The bear and the kayak: a story of human futility

“Thank you for leaving my kayak alone!”

Good. Good. This is a good start. You definitely want to thank what can only be presumed as the forest spirit for sparing your lone mode of transportation and escape: your kayak. Excellent display of courtesy.

“I’m going to pepper spray you in the face, that’s what I’m gonna do to you.”

Drastic heel turn here. This is a supervillain origin story in two sentences. If Brother Bear ever taught us anything, it’s that this is a bad idea. You have to admire her narrating this whole thing though. She’s already perfected the supervillain monologue trope. Usually it takes years to master the art of letting your victims know how you’re going to harm them. Once again, she displays an excellent show of civility.

“Go away!”

Be careful what you ask for. It’s a lesson that keeps on teaching.

After being pepper-sprayed, you can see the fear in the bear as it hesitates to come any further. Then you see the fear turn into pure human hatred and spite as she tells it to leave. Walking towards the kayak, it repeatedly looks back at the woman as to dare her to stop it -- that’s some Bane-forcing-Bruce-Wayne-to-watch-Gotham’s-destruction-on-a-fuzzy-television-screen-in-a-pit display of power.

Then it gets fun.

“Get away from the kayak!”

“Get away from that kayak!”

“Come here!”

“Come on!”

Oh, the irony!

I speak fluent forest spirit, so I’ll try to answer some of the questions that the woman in the video had for Baloo here.

“WHY ARE YOU BREAKING MY KAYAK?”

I feel like this is a hypothetical question? I can only assume it has something to do with the pepper spray.

“WHAT AM I GONNA DO?”

If I know anything about these spirits, it’s that calming them down requires some sort of sacrifice or a returning of sacred stolen artifacts. But seeing how she’s trapped, I guess “watch and cry” is the only real answer here. This is the modern Ovid’s Niobe.

My favorite part is when she begins to apply natural logic and reason to this situation. She is baffled and frustrated and starts to question the order of the world.

“Bear, please stop! Please stop, bear! It’s the end of September, why are you here? You’re supposed to be asleep! Why are you here?”

This reminds me of the Dave Chappelle skit where he asks numerous questions to an array of persons on how well they know black people. One of the questions that he asks is “why do black people love menthols so much?”

I think the correct answer applies to her natural inquiry here. No one knows.

Then the anguish sets in and she comes to grips with just how powerless she is in this whole power play. No matter how much she questions, cautions and begs the bear to stop, he’s only giving fewer fucks as time goes on. He even flips the kayak over to ruin it comprehensively. A thorough job well done.

Now for the golden nugget in all of this. She saved the best part for last. It’s not when she asks the bear why he’s eating the kayak though it’s not even food and doesn’t taste good. But when she’s run out of options and threatens the bear again.

“Bear, I don’t — Bear, I’m gonna bear-spray you, please stop!”

I like to think right after she makes that threat that a light-bulb went off and she remembered, oh, that’s right, that’s what got us in this predicament in the first place. Best to just beg.

There’s something profound about a human trying to exert its power over a force of nature only to realize that all she can do is watch in sorrow as it tears everything she holds dear to pieces. It’s also the funniest thing I’ve seen so far this year. Sometimes you’re the one begging the bear to stop, other times you’re the bear. Life.