Sheep, Sheep Dogs and Shepherds

Human excellence is self-selecting.
Sheep don’t think of themselves as sheep. They consider themselves people, all different, all special. Sheep dogs think in terms of what they do, which is face down the threats. They aren’t likely to intervene much if the sheep kill each other, though a particularly bright dog will stop one from harming others. Each incident has its own goal; they don’t think in terms of security as a whole. The shepherd thinks in terms of the greater welfare of the flock and the reason he bothers even having sheep. We can argue whether this or that one isn’t exactly a member of the flock, who qualifies as sheep dogs and shepherds, but the basic principle is well understood.
Sometimes the only difference is context.
A distinction I implied in yesterday’s post was the excellence of realizing we need not see human aspirations in terms of goals and objectives, but in terms of the excellence of being committed to human welfare. Most of the world might think they understand that, but their lives prove otherwise.
When it comes to a lot of human activities and concerns, I’m content to wear the woolly cowl. Sure, I understand security, but I’m not quite that instinctive about responding to individual threats in most contexts. I’m too slow; I want to think about it. It made me hate being a Military Policeman, because I was always thinking like a Provost Marshal or commander. I wasn’t qualified, largely because the military doesn’t want real commanders, but I really didn’t want that responsibility in the first place.
I wanted to be everyone’s favorite uncle, for lack of a better symbol. I wanted to be there at some distance, but always ready and available to carry people through those times when they needed some distance from the daily grind. I am not all that useful until folks are conscious of that need for some distance. Now that I’m older, it’s more like grandpa, literally and figuratively.
Even when I want to be among the flock, I can’t do it. I’m not interested in eating grass, not interested in rutting and bumping heads with the dominant rams, and not frightened by everything that moves. I can’t fake it.
But whether I like it or not, I’m stuck as a shepherd in many ways. It’s pretty lonely. Most of the time the sheep have no clue what I’m going on about, nor could they be made to care. The sheep dogs keep looking for someone to tell them what to do, or they get restless. I’m not always sure I want to tell them what to do. Sometimes I feel like even the other shepherds don’t get what I’m saying. So I’ve been out hiking away from it all, letting someone else herd the sheep.
The sense of not having to worry about anything is refreshing, but I keep running into the odd sheep here and there, lost, abandoned, forgotten. The instincts just won’t die. But the other shepherds won’t let me work with them, let me share in the labor because they don’t trust me with their flocks. Feels like I’m in the wrong country, but it’s that way wherever I’ve traveled, as it were. I didn’t mean for it to turn out like this, but I still have my own staff, and something of a rod. I have my own kind of sling and stones, which I can’t keep myself from drawing out when I see a predator.
Maybe I’m simply on the wrong planet.