected members of the pack no matter what their age, no matter what their personal limitations. They will be included in every mission the pack may set to accomplish. They will be encouraged to express their curiosity, and their ambitions will be encouraged and respected. A Wolf child who expresses a desire to become a cowboy may be put in touch with real cowboys, may be taken to visit working ranches and be overwhelmed at the support and encouragement their childish ambitions receive. With Wolf parents, a Wolf child learns very quickly that you have to be careful what you wish for, because Wolf parents see wishes as just budding possibilities.

The difficulty for Wolf children with Wolf parents is that their weaknesses are also reinforced. Their risk-taking behaviour will be encouraged so that they may actually take on things that are far beyond their abilities, they may get themselves into situations that are actually very dangerous. Wolf confidence and optimism does not admit to the same kind of caution that the other two species naturally feel.

Wolf children will spread themselves too thin and ignore many of the practical details of day-to-day life as they focus on higher interests and greater missions. Wolf children, with Wolf parents, will also find it more difficult than those with the other two kinds of Innate Self-esteem to leave the dependent phase of childhood and developing their own independent territory.

With Weaverbird and Peafowl parents, independence comes much more easily because these parents don't see a family as being a pack with a greater hunting mission. In a Wolf family, the respect and encouragement, the inclusion into the greater missions of the family will form a very powerful bond, a bond that is much more difficult to break because the child may feel they are abandoning the family in their mission, abandoning serious and satisfying responsibilities to that mission. Nevertheless, when it comes to the point of having their own family, and finding the territory that is truly satisfying and meant for them, Wolves will follow their passionate natures into that territory supported by the powerful bond they have made with someone they feel is a superior equal, their alpha mate.

Innate Self-esteem and Human Development

Human beings go through four phases in human development. There is the period of childhood dependency when people form bonds with their parents. There is the period of independence when people break those bonds and begin to form the structures of their own identity, their own separate lives. Next, there is the period when people fall in love and have children and form their own family bonds. Finally there's the phase when people look at their individual life and try to understand how they fit into life's greater meaning as they explore the spiritual aspects of life.

As we go through the first three phases of life, it appears that the needs and requirements of each of those phases match the characteristics of the three kinds of Innate Self-esteem. Whether we're Weaverbirds or Peafowl or Wolves, as individuals, we will go through the first three phases of human development and feel the powerful effects of each of the three types as they dominate their own individual phase of development.

The first phase of human development is of childhood dependency in which we form emotional bonds with our primary care givers, usually our parents. In this phase of life, what we need most to effect those bonds are reflected in Weaverbird values; security, consistency, affection, responsibility, and a clear understanding of rules and expectations. All children, regardless of whether they are Weaverbirds, Peafowl or Wolves, will be able to best establish secure, deep emotional connections with their parents if they have a good Weaverbird environment in which to do that. Children, no matter what their basic kind of Innate Self-esteem, will feel the internal need for the Weaverbird values of security and consistency and responsibility because they know they are dependent creatures, absolutely vulnerable without their parent's love and nurture.

The first abstract concept that comes to a child is the idea of fairness, the foundation of Weaverbird values. In conflict and in disagreement with siblings and other peers, it is tremendously important to a child to feel there is fairness and equity in how they are treated, that they will not be pushed aside, that their parents won't prefer another to them. Having an equal claim to a parent's affection is absolutely crucial to the dependent child. Having a sense that there is a consistent and understandable way to please and to satisfy their parent's expectations is crucial to the child's security.

Children are very conservative, generally conforming to expectations because they cannot risk losing the affection of their parents. It is easy to understand that children will start to respond and seek out these Weaverbird values and express them in their own behaviour. Nonetheless, a child cannot help but feel the foundation of their own individual Innate Self-esteem inside them. Their behaviour and attitudes will also express the values of the three kinds of Innate Self-esteem. Weaverbird children will behave like Weaverbird children, as will Peafowl and Wolf children behave in the way the foundation of their self-esteem demands. The fact that they all, very much, need a Weaverbird environment in which to express their personal values means that they have come upon the first conflict between those personal values and their developmental needs.

Families express and foster the Weaverbird values that a child needs for their best development to lesser or greater degrees, depending on the people in the family. For Wolves and Weaverbirds that is relatively easy to do, but for Peafowl it is much more difficult because their natures are so antithetical to those of Weaverbirds. Nevertheless, the responsibilities of parenting demand that even Peafowl adjust themselves so that they supply as much security, responsibility and as many important rules of order as they can. The nurturing period will bring out the unconscious things that are needed for parents and children to form an effective bond. Only extreme Peafowl whose need for attention is so absolute that they cannot relate to a child at all, will not feel the subconscious desire to give their children a secure, responsible environment.

Although in this developmental phase one might presume that a Weaverbird child's developmental needs are best met by Weaverbird parents, there are potential problems in this seemingly perfect match. Both a Weaverbird parent and a Weaverbird child compartmentalize the different aspects of life, and put the parent and child box, as important as it is, into a separate category needing separate attention. They will both tend to see different social issues, new social development, and new opportunities in life as just one more box with its own separate demands and responsibilities.

Socialization of a child tends to be put in boxes like family, peers, school, and social activities. What this fails to do is recognize that the emotional child-parent bond of dependency is common to every one of the boxes, and because Weaverbirds are so reluctant to express their emotional needs, much of the deep anxiety that comes with dependency is either denied, ignored or repressed.

The older children get, and the more independent they become, with boxes of their own, with their own plates to spin, the more they may come to distance themselves from their own emotions, and from the ability to express the emotions they feel for their parents. Weaverbirds, as both parents and children, often repress and leave unexpressed the deepest feelings they have for one another. Their fear of extreme emotions is often set at this point in life. Later problems of emotional expression during an independent phase of life may come from this early Weaverbird limitation.

Peafowl are faced with a different problem in the dependent phase of the parent-child relationship. Their emotional bond to their children, and their incredible need for the unconditional love that is so affirming to them, means that independence in the child is a terrible personal loss to the Peafowl parent. The older the child gets, the more control the Peafowl parent may want to have over the child's life and decisions. Such independence is a terrible threat to their own self-worth. The need to control all new relationships, the growing concern over the influence of outside institutions like schools and peers, may become excessive.

If the Peafowl parent never learns to accept the growing independence of their children, they may try to emotionally blackmail their children with their own needs, using guilt and the profound emotional bond they have with their children to manipulate them, as they struggle desperately to preserve the attention they need. The list of sacrifices, the gifts the child was offered, may be used against them. The visits that are not frequent enough, the phone calls that are not made to the Peafowl parent, may all become more emotional arm twisting that comes from a Peafowl's difficulty with letting go of their children.

Weaverbird, Peafowl and Wolf children will respond to the Peafowl parent's difficulty with letting go in their own individual ways. Weaverbird children will try to negotiate and placate their parents and feel guilty as they do it.

Peafowl children will respond emotionally, fighting for their independence, and yet find themselves seemingly unable to extricate themselves from the parent's sphere of influence. Their need for independence will be in direct conflict with the need for the attention the Peafowl parent knows, so well, how to supply.

Wolf children will find it very difficult to endure the suffering that their parents say they are causing them. Because they see their parent's anxiety as their responsibility, they will try to do whatever they can to satisfy the parent's needs. As a member of the pack, the Wolf child will feel that he/she has a duty and a responsibility to help solve the parent's problem, even if the problem is with the child. Of course, this will conflict absolutely with the independence and confidence and optimism that the Wolf child feels for their own life.

Peafowl parents, ultimately, are seen by Wolf children as asking that they be made the Wolf child's life mission. Until they find their family and their own mission, Wolf children will often succumb to their parents needs. Wolf parents will have the least problem with moving from the dependent phase of their relationship with their children because they understand instinctively, that they will always be a member of their pack, that their missions will be shared, that the pack understands and respects independence. Because of the confidence and optimism they have in their children's abilities and life's opportunities, both parents will do everything they can to encourage independent action by the children, encourage them to seize every opportunity they may feel is worthwhile.

Weaverbird children may feel threatened and thrust from the nest. They will have to confront the conflict between their own caution and their own parent's optimism. But, if they're allowed to plan and prepare and take independent steps carefully and cautiously, they will enter the independent phase of life supported by their Wolf parent's confidence.

Peafowl children may feel cut lose from the parental bond by their parent's ease with letting them develop independence. Wolves treat the emotional bond as second nature, do not give the Peafowl child the attention and reassurance that they need in this phase of life. The child may go to extremes of rebellion in order to see how much their parents care about them, how hard they will try to hang on to them. This, of course, is absolutely confusing to Wolf parents because they cannot understand the unconscious need a Peafowl child is expressing.

Wolf children enjoy and understand the support and confidence their Wolf parents have in them. If they go to extremes, it will be attempting too much, aspiring too high, too soon. Yet they will have their parent's ongoing support no matter whether they fail or succeed. The one difficulty for Wolf children is getting too entangled in the missions of the Wolf parent. Wolf children will be reluctant to break off the hunt and set out on their own. Only by finding an alpha mate or finding their great mission in life will a Wolf child be able to set out on their own, even if they think their parents need them at the time.

Independence and Adolescence

It is a very difficult thing for a child to move from the feelings of dependence that they have with parents to the feelings of independence that begin with leaving home, part of the day, to attend school. Although school is also a Weaverbird environment, with order and structure, discipline and a clear set of personal responsibilities, it also contains the beginnings of the Peafowl environment of peers.

By the time adolescence comes along, peer pressure and friends have assumed a predominant role in helping a child separate from parents, move from complete dependence to limited, conditional independence. This is a phase of necessary rebellion in which a child learns to appreciate their individuality. It is a confusing time, with tremendous emotional volatility, because of the difficulty in dividing contradictory emotional ties. It is very difficult to have to assert independence by going against those who nurture and care for you. It is difficult for the parents, as well, because they have to learn to move from the unconditional love they feel for their child, to the conditional love that is a part of meeting one's social and personal possibilities.

When a child goes to school, it is to an almost completely institutionalized Weaverbird world. Work, rules, consistency, responsibility, respect for authority, conformity, where every student is supposed to be treated as equal in value to every other student, is the environment in which they must learn, slowly, to develop their own individual identity, their own personal independence. That is why children soon learn that individual identity and independence is best found in their relationships with their peers.

Very quickly, the child learns that the way they dress, their physical attractiveness, their intelligence, the television programs that they like, the amount of money their parents have, the toys they get to enjoy, their social abilities in virtually all areas, are the things by which their peers will judge them. This is the Peafowl world of Social Self-esteem.

While schools are trying to develop and foster a Weaverbird environment and respect students as equal in value, they are competing with the powerful, pervasive Peafowl world of peers. In this Peafowl world there are winners and losers, cool people and nerds, those who are accepted and those who are cast out. All pretense of social equality among peers is quickly lost.

By the time adolescence arrives, virtually all children have accepted the competitive Peafowl values and have tried to make a place in the pecking order, amidst the many cliques and in groups that make up the school years of a person's life. That is why, regardless of whether one is innately a Weaverbird, a Peafowl or Wolf, these years can be terribly difficult, crushing the Social Self-esteem of those who do not shine, those who do not find a place.

Ironically, in trying to develop individuality and an independence of one's own, the place one has to do it is in the world of peer groups that crush individuality and abhor independent behaviour. While searching desperately for independence, peers become authoritarian administrators of crushing conformity. Often the weak and the vulnerable are made to feel like pariahs, so they either lash out at their parents, or turn on themselves, validating the hatred they feel from their peers with their own self-hatred. All too often this hatred turns to violence either directed outward or directed inward in self-destructive behaviour.

How a child faces this hostile environment will depend, somewhat, on the support and understanding of teachers and family but it will also depend, to a degree, on the kind of Innate Self-esteem they have as a foundation for their personality.

Weaverbirds will have their needs for conformity and security met if they find a suitable group that will accept them. They will do what it takes to conform to expectations, both by their teachers and by their peers. Their anxiety will come from the volatile Peafowl nature of peer groups that swing in an emotional arc of acceptance and rejection, rejection that is, in effect, wholly arbitrary, depending on the whim of the leader of the in-group.

Gifted Peafowl children may shine and feel power and satisfaction from their ability to get attention. They will learn how to become the centre of attention, how to use their gifts, both personal and social, to advance themselves and feel they are truly worthwhile. They will use their power and gifts to suppress and reject and turn on those they feel are inferior to them.

To the Peafowl, feeling superior often requires that someone else be made to feel inferior. This is often the best time in life for gifted Peafowl children. It is also the time in life when they may cause others the most lasting pain and difficulty in accepting their own personal value.

Peafowl children who do not feel personally or socially gifted, who feel rejected and ridiculed by their peers because they are somehow perceived as different or inferior, will find this, perhaps, the most painful time in their lives. Because they have no internal, natural sense of their own self-worth, they will accept the treatment and the opinions of peers as being valid and justified. Forming an independent identity, while trying to break the dependent bonds with parents in this kind of brutal, competitive Peafowl world is an overwhelming task for such a child.

Wolf children, because of their innate sense of their personal self-worth will never be completely intimidated or crushed by the power of peer groups to decide their value as individuals. They will understand and defer to the power of the pecking order and try to stay out of its way. They will be looking for a Wolf pack that they may join, other children more interested in a mission than in attention. They will find a club or a sport or, perhaps, just a best friend who is more interested in doing things than being seen as socially gifted. It will of course, be terribly painful if a child is perceived as being different or inferior by peers who are dominant Peafowl. For a time, a Wolf child's Social Self-esteem may suffer. But this will only last until the Wolf child finds a group or a mission to restore the confidence and optimism that is a natural part of their being.

The Teen Years

When children move into adolescence, they are offered a limited degree of autonomy. They may spend most of their free time with their friends, or they may join organizations and take up interests like sports and social activities that keep them out of the home a good deal. Their studies also do not include very much participation by their parents.

In terms of time and communication, teenagers connect to their parents only during a few social activities. Sometimes with busy parents, with busy teenagers, this does not even include sharing meals together. This independence is important to the child, but it also is important that they feel that their independence is not gained at the cost of becoming disconnected from the love and security of their parents. This is a difficult balance for both parents and children. It is very important for parents to maintain and reassure their children of the bond they have to their family, even as they encourage the growing sense of autonomy and independence.

Quality time is a difficult thing to manage, because it usually means spending money and sharing special experiences. But what a child needs at this point in life is not further re-affirmation of the values of Social Self-esteem, but rather affirmations and personal acceptance of the values of their Innate Self-esteem. This, unfortunately, in this busy world, often means that quantity time is more beneficial to the parent-child relationship in maintaining the deep, unspoken values of love security that are so important.

Teens are competing furiously for a sense of Social Self-esteem. Yet, except for personal attractiveness and innate intelligence they have none of the currency that makes up the measures of Social Self-esteem. They have no money of their own, no status, no power, no occupation, no family, no set of accomplishments, no houses, no cars, no clothes, nothing that isn't merely a reflection of their parent's accomplishments in the realms of Social Self-esteem.

During the teen years, Social Self-esteem is merely a reflection of the parents Social Self-esteem. They can't independently decide what they will own, do, buy, where they will go, how long they will stay, and with whom they may go. These are the battle lines for teens and parents, and because the parents have all the power, there's little a teenager can do that affirms a personal value that is completely their own. That is why power for teenagers is mostly a negative thing. They may disrupt, they may rebel and resist, but that is all they can do to get their way when they are in conflict with their parents, when they seek to assert their independent identity.

We ask teenagers to feel good about themselves as young adults without realizing that we have given them virtually none of the things that adults use to measure their own feelings of self-worth, their own Social Self-esteem. The important thing is not to do one's best to help a child compete in these measures of Social Self-esteem by giving them more money, more trappings of status. The important thing is to reassure them that the great measures of adulthood are trustworthiness, compassion, patience, understanding, and creativity. The things they would measure as important values in a best friend are the important values they should be encouraged to understand and appreciate in themselves.

If it is possible, it would also be of tremendous benefit to a child to understand the process of dependence and independence in which they are participating, to understand both the positive role that friends and peers have in this process, and the terrible limitation they are to an individual's self expression and independence. For a child to understand the strengths and weaknesses of their parents' Weaverbird rules, as well as the strengths and limitations of their friends' lack of rules, is something that few children ever get to appreciate.

When we mix into the volatile Peafowl world of peers and rebellion, the fact that teenagers are also going through puberty, with the powerful emotional connections and desires that come with hormones, it is easy to see how complicated these years can be. It is the emotional boot camp of life that literally separates the weak from the strong.

Peer pressure exerts a powerful influence on a child's value when it comes to sexuality. Not only is their own sexual attractiveness a tremendously important issue to a child, it is also seen as one of the most powerfully important issues to their peers. This is one of the few things that do not depend on their parent's social position. When it comes to sexual attractiveness, teenagers are mostly on their own. Sexuality and its attendant emotions is another enormously complicated thing for them to deal with, given that these feelings and issues are so new, and there is virtually no way for a child to prepare or understand how others will view their sexuality, or how they will view it themselves. Some children will run from these decisions. Some children will turn to friends to help them sort out these problems. Some children will learn that they can trade on their sexuality for social acceptance and approval.

The more desperate the child is for acceptance by the peer group, the more pressure they will feel to use their sexuality to prove their personal worth. Dominant Peafowl peers may use an adolescent's inexperience and insecurity against them in order to have them do things they are neither prepared for nor comfortable with doing. This is yet another part of the Peafowl boot camp of life that makes up the teen years. Again, how children respond to this will depend on the social environment of the school and the family to which they belong, but it also depends on their type of Innate Self-esteem.

Weaverbird children will be reluctant to take physical or emotional risks when it comes to their sexual identity. They will defer and deflect these problems by blaming their parents for rules they cannot help having to satisfy. They will try to follow the good rules of dating, and use whatever social structures they can to help support them in not making risky physical and emotional decisions. They will try to be attractive without being overtly sexual. They will try to choose members of the opposite sex that are least likely to make physical or emotional demands they are not prepared to satisfy. They will use the Weaverbird's eternal reason to get out of threatening situations: they will be just too busy.

Peafowl children are most at risk in the teen years when it comes to their sexuality, because of their profound need for approval and attention. Peacocks will want to be seen to be sexually mature and dominant, capable of proving their attractiveness by making sexual conquest, or by being seen as sexually desirable. They will be the most sexually precocious because sexuality is such a powerful way to get and to give attention. The risks of course are obvious, probably even to Peafowl youth. But it is easy to see why the benefits outweigh the risks when the choice is between acceptance and approval and rejection and inferiority. It is not only Peafowl that make bad decisions in terms of their sexuality, but they make the majority of those mistakes, because sexuality is the one thing they undeniably have to trade for acceptance and approval, for a measure of Social Self-esteem.

When you add to this the pressure that comes with first love and the real emotions that validate the most profound feelings a person may have of their own self-worth, it makes the risk of emotional heartache and anguish almost unavoidable. First love is a profound experience, but unfortunately, it often validates a teenager's measures of Social Self-esteem rather than the more profound ones of their own Innate Self-esteem. First love is about attractiveness and social compatibility rather than aspects of character and psychological perception. The deepest of bonds begins with the shallowest of responses. The deepest feelings begin with complete innocence and inexperience. Love's young dream never comes true just because of that fact. It doesn't make the love less real, but it makes its success problematical and unlikely. This too is not an easy lesson for a teenager to absorb who is trying to develop a sense of his/her own independence and self-worth.

For teenagers and parents and educators, the best thing that could possibly happen would be for them all to understand the challenges that are faced in moving from dependency to independent individuality, in moving from being a person that is a reflection of one's parents, to a person who is making autonomous, independent choices that are based on the deep values of character.

Understanding that a teenager is best served by having environments that are not solely geared to social competition and measures of self-esteem, but rather ones that foster co-operation and the distrust for Peafowl extreme behaviour, can have a profound effect on the teenager's life.

Wearing uniforms in school serves to eliminate one of the most obvious measures of social status. Using whatever means possible to make children breakup their peer group cliques and engage each other as individuals would also be of tremendous benefit to a teenager. Having a less permissive attitude toward dating and sexual identity would also give a teenager a more secure environment and less pressure to make sexual decisions they are not prepared to make.

Society must assert Weaverbird values for the benefit of children moving from dependence to independence. Society must offer those values both for support and for something secure against which teenagers can rebel to develop their own personal identity and independence.

Maturity

With maturity, comes real independence and greater and greater measures with which a person can establish their growing Social Self-esteem. With a job comes money and independence, with independence comes choices about where we live, with whom we associate, where we go, what we do, and most importantly for emotional life: who we will love and marry. This is a stage of human development that reflects the attitudes and concerns of a Wolf's way of seeing the world.

First there's a territory established over which a person has some authority, within this territory is an independent means of survival, a place to stand and grow. Once this is done, the next requirement is the need to find a mate and form a pack, i.e. have children.

How well we do this will depend a great deal on how well we bonded with our parents, how well we separated from them and formed an independent, autonomous identity, and how well we have done at beginning the structures of our life on the foundation of our own Innate Self-esteem.

The feelings of confidence and optimism are absolutely necessary if we are to build a secure and satisfying territory in which to bond with a mate and successfully raise children. Regardless of whether we are Weaverbirds, Peafowl, or Wolves, we will need the emotional attributes of a Wolf to do this well. We must learn to confidently explore and develop the territory that makes up our life, learn to see our life as a mission for which we feel high ideals and a fulfilling sense of possibility.

It is the Wolf stage of human development that leads us full circle to the point where we must express Weaverbird values for our children so that they can have the security, the consistency, the respect for authority that they need in their dependent phase of life.

So, every human being, if they undergo a healthy human development, will experience the three phases of human development that correspond to the values of Weaverbirds, Peafowl, and Wolves. Because we have all gone through those three different phases as we grew up, we have the personal experience to understand all three kinds of Innate Self-esteem. As we grow older and more secure in our Social Self-esteem, most people eventually come to build a life that satisfies the foundation of their own Innate Self-esteem. Weaverbirds build Weaverbird lives, Peafowl build Peafowl lives, Wolves eventually find a Wolf's life to express who they are.

Ironically, most people come to believe that the foundation of their life, the personal measure of its worth and satisfaction, is in the measures of Social Self-esteem: how much money we have, our status, our occupation, where we live, what we drive, etc. Yet, it is really how well we have built structures that satisfy our Innate Self-esteem that will determine how satisfying and fulfilling life seems to be.

As we approach middle age, we come into the final phase of human development, that of spiritual maturity. This is the time in life when we have some perspective on what we've done with our lives and ourselves, and begin to ask questions about what it all means, what our greater purpose in life may be.

It is this stage of life when our needs and satisfactions become more spiritual, reflecting a need to find the meaning behind all our beliefs, dreams, actions and feelings. Everyone wants to feel that their life is more than arbitrary in value, more than a behavioural set of instincts in which nature and nurture battle their way into making us who we are as human beings. Everyone wants to believe and feel that the values they've defended in growing up are also more than arbitrary, more than just situationally efficacious.

When we ask these questions, the first thing that happens is that we realize that it is not the trappings of our Social Self-esteem that is a real measure of who we are and what we're worth as individuals. Mid-life crisis is usually nothing more than this realization.

What most people come to is the discovery and affirmation of the values of their own type of Innate Self-esteem. Weaverbirds come to reaffirm their belief in Weaverbird values.

Peafowl do the same for theirs. Wolves do the same for theirs. After a lifetime of building the structures that make up a life, we may come at last to inspect and understand the makeup and the nature of the buried foundation of our Innate Self-esteem. Yet beyond this understanding is the greater understanding that there are two other ways of looking at life and building its structures; the greater understanding that these two other different ways of measuring one's value in comparison to other people, are just as valid as ones own; the greater understanding that one's individual value is beyond compare and is a matter that is the concern of oneself and one's God.

Chapter 7

Work, Culture and Society

The values of Innate Self-esteem exhibit themselves beyond the individual, beyond their personal relationships, in the creation of the greater social world in which human beings exists. To see how those values exhibit themselves in society, it is important to have a sense of history. The way human beings express their social needs and relationships reflects the values that individuals accept and affirm.

For most of history, society has organized itself in some kind of class structure. Ordinary people usually have very little power when it came to their social institutions. Until the advent of democracy, the idea that ordinary people might have something to contribute in terms of social policy and practice was almost nonexistent. Even Greek democracy accepted the idea of preferred citizens who had to own property to benefit from the rights of citizenship.

For most of history, ordinary people accepted the authority of either powerful men supported by military power, or the authority of a religious hierarchy that was supported by their access to transcendental power. Ordinary people just lived their lives accepting the rules that were handed down to them, believing in authority, hoping for fair treatment, believing in the rules that they were given, trying to do the best they could to establish some sense of security in which to raise a family.

Throughout most of history, ordinary people followed the Weaverbird rules and values in life. Because of their nature to push to the front of groups, Peafowl and Wolves most often became the elite upper class that could, and would, decide what was best for the people. The upper classes expressed themselves with their own set of values. Peafowl ruled as ostentatious rulers more concerned with their own glory than with the needs of the people. Peafowl built palaces and pyramids to their own glory. Wolves, concerned with the greater issues of life, concerned with the values of people, created the ideas of democracy and justice and the religious principles that affirmed the universal value they saw in human beings. Over the centuries, that was the social order in virtually all societies that had given up the nomadic way of life.

In this recent century things have actually changed from the old social order, at least in modern technological society. The 20th century was the Peafowl century. The values of the elite have become the values of the individual. Christopher Lasch, in his book The Culture of Narcissism, has done a wonderful job describing just how this has happened. He describes how the 20th century has created an institution that is geared almost entirely to expressing Peafowl values. He describes how this institution affirms the idea that an individual's own ambition and need supersedes the values that come from conforming to rules of conventional behaviour. In this institution, it is not what one does that is valued, but how others perceive that individual. Image rules over substance. What people believe we are is far more important than what we actually are. Image is everything.

This institution is the corporate model of management. It is the way virtually all modern societies and institutions are structured, regardless of whether they are capitalistic or socialistic in their orientation. The corporate management model is one in which success is measured, almost entirely, in the latest numbers, in the last quarter, in the reaction of stock market investors who know nothing, who care nothing about what the Corporation produces, aside from profits and dividends. The corporate image is far more valuable than what the corporation does. If you can sell the sizzle, the steak doesn't matter.

It is important to understand that it is Peafowl values that are the basis for the corporate management model. It is dog eat dog. It is every man for himself. It is "What have you done for me lately?" It is "Who dies with the most toys, wins." It is "Greed is good." These are the values that come out of institutions in which people have no loyalty to one another, no loyalty or faith or commitment to what the institution is there to do. The image of the company is the most important thing in this world, and the thing that is most important to the leaders of the company is their own image. They, too, are only there for the money, the perks, the status and the stock options.

Companies now know that it is not the quality of the product one produces that matters, but the quality of the advertising and promotion for that product that matters. Advertising agencies and public relations people decide what is successful in modern society. An experiment in New Zealand put up posters advertising, "Nothing," and people called the ad agency trying to find out where they could get it. The twentieth century created countless variations of the Emperor's new clothes.

The effect of all this, of course, is to affirm the strengths and weaknesses of Peafowl as individuals. The modern world is one in which individual expression has virtually no limit, no constraint, nothing that will enforce a sense of conformity and standard that most people accept. Being a jackass is now a movie and way of life.

There is no measure for unacceptable behaviour. Killers excuse themselves and are excused by the limitations of their social background, or they are excused and excuse themselves because of the indulgence of a privileged background. Pornography has no real meaning. Societies that affirm the right to exploit children as sexual partners are seen to have as much right to their opinion as anyone else. Civil liberty unions defend the rights of people who would deny the civil liberties of people in those very unions. The 20th century was the Peafowl century where it was not just the end that justified the means, but rather that any end could be justified by what any particular individual decided. That was the downside of the century, and it made it the bloodiest, most brutal, most morally bankrupt century in history. It was only in the 20th century that the mass killing of civilians could have been seen to be good military strategy, as well as justifiable social policy.

The accomplishments of the 20th century were Peafowl accomplishments that affirmed the value of individuals. By the end of the century, art, music, and technology were almost entirely focused on self-expression, on satisfying the desires of individuals. Great books, great movies, and great toys were the things the century produced to satisfy the individual desires of the mass of humanity, a mass whose wants and desires were created and controlled by the images that the mass media produced. Where image is everything, those who control the images have all the power.

Yet, it is undeniably true that with the fall of the Weaverbird world, with the loss of the Weaverbird belief in an external authority's right to decide the social rules of order, individuals have been freed to make decisions for themselves as they have never been free in all history. The 20th century also produced movements that were led by Wolf individuals that attacked the social conventions that maintained racism, sexism, environmental exploitation and even the institutions that would decide for an individual which war was justified, and what Third World enemy had to be destroyed. The Vietnam War was fought, more than anything, because Lyndon Johnson did not want to be to the first president of the United States to lose a war.

It is important to understand the cultural context in which we live if we are to understand how individual Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves will feel about their role in society. The values a person meets and has to live by when that person goes to work, when that person decides what to do with their free time, when that person decides to vote in an election, when that person decides where to live and what schools are best for their children are decided by the options that are available to that person in society. The frustrations and satisfactions that may come with choosing among the options available in society will depend on the foundation of their individual Innate Self-esteem.

In a world where Weaverbird values are giving way to those of Peafowl on every front, the options that are available in society seem to dismiss the ideas of respect and responsibility, personal security and conformity, fairness and the reward that comes with hard work. Weaverbirds have a lot more to worry about when it comes to maintaining values that are near and dear to them.

Today Peafowl fit into society very well because it expresses their own personal values. If you've got it, flaunt it! Grab the gusto! Don't get mad, get even! This is a material world and we are all just material girls and boys. Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse!

But ordinary people are not born to be wild. The emotional pendulum that Peafowl ride as individuals can lead to a very satisfying life. For a society riding those values, believing in the philosophy of each man for himself, is the very antithesis of the meaning of society. Society expresses shared values. The society that recognizes nothing but individual values will soon be unable to agree on anything that expresses the common good.

Yet, in this Peafowl world, it is the Weaverbird weakness for following authority and conforming to social conventions that is responsible for the ever-increasing self centred focus on individual needs and satisfactions. If Weaverbirds, who are by far the greater majority in life, truly accept that the values of hard work and responsibility may give way to the values of style and self-serving behaviour, then the world of Peafowl values will grow to dominate more and more of life.

Where once a parent had to worry about their child having decent clothing to go to school, now the modern parent has to worry about supplying six and seven-year old children designer labels that these children say are necessary for their Social Self-esteem. The world where corporations have convinced people to wear their corporate logos to assert their status and sophistication as human beings, is certainly antithetical to Weaverbird values. Even in the poorest neighborhoods, children have actually been brutalized and killed for a pair of shoes or a jacket that carry a corporate logo that might affirm their status as being part of the entourage of some multi-million dollar Corporation.

Work

Work is a social institution that few people can or wish to avoid. It is also something that most people do not want to avoid because it offers the opportunity not only to satisfy oneself by earning the respect and the money and the status necessary for positive Social Self-esteem, but also it allows a person to feel they're contributing to something greater than themselves in society, whether this is through manufacturing a needed product or by providing a social service. In a movie called Hospital, George C. Scott played the role of an administrator of a modern hospital that was falling apart from within because of the conflicting Peafowl values of all the members of the hospital: self-serving doctors; unco-operative patients; overworked nurses; self-serving unions; social activists; self-serving politicians and greedy lawyers. Each group, only interested in their own agenda, made working in the hospital an absolute nightmare for everyone. And yet, George Scott's character says that he cannot give up because work, in the end, is a far more basic and primal drive than even sex. For a Weaverbird that may be true in some cases. For Wolves, in some cases, the desire for satisfying work may also be an incredibly strong imperative.

For Peafowl as well, work may be an irresistible drive, if power and affirmation come with it. In the modern world, most of the things that are measures of Social Self-esteem begin with what one does for a living. Yet how well one adapts to a particular workplace environment will depend on the foundation of the person's Innate Self-esteem.

Most modern institutions are based on the corporate management model that stresses style over substance and image over reality, so it is an environment in which only Peafowl will feel completely at home. Weaverbirds will suffer the most because they are the most likely to feel they have to compromise their basic beliefs and values for the security that comes with the pay cheque they receive. Wolves will adapt to a workplace environment depending on how well and how much they can contribute and believe in the mission their work is meant to accomplish.

As long as the mission is worth doing, as long as the Peafowl values of their workplace environment do not completely destroy the purpose that is supposed to be the mission of the organization, the Wolf will adapt and perhaps even flourish.

Weaverbirds at Work

A Weaverbird needs an environment where there is organization, a clear set of responsibilities, a fair and equitable division of those responsibilities, and an obvious chain of authority that one can respect.

Weaverbirds like to decide things by consensus because they want to know that their own concerns, as well as the concerns of their co-workers are equally expressed and recognized. This requires a small, efficient, committed group of people because, as an organization grows larger, it becomes harder and harder to balance the Weaverbird worker's need to balance social harmony with their practical responsibility in the workplace. Because Weaverbirds continue to see all of life as a never-ending row of spinning plates, they will feel most comfortable in an organization where everyone knows which plates are their responsibility to keep spinning, and which plates everyone understands are necessary to keep spinning so the organization operates efficiently and efficaciously.

Unfortunately, in the Peafowl organization of large institutions, that is usually not the way it turns out to be. The Dogbert rules of management apply all too often. The successful manager is one who can take the most credit and assume the least responsibility. The way this is done is by demanding more from Weaverbird underlings, while blaming them and other managers for any problems and deficiencies in the manager's department. This, of course, is a Weaverbird's nightmare. They will be asked to spin more plates for the irresponsible Peafowl in the organization. They are told that everyone has to do more with limited resources. The resources are only limited to Weaverbird workers; Peafowl workers get all they need, as long as they can use their personality and position to ingratiate themselves with their bosses. Long lunches, passing the buck, and putting the best face on one's own behaviour as one cultivates the old boys' network is a way to succeed in business without really trying.

Weaverbirds, invariably, try to take up the slack and work harder and harder to make sure the job gets done, even when they're doing the work that others should be doing, even when they watch others take credit for the things they have done. In Peafowl institutions, Weaverbirds work harder and harder and get more and more angry, resentful, and above all, more and more stressed out.

Yet, there's little they feel can be done to help them, as long as the institution does not realize that there is a problem. Peafowl institutions will never admit there's a problem unless they're forced into it by some external audit or by some absolutely undeniable internal disaster. And so, Weaverbirds suffer in silence because they are caught between the need for a job and their need for that job to have a just, rational, effective purpose with division of labour and responsibility.

Dogbert rules! Dilbert suffers!

Peafowl at Work

Peafowl will love their work only in so much as it satisfies their need for attention, status, and glory. They will work incredibly hard if what they are seen to be doing is appreciated and rewarded. They will adapt to any institution that allows them to shine. If it is only hard work and strict monitoring that allows them praise and affirmation, then that is what they will do. If socializing and working the old boy network is the best way to shine in an organization, then that's what a Peafowl will do. This is true, of course, most for Peacocks for whom attention and glory is the lifeblood of personal satisfaction. With Peahens, the strategy will be very different, doing all they can to ingratiate themselves and pleasing their superiors in whatever way they can.

When it comes to work assessment and performance, they will be most fearful of any monitoring or expectation. Peahens understand the arbitrary nature of authority and so they do their best to lie in the weeds and stay out of the way of the capricious expectations of superiors. Yet, because they live to please, they will be excellent workers if there are clear sets of expectations about tasks and timing and responsibilities.

Peafowl will also be the troublemakers and instigators of rebellion in any work environment, quickly seizing on any actual or perceived injustice that they have suffered. They will try to get other workers to share their resentment so they can have their perceived slights addressed and recognized. It is Peafowl who know their rights. It is Peafowl who will defend individual rights when they are trampled by an organization. Peafowl, the great individualists in life, are always willing to take on authority figures because they see them as being, ultimately, the enemy of individual rights.

As great individualists with an overriding need for attention and glory, Peacocks often become the most successful members of a modern institution because they understand the way it works, the best way for them to advance their individual self-interest and the fact that image is everything as far as most modern institutions are concerned.

If, however, a Peacock is able to establish an organization of their own, they will obviously be in the very best position to advance their own self-interest. The more the institution succeeds in both status and financial aspects, the more the Peacock will want to be seen as representing all the success the institution has achieved. They will want the perks and the status symbols and the social prestige that comes with success. They will want their image to reflect all the success they believe is due, mainly, to their own efforts and skills. And once a Peacock is successful, the thing they will fear most in life is not failure, but rather the loss of all the trappings of glory that affirms who they are. That Social Self-esteem is the true measure of a person's worth is never more true, for Peafowl, than in their chosen occupation. Think Conrad Black.

Wolves at Work

As long as a Wolf feels that the purpose of their work has some meaning and validity that they can endorse, they work very hard and do the best they can to accomplish the goals the organization has set for itself. Because they work well with others, seeing every mission as a pack on the hunt, they will be highly co-operative with their fellow workers when it comes to accomplishing set goals. They will actively seek responsibility and leadership opportunities because of their confidence that they can make a significant and meaningful contribution. Although they tend to be aggressive with their own opinions, they are, in fact, open to suggestions for improvements and refinements to any plan of operation.

Where they will have the most difficulty will be in accepting less than the complete commitment of the other members of the organization. They will be quick to anger, but the anger will be directed at slack performance rather than the personality of the fellow worker.

Although they are quick to anger, Wolves are also quick to forgive and get on with the mission, so long as the irresponsible behaviour no longer continues. Wolves feel that each person must be responsible and concerned with the needs and requirements of the other fellow workers. They do not tolerate glory hounds easily. They express their opinions forcefully, and do not give ground easily when they see a matter of principal at stake.

It is for this reason that Wolves often are seen to be very difficult to work with by Peafowl members of the organization. Peafowl resent a Wolf's authority and judgment and self-assurance. They are also threatened by the Wolf's self-confidence, because they are rivals for promotion and attention. In this day and age, Wolves do not fit well into Peafowl organizations, over the long haul. Wolves are interested in a measure of substantive accomplishment rather than the successful promotion of a personal or a corporate image.

Wolves usually end up seeking their own territory and leading it to accomplish the substantial things that they feel are important to accomplish. They become the inventors, the innovators, the entrepreneurs, and the risk takers who try and fail, who try and, more often than not, succeed. When the man who founded Federal Express was given a C as a mark in his MBA thesis program for his idea of an overnight parcel delivery service, he quit school and went out and proved he was right. The idea would and did work, as the Weaverbird academics who judged him would never believe until they saw it for themselves. Great successes are often matched by great failures in the work that a Wolf sets out to do. But great accomplishments demand great risks and it usually takes a Wolf to accept the possibility of the failure that may come with taking those risks.

Modern Society

The industrial revolution brought about the revolutionary idea that, even for ordinary people, what you own is who you are. What you're worth is what you were worth. Communism and Capitalism both believe in that, entirely. Both produced Peafowl bureaucracies far more interested in their own self-interest than in the interests of the common people they were supposed to serve. Even nationalism and borders are falling to the absolute values of corporate self-interest.

Even puritan Red China has come to the point where getting rich is the highest aspiration for most of the people. The President of China wearing an American revolutionary hat in Williamsburg, West Virginia, says it all. Image is everything, and the American image rules. There is only one ideology in the corporations of the world; if the one who dies with the most toys wins, then the one who sold them the most toys rules.

Even serious media outlets have become human-interest tabloids as they compete for ratings and attention. The truth is no longer just the first casualty of war, it is the first casualty of an ever-expanding ratings war, and all life is a ratings war in this Peafowl world. Focus groups replace consumer testing. Polls replace principles.

Princess Diana was perhaps the best example of all this. She led a charmed and privileged life, gifted in more ways than most people could ever hope to be, yet she led a life that was little more than a gaudy soap opera. Yet it was a soap opera that covered front pages and was the lead story for years. If it is true that she actually believed that the births of her children were the only two moments of happiness she ever knew in this world, then her life was a tragedy long before she died. A princess and a nouveau riche playboy in a Mercedes-Benz being pursued by a pack of frenzied media people is a fitting metaphor for success in our time. The outpouring of emotional anguish at her death is only made understandable by recognizing how much she actually did represent our times. The irony that a saint like Mother Teresa could die the same week and receive a small fraction of the world's attention is, certainly, a sad commentary on the common values of ordinary people, as well as a sad commentary about the overriding values of the omnipresent media.

The Age of Aquarius

It is difficult to look at our Peafowl culture, the moral emptiness of modern institutions, the obsession with image and material success, and not believe that the world is not going to hell in a hand basket. Yet there is another movement that seems to have been at work in society for the last quarter of the 20th century. That movement is so potent that ordinary people could unite and topple institutions that seem to have absolute power over them. Totalitarian Soviet communism collapsed with barely shot being fired. South African apartheid fell without blood flowing in the streets. The Vietnam War ended in the streets of Washington D.C. Institutional racism ended with nonviolent marches through the southern United States. Ordinary people came to hold rich, powerful corporate institutions liable and responsible for polluting the common environment.

Who would believe that a few bra-burning women could found a movement that would shake the modern patriarchal world to its core. The times have certainly been a changin'.

All these movements were led by a few Wolves who inspired people to greater purpose, inspired them to imagine worlds that never were, inspired them to ask why better worlds could not be made to happen. There have been great advances to the common good. Millions of people are actually following higher ideals in life, affirming values that are common to all human beings. After the Peafowl madness of the two great wars, many people became disillusioned with the Peafowl authorities that manipulated and controlled people for their own interests.

After the conservative, conforming decade of the '50s, many people realized that just living a Weaverbird life was not enough. The '60s exploded with the rebellion of that realization. Reflecting the best ideals that parents taught their children, those children went off to college and actually tried to live those ideals and demand that society do the same.

The Age of Aquarius, the summer of love began both the cultural celebration of Peafowl attitudes and values in all aspects of life, and it also began the Wolf missions that would demand that life serve a higher purpose, that all human beings deserve a part in the benefits of that higher purpose.

What is clear is that society in the last century has moved from the Weaverbird values of the insular family to the Peafowl values of greed and glory and shameless self-promotion. It also has begun to move into a Wolf pack world in which people are beginning to see this world as a global Village, to see all people as sharing a common interest in life, to see the Wolf values of independence and interdependency as the only way for the human pack to prosper and survive.

Perhaps, Weaverbird conformity would rule to this day, if the tidal wave of Peafowl individualism had not swept aside all the old respect for authority. Perhaps, in society, Wolf confidence can only come after individual rebellion, just as the Wolf years of human development only come after the Peafowl years of adolescence. It is shameful and horrific that the price is so high when it comes to societies.

Yet confidence and optimism are hard to resist when a mass of humanity begins to share it. Perhaps the times they are a changin' in a last, best way. Perhaps the 2lst century will be the Age of Aquarius. Happily, it seems most people actually believe that they can do more than hope. Sadly, it just may not be enough to resist the self-centred obsessions of a Peafowl world just looking for more and more attention, greater and greater personal self-indulgence.

Ethics, Morals, and Religion

Ethics are the rules that a society accepts about whether behaviour is right or wrong. Morals are the values that those ethics are built upon that the society accepts as distinguishing between good and evil. Religions are founded by special people who we believe have the goodness and wisdom to tell us how to distinguish between good and evil so that we can make ethical choices out of those moral guidelines.

When the founder of a religion is gone, it does not take very long before the surviving leaders of that religion rush in with Weaverbird rules to codify and institutionalize the moral teachings on which the religion is built. Religions, like every human institution, have gone through the developmental stages of civilization. The Weaverbird rules of order, responsibility and respect for authority have, after a long period, usually given way to the individual Peafowl excesses of leaders for whom personal glory was more important than the teachings of the great leaders. It is during this period that most religions behave very much like authoritarian governments.

Usually, they fall victim to the same excesses that governments are prone to committing in defending the institutional interests they have, even at the expense of the people they are supposed to serve.

In Western Christianity, with the great Peacock Henry the Eighth, Peafowl individualism finally broke the rules of order for the benefit of one individual, and the Weaverbird people let him get away with it. What followed, of course, was the inevitable bloodletting that comes when Peafowl try to enforce their own desires. Such cracks have continued to split off one sect after another from the Christian church as smaller and smaller groups, following different Peafowl individuals, decided they needed separate and distinct ways of worship.

Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist sects have proliferated until there are innumerable sects and factions to express basic religious beliefs and values in countless, and often contradictory ways. Modern churches have been in the Peafowl stage of development for many centuries. In the 20th century, at least in the West, people moved away from the Peafowl excesses of institutionalized religion, and sought alternative ways to spiritual experience and worship.

Millions of people are now exploring the spiritual territories of life by seeking a small pack with a shared commitment and a common purpose in finding spiritual satisfaction and fulfillment. People are looking again to the basic teachings of the Wolf founders of the Greek religions; Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu and Mohammed. Peafowl religious leaders, trying to enforce rigid Weaverbird rules of order, are having a more and more difficult time getting people to blindly follow dogmatic rules. Faith is becoming a more direct connection, a more personal experience with the Wolf founders of the world religions. Spirituality grows exponentially, even as many church institutions wither and decay.

The Weaverbird Spirit

Weaverbirds need the same thing from religion that they do from work or family: they need consistency, responsibility, a sense of an equal membership in the group, clear and enforceable rules of behaviour and action, and a deep respect for the authorities that are setting the rules of behaviour. Weaverbirds go to church for those reasons, expect a church to satisfy them in those ways. Weaverbirds are the good Samaritans of the world. For them, ethics, morality and God have to do with recognizing and affirming the dignity and equal value of all human beings. For Weaverbirds, religion has to do with practical actions, with compassion, tolerance, charity and good deeds. Weaverbirds man the food banks and give to the United Way because, ultimately, they see religion as recognizing the human family which needs practical rules for ethical and moral behaviour that reflect those family values. Transcendence and mysticism are intriguing to a Weaverbird, but in the end they are too extreme in their demands for the Weaverbird temperament.

Weaverbirds want a place to worship, a time to worship, a way to worship, and a means to turn worship into practical reality. The Shaker idea of hands to work and hearts to God is the essence of Weaverbird worship. That Peafowl now will pay a half million dollars for a simple Shaker table is an irony and a tribute to the value and beauty of what their religious feeling created.

The Peafowl Spirit

Peafowl want personal salvation. The religious experience, for them, has to be one-to-one. Peafowl know in their hearts, from personal experience, that they have been driven from the Garden of Eden and it is only through a personal relationship with God that they will be redeemed.

Peafowl move in the arc of the pendulum that swings between their feeling of being abandoned and forsaken in this world and the feeling that they are absolutely precious in God's eyes. They believe, but they also know they need God's help with their unbelief. They try to bribe God with prayers and sacrifices hoping He will intervene in the difficult problems that come with life.

Peafowl know original sin and know the longing for redemption as no one else can. They feel their spiritual natures and needs with an emotional intensity as deep as a human heart can experience. They are God's great witnesses. Their testimony and their religious faith is so personal and profound that it can inspire many others to feel the power of God's love. The problem they have in religious service, is accepting and following rules of behaviour set down by unimpeachable authorities. They will have a hard time with the guilt that often comes with preaching. Peafowl hate preaching when it is directed at them. They want a religious service that gives them a direct experience with God's love. And, more often than not, they get it.

The Wolf Spirit

Wolves see religion, ethics and morals as the rules of interdependency that the pack needs to form a cohesive, effective unit that will serve each and every member of the pack. For a Wolf, religion must recognize the individual's authority and responsibility when it comes to spirituality, but it also must recognize that the benefits of spirituality must also be something the entire pack can share.

The religious founders Jesus, Buddha, Abraham, and Mohammed and Lao Tzu knew that they were alpha Wolves. They had the confidence and authority to believe that the way they viewed the world, the way God was connected to humanity, had to be something each individual and all human beings could share. They had such confidence that they believed their authority came from God. Leading by example, offering the profound inspiration of their own confidence and authority, people recognized and believed that what those great Wolves were in fact hearing was the voice of God.

Those great Wolves, and all the lesser spiritual Wolves that followed them, do God's work because they see it as their part in the great plan, as their responsibility to assert their independent belief about how independent individuals connect to God's great plan. Wolves often become the Mother Theresas, the monks and mystics, the philanthropists and religious teachers. Wolves are always on a mission and this is also true for religion and faith. For a Wolf, ethics, morals, and religion are all aspects of a greater purpose, often the greatest purpose that can be found, in the greatest territory that exists: the human spirit.

The Purpose of Life

Ultimately, all questions in life come down to making choices. In the end, people with the three kinds of Innate Self-esteem will make their choices by the values that are inherent in their own nature. What may be fulfilling for one kind of self-esteem may be absolutely frustrating and unsatisfying to another. Success or failure will depend, to a large measure, on how an individual builds a life on the foundation of their Innate Self-esteem. Most people know that, in the end, living a life that expresses their best feelings, building a life that satisfies and expresses their value as human beings is what life is all about. Most people know that the best eulogy is to have it said that a person lived a good life, loved well, and was loved in return by those they touched. It doesn't matter whether a person underestimates their value in comparing themselves to others, or perceives their value as equal to that of others, or whether they feel special and gifted; a person can live a good life, love and be loved, find a way to build a life on the foundation of their Innate Self-esteem.

The truth of our individual value is arbitrary in nature. There is no way to measure one person's value in comparison to another. There is no objective measure of human worth. That is why philosophers have never found a way to define ethics, morals and truth. Like self-esteem, these things are absolutely necessary creations of the human consciousness. They are the shadows that we chase that come from the indefinable absolute reality we seek in the light of truth and spirituality.

Beyond Self-esteem

Beyond our Innate Self-esteem, there is a reality that exists as an absolute. Just as ethics and morals and truths are shifting shadows of a real spiritual reality, so too, our individual being is a shifting shadow of that same spirituality. Every religion affirms that the absolute value of each individual is a reflection of the absolute value of creation and its Creator. That affirmation is the only real basis for true self-esteem.

We're each absolutely unique individuals whose reality, nature, purpose and meaning can never be described or defined, even by ourselves. Yet everyone, Weaverbirds, Peafowl and Wolves may one day come to appreciate their unique individuality and its reflection from the absolute, greater reality of existence. The unknowable, indefinable, individual self can feel the love of the unknowable, indefinable, eternal creator whose creation we can consciously reflect and appreciate as no one else who has ever, or will ever live. Spirituality all leads to the identification of the individual with the absolute whole we call God or humanity.

Just as we can measure a life by how well someone loved and was loved, so too, life itself can be measured by how well we felt and expressed our individual nature as a reflection of the magnificence and beauty of creation. This is the only true measure of self-esteem, the only one that knows and affirms our absolute value, in the most absolute way. Every moment can express that reality, and, in expressing that reality, we can find compassion, humility, wisdom and love that knows or requires no measure of comparison, no judgment that sees anyone as inferior, equal or superior to anyone else. The soul has no way to measure its worth. It is like a work of art that takes a lifetime to create and appreciate and understand.

It is like a cheap apartment where we supply the labour and God supplies the paint. And the paint he supplies has all the colours of the human heart, the colours of rivers and sunsets and starry, starry nights; the colours of a baby's eyes, the colours of a first step and a terrible fall, the colour of tears of joy and loss and sorrow. The walls we paint with those profoundly beautiful colours make our soul into the work of art that expresses who we really are, the indescribable, unique, individual work of art that is a pearl beyond any price or value.

Whether we're a Weaverbird, at Peafowl, or a Wolf, does not limit, in the least way, the absolute value or beauty of the life we create, the existence that we can share and live and love.

The Author

John Kuti lives near Kingston

Ontario with his wife Lynn A'Court.

Other e books;

The True Origin of Species,( a revolutionary theory of evolutionary

adaptation)

Each and All,( a novel about the fundamental strengths and weaknesses of the baby boom generation)

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