People 'believe' all sorts of things. If YOU believe something unprovable, its religion. If you don't believe something unprovable but believed to be so by others, that's superstition.
As an example, consider Buddhism, a set of beliefs and practices accepted by millions. But it's far away and misunderstood here, so it might be considered superstition. Beliefs and practices we are taught as children, that's religion.
Religion and superstition do not come to us naturally; they are taught. Same with belief and trust in government. Is belief in the need for government not also at its root a superstition, the most widely accepted superstition of them all?
It's impossible to forget someone who gave me so much to remember...I consider my bears as "someone".
But first, NEVER NEVER eat raw garlic on an empty stomach...I don't give a furious fuck about how tough someone thinks they are, raw garlic on hunger pains is a crippler. Had a late dinner with nothing to eat since noon...I buckled over and planted my ass in the chair and cradled my guts, but it wasn't a nauseating pain, it was like a fucking bullet dead center of my gut and nothing helps to neutralize the pain. 20minutes later, after sweating out a gallon of premium precipitation it was as if nothing happened but I'll never do that again.
I spent a lot of quality time with my bears yesterday evening and put together some good film footage. The yearling bear cubs are energetic as fuck and with 7 of them (3 family) there's no rest, when they're not hungry they're all about playing and the playing is rough but I never was one to be gentle. In a way it's good to play rough, there's no worries about being called an asshole because someone didn't like how hard they hit the ground after a friendly demonstration of takedown moves...bears can take anything that's physically dished out, even when they do get that serious boot to the ribs or bottom jaw or even a backhander to the tip of their snout, which really humbles them out, there's no hard feelings. And all that hype about a mama bear's fury, it's an inflated concern more of superstition than of actual ignorance. People are indoctrinated into their fears. The masses are easier to control in an environment of fear. So much of what life has to offer goes unexperienced because of fear.
20 some years ago I decided that I was no longer going to fear a bear...and what a "twenty some years" it's been. These bears have given me so much to remember.
NOW, why I'm impressed again with these bears. A bear takes note of everything that is going on around him/her, they only have to see something once to have it imprinted into their memory. I can make a dozen new hiding places for a treat or just to fiddle with something and the bears, noting me from a distance, will come to check out what I was doing and every day they'll go check out those same areas.
The impressive moment yesterday was when one of older mama bears was watching me from a good distance away, she was seriously focused, for a good hour, on me going in and out of my garage, all the bears know that the goodies are in the garage...but the fucking door is never left open, I close and latch it so that they don't sneak in and steal the goodies, like a couple hundred lbs of peanuts and other stuff.
Bears have figured out the slide bolt, I'm onto them for that but as mumsy was watching every detail of my in, out and latching of the door, she made the deduction of the mechanical principles associated with the latch. They had the sliding of the latch bolt figured out 10years ago but the manner in which the bolt turns and drops into the catch was still a mystery...until yesterday.
From a distance the length of a niggerball field this bear noted that the bolt was being turned downwards into the catch so as to prevent simple sliding back and forth.
I'm just recovering from a bout of garlic pains on an empty stomach and I'm standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window and there's mama bear standing, and she's taller than the height of the door. I slide open the window and yelled at her to get down....she's looking right at me, with her 3"long index claw, still looking at me, she ups and twists the bolt out of the catch and slides it, still with eye contact she slides the bolt right to the end where it stops with a bang...every bear knows what that bang means, whenever I enter (or leave) the garage that banging of the latch signals to them that goodies are on the way...they just didn't have the latching system figured out yet so as to help themselves...UNTIL YESTERDAY EVENING.
Now I have to padlock the bolt...but I am very impressed. I love these guys so much that for a month now I've been spending my nights outside here in my yard camp/sauna with bears all around me. What else I find impressive is that they seem to know that I need sleep and don't want to be up all night keeping them out of trouble and chasing around with them, they are very well behaved. I've got 3 outside my door right now, maybe 10ft from me and all I've had was a few "whimpers of contentment" from them but if I was inside the house they'd be running around the deck and doing shit to keep me up.
These fucking bears are more human than most species of humans.
Need to reorganize the vineyard (my two grape vines) to make a nice sitting area for my daughters, with a little bench (maybe bench swing) so the vines will grow over a pergola and give shade and fruit. They love picking the grapes and making juice.
