According to most African legends, the spider always incarnates as an intelligent person who is malicious but not wise. One who especially lacks consideration for others. The consequence of this attitude is that it always finds itself to be the object of the vengeance, blame, or hate of its neighbors. This is the reason why one finds spiders mostly in the parts of the world which are separated from the rest: corners of houses, under leaves, or under the barks of dead trees. 

Isolation and solitude are not results of one's qualities. A human being is a social animal, and whenever we have problems associating with others, it is wise to suspect that something in us may not be functioning correctly. As most of the legends say, the spider has made so many enemies for itself that it has reduced the dimensions of its world. This is what we do every time we hurt somebody. We simply reduce our own world. This could eventually take us to the point of having nowhere to go. 

Once, in a Gourmantche village in Western Merita (Africa), a very renowned blacksmith was known for his wisdom and the respect he carried for human values. This blacksmith could not have children and suffered from the idea of lacking descendants to whom he could teach his knowledge and wisdom. One day he went to a local Deity to whom he exposed his problem and his wishes. The Deity agreed to give him a child, but warned him that this child would test his knowledge and wisdom. 

He had a child who grew very fast. But the blacksmith noticed that his child had a very bad temper, and every time he was angry, he covered anybody he could lay his eyes on with insults and curses. One day, after a serious discussion between father and son, the blacksmith gave him a bag of arrowheads that he had made the day before. He showed him a tree and told him to hammer an arrowhead into the trunk of the tree every time he was angry or lost control of his temper. The first day the boy hammered thirty arrowheads into the tree. The number of arrows pounded into that tree was diminishing slowly, day after day, as the boy discovered, after days of hammering, that it was easier to control his temper than to hammer an arrowhead into the tree trunk. 

Then came a day the boy did not lose his temper, and he proudly announced the event to his father. His father then suggested that he start pulling out an arrow from the trunk of the tree every time he succeeded in keeping control over himself and his temper in any frustrating situation. The boy saw in this new suggestion a motivation, and even a hope, to prove to his father that it was possible for people to improve their human qualities. Weeks passed, and then one day the boy announced that he had pulled out the last arrowhead from the trunk of the tree. 

The blacksmith then led him to the tree, and after he got the boy to look at the scars on it, he said, "You have done well, son. But look at these holes and scars you made in this tree. This tree will never be the same. Any time you say things because you are angry, these words leave scars like this. You can put a knife in a man and draw it out, but it won't matter how many times you say 'I am sorry' because the wound is still there. A verbal wound is still there. If this tree could run, it would stay as far away from you as it could." 

Kindness opens the world to us because it conditions others to give us their listening ear. A lack of control over our impulses is the active factor that reduces the number of our friends, parents and siblings at the same time that it shrinks the world around us. We can always come back to better feelings, but it is generally after we have behaved like an elephant in a glass shop and broken down the fragile world that had surrounded us. It is never the fault of the others as it is most frequently proclaimed in popular educations. The others are just the décor and circumstances, and one cannot make them responsible for our attitudes or actions... it is never the fault of our neighbor...