The Spirit Bear Dances angrily

[kippurbird]

So, now we must solve our cliffhanger! How do you become invisible? Is it get bombarded by radiation in space? No. Is it be born with the ability due to genetic mutation? No. Is it having an invisibility cloak? No. To become invisible he had to clear his mind.

In the cold pond, his mind became almost trancelike. The fish and beaver had come close until he thought of hurting them. The day he touched the Spirit Bear he had been near death and had completely given up trying to be in control. Being invisible had nothing to do with being seen. Being invisible meant not being sensed or felt.

Well, let's see. Spacing out completely is how you become invisible. I can see the merit in that. But I think the real way is to just be able to still your body and control your breathing, kinda like what Ventari does, as opposed to just spacing out. But apparently Cole seems to think this is the trick. Then Cole goes philosophical.

This discovery excited Cole and set him to thinking. If animals existed in a world of instincts and sense beyond the conscious thoughts of the mind, what happened to people in their frantic worlds of noise and hectic rushing? How much of the world did people miss because they were not calm enough, empty enough, to experience it?

Now then, what does the above have to do with the rest of the story? Absolutely nothing! The author here is using Cole as a mouthpiece for his own views and his ideas. After all nothing in Cole's character suggests that he'd ever think like that. If anything, once he discovered how to be come invisible, he'd think to himself, "Cool" and that would be it. Cole has been shown to be not very big on deep thoughts. This above paragraph is too deep for him to think.

So, that morning he goes off and makes himself invisible. He becomes one with the landscape. He becomes invisible to himself. There's long descriptions of this happening. And then Cole opens his eyes and he sees the Bear.

At the place where things visible faded into not-being, there stood the Spirit Bear, as clear as if it were standing only feet away. The bear gazed patiently.

As Cole stared back with the same patience, all time, even the present ceased to exist. He no longer thought of himself as Cole Matthews, a juvenile delinquent from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Instead he was part of the landscape, without beginning or end. Rain d ripped off the rocks that lined the shore the same way it dripped from his forehead and flowed down across his cheeks and lips. It blurred his vision, and he blinked.

The Spirit Bear disappeared.

Because Cole and the bear belonged to the same landscape now, Cole still felt the bear inside. He closed his eyes, remembering.

Isn't that all nice and new-agey and make you feel all warm and fluffy inside? It could be indigestion though. But once again, Cole has gone though a total character shift. All of a sudden he's gone all spiritual and for lack of a better word, native, all because he's realized how to become invisible. That night he builds himself a party for one. A large bonfire, good food, and savors the food. And then for some reason he knows that he's ready to dance the dance of anger. We don't know why he knows that he's ready to dance the dance of anger, just that he does.

The dance consists of him yelling and screaming and hitting things. No, really. At the end he calls out, "I'm sorry, please forgive me, I didn't mean to hurt Peter." and then, "I forgive you." And that's the end.

His dance is more like a tantrum. But then again, I'm not really sure what the point of these dances are. Except to give Cole magical life lessons. I wonder what the dance of the cat would be like.

Comments

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

...

I forgive you?

I didn't mean to hurt you?

Right because when I put some guy in a wheelchair I should forgive him yes that makes perfect sense! Likewise if I smash a guys head against the pavement and cripple him, and don't feel the least bit bad about it, I didn't really mean it!

GAH!

I know that sounds stupid today, like wicked, or evil, but that's what Cole was. Cole was bad, evil, wicked, call it what you like. He wasn't a frightened child who didn't mean to hurt a fly, he was an evil bully who beat people up and didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

Now people can change, they can walk away from their past, BUT... There's no magic stones, and magic dances, and magic circle justice. There's people who are confronted with the truth about themselves, and discover that they don't like it; and there's people who change, slowly, over many years, until one day they look back and go "Wow! I really was a PoS back then..."

Cole does neither.

This is New Age rubbish, they want a magic wand that they can wave. They want to say "Here is a magic wand, a magic formula, if you'll just go along with this everything will be better."

Pity the real world don't work like that.

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

I think he's forgiving himself. Which might be okay if part of his problem was a compounded self-hatred that just made him angrier and angrier the more he acted on said anger, but as it is? No. You don't forgive yourself. You seek OTHER people's forgiveness.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

I know that sounds stupid today, like wicked, or evil, but that's what Cole was. Cole was bad, evil, wicked, call it what you like. He wasn't a frightened child who didn't mean to hurt a fly, he was an evil bully who beat people up and didn't feel the least bit bad about it.

*gasp* How can you say that! No one's really bad! They're just scared! /sarcasm.

But yes, totally agreeing with you on the new age rubbish stuff.

[spoofmaster]

I'd like to point out that animals probably don't experience all this new-agey spiritual bullcrap. If anything, one would expect their lives to be just as full of noise and rushing about as people, since they have to spend all their time finding things to eat and avoid being eaten.

[the-norseman.livejournal.com]

Let me just quote Hobbes (emphasis mine):

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

That is pretty much my view on life in nature, the life of animals, and the life of people in a "state of nature." Mothers hide their children from adult males, to prevent the adults from killing them. Every moment spent in fear, expecting a rival, a predator, or trying to get enough to eat.

Peace? Tranquility? If you want to see animals with peace and tranquility find one that's kept as a pet.

The Indians weren't peaceful natives singing Kumbayah, if you read their actual histories you'll notice that there's a lot of violence there. I'm not picking on the Indians in particular mind, if you look at primitive peoples elsewhere (the Gauls, the Vikings etc) they too were nasty and brutish. So too is life in nature nasty and brutish, kill or be killed.

So this is one reason why New Agey stuff annoys me.

[spoofmaster]

Exactly how I feel about it, but much more eloquently put. It's annoying how people put animals and primitive people on a pedestal...modern humans may be far from perfect, but at least we have intellectual thought. The irony is that the New Agey folks are using their higher powers of thinking to come up with ways to deny the value of having higher powers of thinking.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Hah. Yeah. Except maybe my cat. =D He's very Zen. But nature in general isn't at all kind and forgiving. If it was, they'd all die.

[dryaunda.livejournal.com]

*wakes up*

Hm- Huhwhut? Invisible? What does that have to do with anything?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Apparently that was the only way he could see the spirit bear... or something.

[(Anonymous)]

The dance of the cat will go... like so!

Raise your hands and feet as though you're grabbing a mice handing from the ceiling, turn back and forth while yelling:
"KITTY CAT! I'M A KITTY CAT! AND I WILL DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE DANCE!"

[yattara.livejournal.com]

Huh. I thought the dance of cat would be him trying to lick his crotch, and vomiting up hairballs all over the place.

[indescane.livejournal.com]

I thought it would be more along the lines of him sidling from place to place until he got to a patch of sunlight, then flopping down and refusing to move until he got hungry. Then he would begin to claw at the nearest object, making plaintive noises for food, until food appears and then said object is ignored.

...though seeing as this is Cole, hairballs wouldn't be amiss.

[berseker.livejournal.com]

then flopping down and refusing to move until he got hungry.

Sounds good to me. I think I´ll try this one.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Me? I thought it was more, wandering around, batting things, before flopping somewhere annoying and napping, before getting up and demanding to be fed. And then there's the running around excitedly for no reason whatsoever.

[evil_plotbunny]

I have observed the dance of the bunny.

It generally involves running and fancy leaps. It does not last long, before the bun flops on the carpet, exhausted.

But then this bunny lives a life of leisure and content.

[karma-kalisutah.livejournal.com]

<3

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Aww... we should all practice the dance of the bunny.

[evil_plotbunny]

Although at the moment, he's cranky and shredding cardboard, because he's shedding. )*:3

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

Invisible melding with the landscape, right, now why can't he just become lost in being invisible and die of exposure from sitting there? It sort of creeps me out that Cole was a better character when he was supposed to be a "delinquent".