If you are going to be a bear...

... be a grizzly.
This saying bothers me.  I get the obvious point, if you are going to be something, make it be the biggest/best.  I find it odd though how it sounds like an old saying but has become a meme (at least to me) in just the past few months.

I first heard it on the brilliant FX show Justified.  I then heard it again a week later on a very different show.  Since then it has popped up in articles, jokes, and other cultural arenas.  Once again, it sounds like an old saying, but why haven't I heard it before?

I've heard the old bear saying, "some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you".  Of course there is the rhetorical question of, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"  ANSWER: Yes, and I stepped in it on a hike.

I grew up in and played around Montana.  I've seen black bears and grizzlies.  I have a can of bear spray.  My alma mater's mascot is the grizzly (I will send a one-of-a-kind, never published photo electronically to the first reader who correctly identifies the college through blog comment).  While living in a state with these beauties, I never heard that saying.

Some memes have very tangible roots, like the dancing baby, "Where's the beef?", and David after the Dentist (see below. I've been there David and feel your angst)   We spread these through word of mouth, email, twitter, blogs, and Facebook.  They become part of our current culture.

 


I guess the reason this saying is bothering me is that I don't know its history.  If I found out Teddy Roosevelt, Mark Twain or even  Sarah Palin coined it, I would be happy and move on.  I get annoyed by how these unattributed memes come to consciousness and spread like infections.  Maybe it will become like "Kilroy was here" and everybody will know it but not its origin.

What got me thinking about all of this was the movie Inception, which I saw last Sunday.  I liked, but not loved, the movie.  One interesting point in this film about dreams is where Leonardo's character, Dub, tells another that we never know or care how we got into the location in our dreams.  We just appear there and move on.  Nothing in our lucid life is like that.  We always know how we got to a point.  Maybe this is where I am bothered by the grizzly saying.  It is an overlap of experience between sleeping and awake.  It is one of those small moments/experiences I can not find a distinct attributable genesis of.

We expect the following in our dreams-  random things pop up and we don't notice them or question them.  They just are.  I can handle that in dreams, but when little things happen like that during consciousness I start wonder about them too much.  To me it means so much is happening below the surface of public consciousness that become the fabric of our culture and life.  Maybe I should accept these anonymous memes as part of life.


NOTE:  I grew up in a state where a grizzly kills a human every year or two.  To add to the tragedy, the grizzly will also be killed.  Much has been written about the human/nature animal boundary issues.  As we continue to build into former wilderness, we are going to see these tragedies continue.

I know a little bit about ursus arctos horribilis.  First, you don't want to see one up close.  Second, they are faster than you (sprints up to 30mph).  Third, they are big, up to 1200 pounds and standing over 9' tall.  They have decent senses of hearing and smell, but bad eyesight.  They are protective and reclusive.  They would rather not interact with humans, but if startled may charge.   

The photos above are of a life-sized plaster cast of a  grizzly sow footprint left in the mud in the Bob Marshal Wilderness area in western Montana.  I added my hand (I have big hands) and a pen to show scale.  After seeing that, you know why I have a very healthy respect for grizzlies.