Bear Kinship


Bear Spirit
A

LETTERS

A short rant and an essay on bears
(if no one minds)

I hate to do this but I have to vent about something going on... I'm feeling rather hurt and discouraged right now because of people again, not even the people out there trying to bring harm to bears, but from some of the very people trying their best to help them, people who I considered some of my closest friends.

a good friend of mine just recently did a very hurtful thing, after knowing this person for several years, of them being there to talk to and share heartfelt opinions, ideas and thoughts with concerning bears, they just suddenly one day got mad, shut me out and ignored me from then on, they wouldn't even answer anything after that, like they had dropped off the earth... when I finally had to pretty much confrontingly ask them what had happened they said it's just because I focused too much on "negative" things going on out there in the world with bears, and that they only want to focus on the "positive" things.

I'm very sorry to anyone who feels this way....

...but just to defend myself, we can't always live life whistling and looking the other way, there's just so much evil in the world... and we live in such a critical era of human history... that if anything it's insane to not be a rather hugely concerned about all the things going on out there... good and bad.... Of course I believe in thinking and acting positively, not letting it get you down and discouraged, not losing hope and looking upwards, but to completely want to ignore the bad things out there, and on a personal level to shoot the messenger of bad news, which is very much how I feel right now, shot in the heart by someone I thought was a dear friend, just because I brought attention to some awful, awful things that are going on out there everyday in the world whether we choose to ignore them or not... is just a thing that really grinds my gears, you know what I'm saying?

Sorry about that, guys, we can get back to regular bear news now, I just had to let off some steam about that...

Anytime I go to a library and walk past the children's literature section I am reminded that even though we humans harm and mistreat bears a whole lot and may one day make them extinct in the wild I think our hominid species still has an obsessive affinity for these animals.

Why it seems like almost half of all children's books have bears as characters in them, I wonder why this is... why would a species of hominid find so much appeal in an entirely different class of organism, to the point where the tales we tell our children are not anymore purely tales of human experience, but tales of experience told from the perspective of mythical characters of this other species, fictionally placed into experiences, behaviors and situations familiar only to us?

Is this not mind-boggling, to think, primates sharing wisdom, morals, values and lessons with their offspring not through tales about themselves and their experiences but fables about completely different organisms? As if characters of our own species are not as endearing to children...

Do humans, particularly as children but I think it remains as they grow older as well, have some sort of instinctual maternal/paternal psychological association when they see big, warm, fuzzy secure bear-like characters, that makes bears so hugely appealing as characters to see and experience books and toys and cartoons and movies and everything else, I think there is something to that... In the animal kingdom there is a warmth, nobility, wisdom and innocence evoked in their character that can never be conveyed as well with human characters.

The bear, perhaps by its naturally uncanny anthropomorphic physiology alone, tugs on the human associative psyche. I think that because of this our two species are destined to share fates together on this world and on others far, far into the future, I do not think humanity will ever allow bears to completely vanish, it will be sad if a time does come when bears can only exist in captivity or on very small protected ranges, but I believe bears in the future will have other ways to live and exist in the universe, especially if our species can help it, and we will. Our species cannot help but admire them.

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