I vaguely remember a movie from 20 or 30 years ago called “Grizzly Man,” wherein a deluded animal lover decided to ditch it all and go and live among the bears. I believe he moved to Alaska, but it could’ve been anywhere where bears roam free and humans rightly fear to tread. This depressed idiot, fed up with human stupidity and thoughtlessness, seriously believed he could fit into bear society, eventually be adopted as one of their own, if he just acted bearlike enough to walk a mile in their hairy paws. For a while he truly did live on the outskirts of bear village. He hunted and foraged. He climbed trees, caught fish, and did other bear things, living well apart from human society, frolicking nearer and nearer to the bears, attempting to ever-so-gradually become, if not a bear, then at least the most bearish dude around. The bears at first tolerated his presence. He thought he was on his way to hairless beardom. Things were looking up for him. He was forging his path. Of course, right around the time he thought the bears were just about to initiate him into their clan, they mauled the crap out of him, tearing him limb from limb in a bloodbath, shattering his dreams and murdering his hopes, and of course him, also murdering him.
I remember laughing with an old friend about this intriguing movie and this moronic guy, but this wasn’t one of those front-of-the-brain memories, just something buried deep in there. Until last week when I met with Dr. Andrea Begonia (the other co-founder of Heretic Picayune), and we talked about a scientist a few weeks ago who did the exact same thing, moving out of Humanburg and into Grizzlytown, for the sake of science (sort of), under what he, like so many deluded hippies before, must’ve thought both science and Mother Gaia wanted humans to do, getting “back to nature,” and he of course also got horribly murdered by the bears.
People who climb into lions’ dens at the zoo (“King of the jungle, my ass.”). Idiots who swim with sharks and forget to bring their cages (“I can probably outswim these guys, what do they know about moving rapidly through water?”). Moving in with a pack of wolves to “become one with Nature” (“I was on the track team, I like my steaks rare, I’m halfway there already, right?”). All the same delusional mangling of Henry David Thoreau’s vision. Moving to the woods to “find yourself” can be cathartic, I’m sure, but you should still pack a shotgun.
Guess what? Shockingly, it turns out that the bears don’t want you. The bears won’t think twice about it. They’ll just do what bears do. You’re no fresh salmon, but you’ll do in a pinch.
Hell, even your house cats will eat you if you die alone and they go without food for a couple of days. That doesn’t mean they didn’t love you, just that they’re hungry, just that they’re animals, just that they’re not as quite as domesticated as we like to think. And for real, if you were on the verge of starving to death, be honest, wouldn’t you eat them too? You’d feel bad about it, but we’re all animals, we all have a will to live.
We attribute intents and human emotions to wild animals all the time. Some of the blame has to fall squarely on the heads of Disney and Pixar animators who anthropomorphize wild animals, dilapidated pick-up trucks, children’s toys, pretty much everything. Let’s not forget about hippies, they deserve some blame, too. Thinking that human society is wildly fucked up is rational, thinking that life would be better if you lived with a bunch of hippos is less rational (The game wasn’t called Friendly, Friendly Hippos, now was it?). There’s plenty more blame to go around: short-sighted, greedy developers shrinking animal habitats to put up McMansions, YouTube videos of tigers bonding with pandas doesn’t help, and environmentalists, convinced that humans are a cancer on the planet and that the ways of the beasts are just inherently better, and, of course, that little plush snuggly creature you curled up with when you were little, the Teddy Bear. Plenty of blame.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t respect nature, that we shouldn’t admire animals and learn their ways, only that it’s good to be at the top of the food chain. Why would we ditch that in favor of pooping in the woods and wiping with leaves? Why are so many of us so stupid as to think the bears would ever think we’re one of them. We don’t smell like bears, we don’t look like bears, we don’t act like bears, all because WE’RE NOT BEARS.
The next time you’re depressed about the Human Condition, consider this. Bears are stupid. Humans are less stupid. Humans who think they’re bears are even stupider than actual bears.