bears, part II

So, we talked about bears. What they truly are, versus what they are perceived to be in artificial and skewed environments.

That’s too bad.

But wait! Here comes mankind!

Mankind has put their own spin, their own twist, to help understand and gain knowledge about what bears are.

Unfortunately, not everyone pitched in on mankind’s portrayal of bears.

And so we’re left with this picture. It is what mankind has determined bears are.

Some folks are/were disinterested, or dispassionate, or dis-something talking about bears.

Therefore, what you see here is what you're supposed to get.

Notice the contrast between the previous post’s bear and the one here.

The bear in the previous post was ferocious, beautiful and terrible.

Bears, as mankind has ended up portraying them, are sweet and precious and soft and wonderful and warm and loving and forgiving and embraceable and approachable and cuddly and fuzzy and soft and nonviolent and passive and…

Bears as humans describe them are not fierce, or imposing, or terrible, or passionate, or any of the powerful qualities quite noticeable about real bears.

Bears are never portrayed as bloody or bold.

Or crucified.

They’re portrayed as pristine, and perfect, in an exclusively warm fuzzy kind of way.

So we are now in a quandary.

Bears are what they are, yet most of the ways humans see and perceive and talk about bears is strangely different.

They’re misconstrued by how they’re viewed through artificial environments and media.

And they’re misconstrued by how mankind has decided to portray them.

These are sad portrayals of bears. And yet so few know (or care about?) the difference.

Very few travel to where bears can be seen as they are. To do so is dangerous, unpredictable.

Some would even say unsafe.

Very few people pursue anything up that alley.

It’s much safer, simpler and more stable to stick with the cuddly, warm, safe (and skewed) concept of bears.

And yet there remain other folks.

Some forage into the unknown, outside of buildings, away from what society has handed and told them, regardless of what they’ve heard or previously experienced with bears.

Some zoo goers or bear watchers encounter a series of life events which leads to conflict. They know what they’ve been told about bears, but something just does not resonate.

This generally happens when folks find themselves in the wilderness.

Not by their choice, of course. They’d lived a life of the cuddly variety, and rather enjoyed seeing and viewing bears this way.

Interestingly, those who are in the wild are still able to communicate with those who go to teddy bear shops, watch cuddly bear cartoons, listen to cutesy bear radio, and/or sit around talking about how cuddly and sweet bears are.

The conversations are quite awkward.

It's not that baby bears don't have the docile characteristics, but is that all bears are?