Redtree Times

GC Myers- Third Stone From the Sun, 1994

A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.

― George Bernard Shaw

The piece above  was painted in my earliest days of painting back in 1994. It was strictly an experiment, an exploration of colors and shape.

My personal interpretation of it was shaped by the Jimi Hendrix song, Third Stone From the Sun, which I was most likely listening to around that time. I saw the Earth as a line-jumper trying to force its way ahead of Mercury and Venus to be nearer the Sun, as though by doing so the Sun might favor it somehow.

I was seeing the greedy human impulse, I guess.

But over time, this piece has come to represent the inner conflicts that we all experience.

Well, I think we all experience them. I am sure there are some who have a moral compass– for good or bad– that is unshakably set. I don’t whether to envy or pity those folks.

But for most of us, we struggle much like the Native American elder who Shaw referenced in the quip at the top. We all have a good and a bad dog within us fighting, trying to kill or gain dominance over the other.

Whichever we feed most will no doubt win.

Please feed your good dog today…