It seems to me like you are describing two distinct but related issues / questions:
- Stepping on others vs being stepped on vs… neutrality?
- Honesty / Authenticity / Honor etc
First, I am going to have to disagree with Frank’s assessment (which I think focuses on the first issue). It is a fact of nature, both in the material as well as the energetic / spiritual reality, that it is “eat or be eaten”. Or to think about it in less animal terms, if you prefer, vacuums will always be filled, the full flows into the empty, etc etc.
This is necessarily the case, or else the universe would be a stagnant, unmoving, unchanging thing. Literally nothing would take place, as all states would be fixed. Ancient Greeks and ancient Chinese philosophers realized this, as I am sure other cultures may have.
To a very clear example (borrowed from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness), imagine a horse with equal amounts of hunger and thirst placed equally distant from food and water. The food and water are 180 degrees from each other. Without some kind of nudge, the horse will die. Without some irrational impulse, a decision there is impossible.
Stagnation is the true death.
So, what allows the universe, and you, to move? The pre-socratic Greeks identified two forces: love and strife. This however is not the luke-warm “win-win” love that Frank describes, but rather passionate love. It does often mean building, growing, etc too, but it goes hand in hand with strife. It is a competitive sort of love. So yes, means stepping or eating. How often do “win-win” compromises get anyone what they want? Rare.
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Now, that was the first issue / question, as I said. The second you raise is, as I said above, about authenticity and honor. You don’t want to be fake… don’t want to backstab… etc. I personally do not believe that such things are necessary for the motion of the universe I described above.
You can be honorable, authentic, honest etc and still be passionate… desire… strive… etc. And perhaps the truly strong will prevail against all of the scheming of the fakes.
However, you also must ask yourself what you really want. I personally think being proud of how you have lived is worth more than what outcomes you achieve. If you compete fiercely and are laid low by betrayal, that does not take anything away from you.
So some things for you to think about.
