Often when I say things, I remind myself and others that I am a bear (so much so that if I do not remind myself and others I am a bear, some worry). It is something I cannot help; I am always thinking about how I am a bear. Sometimes I am trying to deeply consider my bearness and how it affects the world and how the world affects it. Other times I am just reminding myself of my bearness.

Either way, I am almost always thinking about being a bear.

Is that a bad thing?

I know it is not good to be obsessed with something, no matter what it is, but is it also not good to be constantly concerned with what or who you are and your place in the world? Normally, I would assume it is fine, but recently, while giving some more thought on my bearness and such, I thought about my thinking of being a bear might not necessarily be the same thing as me actually being a bear.

I am now beginning to worry that I am not being a bear nearly as much as I am thinking about being a bear. What does thinking about being a bear really do for me that being a bear cannot do? I can think all day about being a bear and eating a delicious grease stained napkin from a dumpster that the hypothetical me in my mind might find, but that does not mean I am going to get to eat that delicious grease stained napkin in real life. In fact, that grease stained napkin might not even be real. At least the hypothetical me in my mind is based off something I know is real (the real me), but that napkin? I made it up.

Making things up confuses this even more. I can think about being anything I want. I can think about being a tree or a squirrel or a cloud or a snake or a bird or two bears or a thousand bears. No matter what I think of, however, it does not change my actually being a bear in any way. Also, I do not get to be any of those things I listed. I am not a thousand bears or a snake or a tree. I am just a bear. One, single bear.

So should I think about being a bear less?

It seems impossible to completely stop thinking about being a bear (it is the thing with which I have the most experience), but I should I reduce my bear-thinking habits?

Should I simply be a bear instead?

Or is thinking about being a bear just part of being a bear?

And maybe overthinking about being a bear is just part of being a bear?

And maybe thinking about how thinking about not being a bear and a bunch of other things instead is also just a part of being a bear?

I do not know.

I suppose, for now and until someone or something tells me I am not doing it correctly, I will continue to just be a bear, whatever thinking comes along with being a bear.

I am a bear.

If you would like to try being a bear, why not read some of the bear adventures available on this very site? 

For any questions or comments directed at Bear, feel free to write to him using this email: justasinglebear@gmail.com

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