Finding My Howl

I’ve recently read an interesting little manifesto by a man named Johathan Flaum called “Finding Your Howl”.  In this, Flaum references two different stories one the story of a red wolf named Mumon, and the other a story a classmate of Flaum’s wrote in 5^th grade. While I honestly loved both of the stories, the one that made a bigger impact on me would have to be the story of Mumon. 

The main premise of the story is that there are only 14 red wolves left in the world.  These 14 wolves are taken into captivity in hopes of protecting him.  Afterwards, the offspring were released into the wild as an experiment, and it seemed to go well, but for one major problem, none of them knew how to howl.  They began to live in fear, some wished to go back to captivity, but not Mumon.  He left on a journey to find his howl to save his pack. He didn’t know where it might be, or what it was like, but he knew that he would know it when he heard it.

After running for a long time, Mumon saw a deer, and gave chase, but before he pounced, the deer spoke.  The deer asked Mumon questions such as “who taught you to hunt” or “What makes you think you can take me down and not be overwhelmed yourself?” and Mumon’s response was basically instinct, he said he that he just knew what to do and that he could. The deer ran, and Mumon caught and ate it.  The deer’s last words were “Our blood becomes one and I hear your howl ringing in my ears”, but Mumon hears nothing.

As Mumon ate he felt both grateful as well as ashamed.  When he woke up later he saw a crow like that ones that picked the deer’s perched nearby.  The Crow explains how Mumon’s howl is on everything he touches, but for him to find it he must accept what he is and not feel ashamed for what he did. Soon Mumon began to run, farther and farther, for days and weeks without stopping leaving behind what he was, and becoming something new.  Soon Mumon came upon a farmer with a gun.  The farmer shot Mumon, but, instead of dying, he fell to the center of the earth to find a group of people calling upon the ancient spirit of the red wolf.  It was here that Mumon first howled.  When reality returned Mumon found himself with his pack, and with their own howl they answered his. 

The main concept of the story as Flaum puts it is “To find our howl we have to pay a price”.  To me this means that we may need to shed our current selves, do things we would never have done before, “this is the price of finding our howl, our own one-of-a-kind authentic voice”.

A quote that I think actually describes this concept rather well are some lyrics from a song “You will never find another Hero.  You will never have another chance.  You will fall because you never tried to stand for yourselves!”.  This quote comes from the song The Sons of Fate from the first album of The Protomen. While the main idea of these lyrics is that mankind is doomed to die because they don’t stand up for themselves and will only rely on others I think that if toned down a little, it leads to a great, albeit simple piece of advice; “Learn to do things for yourselves, if you don’t you’ll never have the chance to live”.  This is something I have taken to heart.  Sure, I let other people teach me things, but I don’t continue to rely on them, after I’ve learned the basics I just try things for myself. That’s how I learn, and how I think up new ideas.  While it’s possible to build ideas off other peoples, it’s also very important to have your own original ideas from time to time, if only to help exercise the imagination.