Inner Conflict

the activity is irrelevant because the conflict is within

It was a fine dojo

I buried this short piece on an old website in 2007 and forgot it until 2009 when a reader described how the ideas and perspective herein had compelled him to change his life for the better. He suggested I re-post it so that others might also benefit. After re-reading the essay then I recognized it, and the feeling I had when I wrote it but not the circumstances (and that's way too far gone to recall in 2025). Surely, something set me off. Reviewing the words now shows me that I self-plagiarized from this for other, future essays; some of the sentences are real zingers.

“How can you really know about yourself if you never ever been in a fight?”

Tyler Durden, spoken in the film adaptation of "Fight Club" but written differently in the book by Chuck Palahniuk

Not all temperament types need to fight (in the commonly accepted sense) to learn themselves. That said struggle, internal and external is almost universally needed. Without such a test it’s easy to pretend. Without consequence there is no penalty for pretense. Without a penalty for being dishonest one develops the habit of “getting away with it” and wakes up each day counting on it. Some are never compelled to truly wake up.

“To know who we are and what ought to do should be everybody’s first duty, but how many really seek the truth? How many are willing without any casuistry* to accept the responsibility of a choice?”

Walter Bonatti, "The Great Days"

Knowing Self is the foundation of clear, right action. Inaccurate self-knowledge leads to confusion about behavior. Fear often prevents incisive introspection – the subconscious mind knows the ugly truth but to preserve the ego obscures it. Constant testing and confrontation with situations offering unknown outcomes magnify one’s true character and characteristics to help identify what one “ought to do.” More often than not we allow ourselves to be talked out of being who we truly are and never do what we want or could. How can we possibly be happy and fulfilled if we do only what others have convinced us we should be doing, whether we have the temperament or talent for it or not?

“A dojo (practice hall) is a miniature cosmos where we make contact with ourselves – our fears, anxieties, reactions, and habits. It is an arena of confined conflict where we confront an opponent who is not an opponent but rather a partner engaged in helping us understand ourselves more fully …”

Joe Hyams, "Zen in the Martial Arts"

The dojo may be anywhere or anything, the gym, perhaps. Self-expression in the gym is the same as behavior in the outside world. Testing and self-hazing in the dojo elevates or crushes us depending on whether we overcome ourselves or fall short of our expectations and self-image. For those who use the gym as a tool of self-discovery every success is the cue for analysis: what allowed me to transcend today? And every failure produces the same reaction: what caused me to fall short? We face these tests alone or with partners, who help us, who hurt us, who ultimately walk the path along with us.

In an old essay titled, “I Hurt Therefore I Am”, I wrote about lessons learned during three months of forced inactivity and frustration following the second surgery on my left knee. Although I couldn’t do what I wanted to and regressed physically, I didn’t waste that time. During those long weeks of reading and instrospection I learned a few of the reasons why others failed to fulfill their potential, why they never fully expressed their capacities in sport or life. Recognizing the causes allowed me to see my own similar behavior, and to eventually do whatever it took to resolve the internal conflicts that harnessed me to the description of “also ran.”

“I spent twelve weeks on crutches after knee surgery. During recovery I surrounded myself with wanna-bes, pretend-to-bes, has-beens and never-will-bes. I met people who wasted their talent or were afraid of it. They taught me why I hadn't become a good climber. Like them, I was afraid to succeed, scared to commit. I didn't want to be any better than anyone else. Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who don't think enough of themselves to make something of themselves, people who did only what they had to and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.”

Overcoming fear is a key to self-knowledge. We must welcome fear, confront it, and befriend it. Consistent confrontation with the unknown familiarizes one with fear. However, doing the same thing over and over, increasing stress by steps one is certain to equal, and following the same recipe as everyone else allows one to avoid the unknown, to elude the conflict he or she so desperately needs. These battles, which evolution requires but modern society has written out of its recipe, may be orchestrated in the dojo, in the gym, on the field, in the mountains, or all of the above and more. The location doesn’t matter and the activity is irrelevant because the conflict is within. Internal struggles are not won at another’s expense. Who loses when we defeat ourselves? Some people live the answer every single day.

/

* casuistry (synonym for rationalize): to attribute (one's actions) to rational and creditable motives without analysis of true and especially unconscious motives, to create an excuse or more attractive explanation for ...