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The Dancing Bear
The Dancing Bear was a name I came up with when I was going to start a Graphic Design Business in L.A. At first thought it brings to mind cheerful images and from a distance the Dancing bear appears to be cheerfully performing to amuse the children in the streets. Usually Romania and other countries in that part of the world. The truth is that the bear is not happily dancing but has no choice but to dance or suffer the consequences. It is ruled by someone else and does what it is told to do or will pay the price through cruelty. The Dancing Bear lives a forced, unnatural life controlled by a keeper who is only interested in what the bear can provide, and not what the bear can add to the keeper's life. It becomes accustomed to performing and does so in a ritualistic trance-like routine, more out of habit than anything. The crowd cheers as the bear dances and the keeper coerces and intimidates but in ways that only the bear can recognise. He does not want the crowd to know that the bear is not happy. He wants them to reward him for the brilliant thing he has done and shower him with their pocket change so that he may eat and the bear may possibly eat as well, if he has his fill first.
This is purely metaphoric. We all are slaves to seen and unseen forces. We do as we are told, expected to do, and what we have learned to do to keep others happy or to avoid their cruelty. We live unnatural lives in the quest to be part of, or included in something. Anything. We perform to survive and get by to face another day of "Dancing". We endure passive aggression and perform so it doesn't amplify into something worse. We plod along daily doing as we are told all the while hoping that one day it will all change. It may. It will?
Are we really surprised to turn on the News and see the man shoot 15 people in McDonald's, or a group of school children blast their classmates and teachers into oblivion. These things are generally the result of the same kind of treatment the Dancing Bear endures. "He was such a quiet man".........I am not surprised. I understand. I perform.
But ............. I will never teach a Bear to Dance. I will never accept free dancing lessons. I will never stay at a job I do not love. I will never stay in a relationship I do not adore. I will never allow my government to tell me who I may love. I will never let my community dictate how I worship. I will never allow the scorn of others to dictate how I live my life.
This is purely metaphoric. We all are slaves to seen and unseen forces. We do as we are told, expected to do, and what we have learned to do to keep others happy or to avoid their cruelty. We live unnatural lives in the quest to be part of, or included in something. Anything. We perform to survive and get by to face another day of "Dancing". We endure passive aggression and perform so it doesn't amplify into something worse. We plod along daily doing as we are told all the while hoping that one day it will all change. It may. It will?
Are we really surprised to turn on the News and see the man shoot 15 people in McDonald's, or a group of school children blast their classmates and teachers into oblivion. These things are generally the result of the same kind of treatment the Dancing Bear endures. "He was such a quiet man".........I am not surprised. I understand. I perform.
But ............. I will never teach a Bear to Dance. I will never accept free dancing lessons. I will never stay at a job I do not love. I will never stay in a relationship I do not adore. I will never allow my government to tell me who I may love. I will never let my community dictate how I worship. I will never allow the scorn of others to dictate how I live my life.
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