Lions and Tigers and Bears..Oh My!

What...Republicans don't like bearhugs? So let me get this straight...if Treadwell had a conservative mindset, he wouldn't have performed the acts he did? Are one's passions simply an emanation of one's political ideology? I think that is ludicrous. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you are damning the character and spirit of Republicans. You are saying that they do not have the drive or the audacity to do what Treadwell did for many years. All you can cull from his tapes is that he was a "madman", completely irresponsible and unheeding of numerous warnings from numerous, more rational folk. But if you listen to Treadwell, you may well concede that he was a pretty intelligent guy. Conceding that, do you really think he did not know the dangers of being in such close proximity to the bears? Of course he knew, but I believe that he felt a strong connection to these animals. Ostensibly, the love and affection was not reciprocal, it never could be. But it didn't matter to him. To you or me, it does seem completely nonsensical to travel to distant climes in order to cohabitate with an incohabitable species. But does that mean that I should label him a madman, simply because his beliefs do not align with my own? Apparenty, you do and that's the quintessence of conservatism- "What we think is right and any who oppose are maligned." I admire Treadwell. He had a vision, an "ecstatic" one, of man and beast living together harmoniously, one not superior to the other. He died living out his dream and who wouldn't desire that? How many of us live mundane lives with nary a shred of excitement or elation? How many of our dreams fall by the wayside due to lack of conviction or courage? Take the celebrated writer Yukio Mishima, a brilliant author and playwright. He chose to die for his beliefs, because he longed for a return to a bygone era of honor, servitude, and death in the line of duty. Yes, he was a romantic, but he did have a crystalline vision of how the world should be and when it fell short, he simply could not go on living a semblance of a life. Treadwell is exactly the same way, a romantic. He even cut his hair to look like a Medieval knight on a quest to earn the respect of a fair beauty (in his case, the fair beast). It was all the same to Treadwell. And it is this kind of fanaticism, this single-minded purpose, this adamantine resolve in the face of overwhelming logic, that attracted the visionary filmmaker Werner Herzog. This great German director would kill himself, and nearly has, to complete a film (take Aguirre and Fitzcarraldo). They are kindred spirits. They are also poets in the Wordsworthian sense. They feel more acutely the vagaries of man and the emotions they feel as well as the chaotic elements in Nature. The latter entices them, interests them. Herzog is on a mission to commit these ecstatic truths to celluloid beacuse as he puts it, "the modern world is starving for images"- transcendent images that lift us to a higher plane of emotion, of consciousness. Treadwell was "foolish" enough in this cynical day and age to try to live constantly in that plane. Don't beat a man down beacuse he had the balls, the chutzpah, to try!