A Bear's Place

"What drives the salmon upstream?" A query pronounced by a young cub to his father.

"It's the struggle my son, it drives us all." The answer so simply put while remaining vague.

"What struggle?" Still the cub's curiosity persisted.

The father then continued to explain the struggle of the salmon :"From birth they are fighting for their life in an environment that consumes and recycles life with an efficiency only obtained from billions of years of evolution. Those who survive are driven with the urge to travel upstream, against the current and against the odds. Despite the difficulty they push on even as brethren fall to the strength of the increasing current. Pushing harder and harder the salmon overcomes the struggle and reaches the top, the greatest achievement of their life. Those who fell behind parish, but the salmon never looks back and only knows the end. He will push past the fighting  force of the water's fury and come out victorious, a feat not many other species can attest to have earned."

"So why do we not struggle? Why is it that we so easily can stand here and disrupt their path?"

"My boy if the struggle were so that every one could do it, it would not be so worthy of it's name."

"But is that fair?"

"What is fair? Has life ever been fair in any aspect? Is it fair that the birds can fly and we are forever forced to walk the earth on dirty paws? When you start drawing comparisons in aspects of what is fair, you achieve exactly what you had originally intended to prevent: Division."

"Still, why do we choose to contribute to their struggle?"

"Those with the hardest bite and loudest growl sets the rules of the world."


"Exactly, it isn't right. Why should we be so lucky?"

"Your assessment is accurate when you pity them so. Be warned young one, pity is a guise for vanity, and us bears are a humble species. Do not show pity and in return ask for none. Instead look upon their struggle objectively and respect it's difficulty. When one makes that observation you realize the greatness of the journey that the salmon takes."

The conversation ended, but the young cub remained lost in thought. To further satisfy his thirst, he would capture a fish and ask him directly. Biting down ever so softly so that the salmon was not injured, the cub was successful in catching his next conversation. Taking the fish to a secluded spot to avoid detection from his father, the cub grew in excitement for his next set of questions. "Well Mr. Salmon, there are some things I would like to discuss with you."

"What?!" The fish was flailing around, and shouting hysterically. "You realize I'm on my way out...gone...oh lord! I can feel myself slipping! Im slipping! Aunt Clara! Is that you?"

The cub new the lack of oxygen was painful, and his death slow but he was determined to get as much out of the salmon as he could. "I apologize for the inconvenience, but I was wondering if you could satisfy some philosophical ponderings?"

"Philisophi...Inconvenience?! What in the world is a bear doing having ponderings of the philosophical nature?! Just eat me already! Do it!"

"But why? You struggle so much to simply reach this point of the stream, it doesn't bother you that it's all for nothing?"

The salmon froze, obviously never having though of that aspect before. "I guess I had always assumed our goal was to try and be eaten by you."

The observation caught the cub off guard, "Your goal was to reach this point and be eaten by a bear?"

The salmon let out a loud laugh, "Well ya! I mean we are one filthy species friend...Im talking excrement eating and bacteria with no names kinda having...its terrible. It makes no sense to us to be honest. Actually, we find it quite hilarious that you would even consider eating us. Kinda makes it all worth it." The salmon smiled one last time and took his final breath. 

The cub returned to his father who had just caught himself a juicy new fish, and set down to eat it. "The hardest bite," he echoed just before he clenched down into the soft flesh of the salmon. 

Smirking, the young cub agreed that it was the bite that brought him his place, but devoid of reason. It was through the salmon that he found his reason, to propagate the practical joke set forth by the subordinates who feed the survival of those shouting the loudest.  The comedy was quite entertaining to the young cub, and felt it was worth the ignorance.

C.R.