Taking the Initiative

Taking the Initiative

Our basic nature is to act, and not to be acted upon. As well as enabling us to choose our response to particular circumstances, this empowers us to create circumstances. Taking initiative does not mean being pushy, obnoxious, or aggressive. It does mean recognizing our responsibility to make things happen.

Over the years, I have frequently counseled people who wanted better jobs to show more initiative – to take interest and aptitude tests, to study the industry, even the specific problems te organisations they are interested in are facing, and then to develop an effective presentation showing how their abilities can help solve the organisation's problem. It's called « solution selling », and is a key paradigm in business success.

The response is usually agrement – most people can see how powerfully such an approach would affect their opportunities for employment or advancement. But many of them fail to take the necessary steps, the initiative, to make it happen.

« I don't know where to go to take the interest and aptitude tests, to study the industry, even the specific problems the organisations they are interested in are facing, and then to develop an effective presentation showing how their abilities can help solve the organisation's problem. It's called « solution selling, », and is a key paradigm in business success.

The response is usually agreement – most people can see how powerfully such an approach would affect their opportunities for employment or advancement. But many of them fail to take the necessary steps, the initiative, to make it happen.

Don't look like a stone, be active. Photo of Icelandic stones by Elena.

« I don't know where to go to take the interest and aptitude tests. »

« How do I study industry and organisational problems? No one wants to help me.»

« I don't have any idea how to make an effective presentation. »

Many people wait for something to happen or someone to take care of them. But people who end up with the good jobs are the proactive ones who are solutions to problems, not problems themselves, who seize the initiative to do whatever is necessary, consistent with correct principles, to get the job done.

Whenever someone in our family, even one of the younger children, takes an irresponsible position and waits for someone else to make things happen or provide a solution, we tell them « Use your R and I » (resourcefulness and initiative). In fact, often before we can say it, the answer their own complaints, « I know – use my R and I! »

Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming. Proactivity is part of human nature, and, although the proactive muscles may be dormant, they are there. By respecting the proactive nature of other people, we provide them with at least one clear, undistorted reflection from the social mirror.

Of course, the maturity level of the individual has to be taken into account. We can't expect high creative cooperation from those who are deep into emotional dependence. But we can, at least, affirm their basic nature and create an atmosphere where people can seize opportunities and solve problems in an increasingly self-reliant way.

(From The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey).

Suggestive dancing. Illustration by Elena.

All Nature Is Synergistic

All Nature Is Synergistic

Ecology is a word which basically describes the synergism in nature – everything is related to everything else. It's in the relationship that creative powers are maximized, just as the real power in these Seven Habits is in their relationship to each other, not just in the individual habits themselves.

The relationship of the parts is also the power in creating a synergetic culture inside a family or an organisation. The more genuine the involvement, the more sincere and sustained the participation in analyzing and solving problems, the greater the release of everyone's creativity, and of their commitment to what they create. This is the science of the power in the Japanese approach to business, which has changed the world marketplace.

Sinergy works; it's a correct principle. It is the crowning achievement of all the previous habits. It is effectiveness in an independent reality – it is teamwork, team building, the development interaction or the synergistic process itself, a great deal of synergy is within your Circle of Influence.

You own internal synergy is completely within the circle. You can respect both sides of your own nature – the analytical side and the creative side. You can value the difference between them and use that difference to catalyze creativity.

You can be synergistic within yourself even in the midst of a very adversarial environment. You don't have to take insults personally. You can sidestep negative energy; you can look for the good in others and utilize that good, as different as it may be, to improve your point of view and to enlarge your perspective.

I don"t design clothes, I design dreams (Ralph Lauren).

You can exercise the courage in interdependent situations to be open, to express your ideas, your feelings, and your experiences in a way that will encourage other people to be open also.

You can value the difference in other people. When someone disagrees with you, you can say, “Good! 

You see it differently.” You don't have to agree with them' you can simply affirm them. And you can seek to understand.

When you see only two alternatives – yours and the “wrong” one – you can look for a synergistic third alternative. There's almost always a third alternative, and if you work with a Win/Win philosophy and really seek to understand, you usually can find a solution that will be better for everyone concerned.

Application Suggestions

1. Think about a person who typically sees things differently than you do. Consider ways in which those differences might be used as stepping-stones to third alternative solutions. Perhaps you could seek out his or her views on a current project or problem, valuing the different views you are likely to hear.
2. Make a list of people who irritate you. Do they represent different views that could lead to synergy if you had greater intrinsic security and valued the difference?
3. Identity a situation in which you desire greater teamwork and synergy. What conditions would need to exist to support synergy?  What can you do to create those conditions? 
4. The next time you have a disagreement of confrontation with someone, attempts to understand the concerns underlying that persons's position. Address those concerns in a creative and mutually beneficial way.

(By Stephen R. Covey. The 7 habits of highly Effective People).

Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things... I am tempted to think... there are no little things. (Bruce Barton).

Proactivity Defined

Proactivity Defined

While the word « proactivity is now fairly common in management literature, it is a word you won't find in most dictionaries. It means more than merely taking initiative. It means that as human beings, we are responsible for our own lives. Our behavior is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. We can subordinate feeling to values. We have the initiative and the responsibility to make thing happen.

Look at the word « responsibility » - « response – ability » the ability to choose your response. Highly proactive people recognize that responsibility. They do not blame circumstances, conditions, or conditioning for their behavior. Their behavior is a product of their own conscious choice, based on values, rather than a product of their conditions, based on feelings.

Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default chosen to empower those things to control us.

In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. If the weather is good, they feel good. If it isn't, it affects their attitude and their performance. Proactive people can carry their own weather with them. Whether it rains or shines makes no difference to them. They are value driven; and if their value is to produce good quality work, it isn't a function of whether the weather is conductive to it or not.

We have all known individuals in very difficult circumstances, perhaps with a terminal illness or a severe physical handicap, who maintain magnificent emotional strength. Illustration by Elena.

Reactive people are also affected by their social environment, by the « social weather ». When people treat them well, they feel well; when people don't, they become defensive or protective. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weakness of other people to control them.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person. Reactive people are driven by feelings, by circumstances, by conditions, by their environment. Proactive people are driven by values – carefully thought about, selected and internalzied values.

Proactive people are still influenced by external stimuli, whether physical, social or psychological. But their response to the stimuly, conscious or unconscious, is a value-based choice or response.

As Eleanor Roosevelt observed, «No one can hurt you without your consent». In the words of Gandhi, «They cannot take away our self respect if we do not give it to them.» It is our willing permission, our consent to what happens to us, that hurts us far more than what happens to us in the first place.

I admit this is very hard to accept emotionally, especially if we have had years and years of explaining our misery in the name of circumstance or someone else's behavior. But until a person can say deeply and honestly, «I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,» that person cannot say, «I choose otherwise.»

It's not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us. Of course, things can hurt us physically or economically and can cause sorrow. But our character, our basic identity, does not have to be hurt at all. In fact, our most difficult experiences become the crucibles that forge our character and develop the internal powers, the freedom to handle difficult circumstances in the future and to inspire others to do so as well.

(The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Powerful lessons in personal change. By Stephen R. Covey).

Proactive model: Stimulus — Response — Freedom to choose — self-awareness — independent will — imagination — conscience. Illustration by Elena.

Pirate by Clive Clusser and Robin Burcell

Pirate

By Clive Cussler and Robin Burcell

Sam decided that their overnight trip to the Inn at Spanish Bay and dinner at Roy's on the Monterey Peninsula would have to wait for another day. He contacted his flight crew and had them fly back to San Francisco from the airport in Monterey. Remi was too worried over not being able to in touch with Bree. That, along with this morning's events, had put a damper on Sam's plans for the week. Within a few hours, they were at cruising altitude aboard their G650, relaxing to the soothing allegretto of Beethoven's Seventh. Remi had received a text from Selma that the book arrived this morning in “fairly good shape”, and other than some minor damage to the inside cover, possibly from being jostled during shipping, there was nothing that stood out. No keys or anything else packed with it.

Even with Selma's text, Remi seemed restless. Sam saw her check her phone, then return it to the table, a look of frustration on her face, no doubt hoping to hear from her friend. He wished he could ease her worry. He didn't know Bree Marshall well, but Remi had worked quite closely with her these last few weeks and had grown fond of the young woman.

xx

When they arrived at the San Diego Airport, the drove straight to Bree's apartment in La Jolla. She lived on the second story in a complex about two miles inland. Palm trees lined the parking lot, the offshore breeze rustling the fronds above them. Sam and Remi climbed the stairs, Remi ringing the doorbell, waiting a few seconds, then trying again. When no one answered, Sam knocked sharply. The door behind them opened, and a blond-haired woman poked her head out. “No one's home.”

Going on a treasure hunt. X marks the spot. Photo ob Bahamas by Elena.

“Any chance you know how to reach Bree? Remi asked.

"You are...?”

“Remi Fargo. My husband, Sam. We work...”

“That Foundation. I've heard her mention her job there,” she said, opening the door wider, eyeing both of them. “Just wanted to make sure you weren't some random strangers. She took off suddenly.”

“When?” Remi asked.

“Late last night. I was just getting home, and she was running down the stairs, saying something about her uncle. Going to see him, I think.”

Sam pulled out his wallet, took a business card from it, and handed it to her. “If you hear from her, ask her to give us a call?” It's very important.”

“Of course. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.”

In the car, Sam glanced over at his wife. “She's probably already in San Francisco.”

“I'm sure you're right. I just hate to think how awful this must be for her.”

“She has our number. She'll call. In the meantime, let's go home, check in with Selma, and take a look at this book Mr. Pickering wrapped up for you.”

They lived just a few miles away in the hills of La Jolla's Goldfish Point, overlooking the ocean. The moment they stepped inside from the garage, their massive German shepherd Zoltan, the only Eastern European bilingual dog in the neighborhood (he knew only Hungarian commands), bounded down the hallway toward them, his nails clicking on the tumbled-marble tile floor as he skidded to a stop in from of Remi and Sam.

Children of Time

Enquiring Minds

By Adrian Tchaikovsky

The plague is insidious at first, then tyrannous, and at last truly terrifying. Its symptoms are by now well recorded, reliably predictable – everything in fact, except preventable. The first sure signs are a feeling of heat in the joints, a rawness at the eyes, mouthparts, spinnerets, book-lungs. Muscle spams, especially in the legs, follow; at first just a few, a stammering in speech, a nervous dance not quite accounted for, then more and more the victim's limbs are not her own, leading her in babbling, staggering, whole frantic meaningless journeys. Around this tie, from ten to forty days after the first involuntary twitch, the virus reaches the brain. The victim then relinquishes her grasp on who and where she is. She perceives those around her in irrational ways. Paranoia, aggression and fugue states are common during this phase. Death follows in another five to fifteen days, immediately preceded by an irresistible desire to climb as high as possible. Fabian has recounted in some detail the dead city that he has visited once more: the highest reaches of the trees, and the decaying webbing were crowed with the rigid carapaces of the dead, glassy eyes fixed upwards on nothing.

Prior to those first definitive symptoms, the virus is present in the victim's system for an unknown period but often as long as two hundred days, while slowly infiltrating the patient's system without any obvious harm. The victim feels occasional periods of heat and dizziness, but there are other potential causes for this and the episodes usually go unreported; all the more so because, prior to the disease taking hold in Great Nest – as it now has – any suspected sufferers were exiled on pain of death. Those incubating the disease were part of an inadvertent conspiracy to mask the signs of outbreak for as long as possible.

During this early, innocent-seeming phase, the disease is moderately contagious. Being close to a sufferer for an extended period of time is very likely to lead to oneself contracting the disease, although bites from deranged victims in the last phases are the surest way to become infected.

There have been half a dozen late-stage victims in Great Nest. They are killed on sight, and at range. There are three times as many lingering in the mid-stage, and so far no consensus has been reached regarding them. Portia and others are insistent that a cure is  possible. There is a tacit agreement amongst the temple scientists to conceal just how little idea they have of what can be done.

Portia is making the best uses of Fabian's prizes that she can. The spiderlings came from the plague city, and she can only hope that this means they are immune to the plague, and  that immunity will somehow be amenable to study.

She has tested them, and taken samples of their haemolymph – their arachnid blood – to examine, but all her lenses and analyses have so far discovered nothing. She has ordered that fluids from the spiderlings be fed or injected into mid-stage victims, a manner of transfusion having been pioneered just a few years before. The limited immune system of the spiders means that blood-type rejection is far less of an issue. In this case the attempt has had no effect.

The Dead City. Photo by Elena.

The Three-A Trap

The Three-A Trap

“No” may be the most important word in our vocabulary, but it is also the most difficult to say well..

When I ask the participants in my executive seminars at Harvard and elsewhere why they find it challenging to say No, the most common answers I receive are:

• I don't want to lose the deal.
• I don't want to spoil the relationship.
• I'm afraid of what they might do to me in retaliation.
• I'll lose my job.
• I feel guilty – I don't want to hurt them.

At the heart of the difficulty in saying No is the tension between exercising your power and tending to your relationship. Exercising your power, while central to the act of saying No, may strain your relationship, whereas tending to your relationship may weaken your power.

There are three common approaches to this power-versus-relationship dilemma:

Accommodate: We Say Yes When We Want to Say No

The first approach is to stress the relationship even if it means sacrificing our key interests. This ts the approach of accommodation. We say Yes when we want to say No.

Accommodation usually means an unhealthy Yes that buys a false temporary peace. I give in to a child's demand for a new toy to avoid feeling guilty that I am denying him something he wants, only to find that it just leads to more and more demands – and both of us being trapped in an endless unhappy loop. When the boss asks you to work over the very weekend that you and your spouse have been planning to get away, you grind your teeth and give in, fearing you will lose that promotion you want, even if your family life suffers. All too often, we go along to get along, even if we know it is not the right decision for us. Our Yes is actually a destructive Yes, for it undermines our deeper interests.

Accommodation can also hurt our organizations. Take an example from Chris, a participant in one of my seminars: “I was working on a huge $150 million deal with colleagues at my company. We had worked very hard on it and thought we had done a good job. Just before the deal was finalized I decided to double-check the numbers one last time. As I did the calculations, it became all too clear that the deal was not going to be profitable for us over the longer term. Because everyone was so excited about it, and people could not wait to make it official, I couldn't bring myself to throw a wrench into the works. So I went along, knowing that the project was bad for us and that I should speak up. Well, the deal happened and, as I had feared, a year later we were cleaning up a huge mess. If I had that situation in front of me now, I have no doubt I would speak up. It was a costly but valuable lesson.”

Think about Chris's fear of throwing “a wrench into the works” particularly because “everyone was so excited about it.” We all want to be liked and accepted. No one wants  to look like the bad guy. That is what Chris was afraid would happen if he brought up the uncomfortable facts. Everyone's excitement would turn into anger against him, or so he feared. So he proceeded to OK a dal that he and others later came to greatly regret.

There is a saying that half our problems today come from saying Yes when we should be saying No. The price of saying Yes when we should be saying No has never been higher.

We say No when we want to say Yes. Illustration by Elena.

Attack: We Say No Poorly

The opposite of accommodation is to attack. We use our power without concern for the relationship. If accommodation is driven by fear, attack is driven by anger. We may feel angry at the other for their hurtful behavior, or offended by an unreasonable demand, or simply frustrated by the situation. Naturally we lash out and attack – we say No in a way that is hurtful to the other and destructive of our relationship. To quote one of my favorite lines by Ambrose Bierce: “Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.”

Consider what happened in one large business dealing between a state government and a large corporation the state had hired to build and run a computer system to manage the state's payments to the poor, elderly, and sick. A quarter of the way through the year, the computer system had eaten up half of the state's available budget. Naturally fearful that the budget would soon be exhausted, the state officials canceled the contract and took over the project from the company. The officials were angry at the company, and the company managers in turn were angry at the state, each blaming the other for the problem.

The state officials were nevertheless interested in acquiring the computer and its database from the company because of all its valuable information. The estimated value of the computer system was $50 million. To the company, which had no alternative use for the system, the value of the system was nothing if they could not sell it to the state. To the state, the system was easily worth the $50 million because trying to re-create the data might cost them more – and besides, they did not have the time. Normally, an agreement would not have been at all hard to reach since it was in the interest of both sides. However, because each side's anger led them to attack with destructive Nos, the negotiations descended into finger-pointing. Each side stood up for itself by attacking the other. The result was no agreement and $50 million in value going up in smoke. The years later, the state and the company remained locked in litigation, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on legal expenses. Both sides ended up losing heavily.

Many of our problems come from saying Yes when we should be saying No, surely just as many come from saying No but saying it poorly as the state government and its corporate supplier did. We live in a world in which conflict is ubiquitous – at home, at work, and in the larger society. Think of family feuds, bitter strikes, boardroom fights, or bloody wars. Each time people attack each other, what message are they really delivering? At the heart of every destructive conflict in the world, small or large, is a No. What is terrorism, the great threat of today, if not a terrible way of saying No?

We say No poorly! Photograph by Elena.

Avoid: We Say Nothing at All

A third common approach is avoidance. We don't say Yes and we don't say No; we say nothing at all. Avoidance is an exceedingly common response to conflicts today, particularly within families or organizations. Because we are afraid of offending others and drawing their anger and disapproval, we say nothing, hoping that the problem will go away even though we know it will not. We sit at the dinner table with our partner in cold silence. We pretend that nothing is bothering us at work when in fact we are seething with anger at our co-worker's behaviour. We ignore the injustice and abuse inflicted on others around us.

Avoidance can be costly not only to our personal health, producing high blood pressure and ulcers, but also to our organization's health, as problems fester until they become unavoidable crises.

Avoidance, in whatever domain of life, is deadening. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

The Combination

The three A's – accommodation, attack and avoidance – are not just three separate approaches. Usually, one spills over into the other, resulting in what I call the three-A trap.

We all too often start by accommodating the other. Then, naturally, we begin to feel resentful. After suppressing our feelings for a while, there comes a point when we suddenly explode, only to feel guilty afterward at the destructive impact of our attack. So we lapse back into accommodation or avoidance, ignoring the problem and hoping it will disappear. We are like a mouse caught in a maze, rushing from one box to another but never getting to the cheese.

All three approaches were at work in the crises that hit Royal Dutch Shell in April 2004, when it was revealed to have over-reported its oil reserves by a whopping 20 percent. The company's public reputation was damaged, and its credit rating was reduced, while the chairman, the head of exploration, and the chief financial officer all lost their jobs.

The reason for the false reporting was the chairman's insistence that a barrel in oil reserves be recorded for every barrel pumped out of the ground – to which no one had the courage to say No, despite the clear evidence that what he was demanding was insupportable. Shell's head of exploration tried to raise the alarm but, pressured by the chairman, publicly accommodated even if he privately bristled. The tensions boiled over a year later when, after the chairman gave him a negative personnel evaluation, he counterattacked with a blistering e-mail message that surfaced publicly: “I am becoming sick and tired of lying about the extent of our reserves issues and the downward revisions that need to be done because of far too aggressive/optimistic bookings.”

While the chairman attacked and the head of exploration alternated between accommodation and attack, the chief financial officer resorted to avoidance, hoping that somehow the problem would go away. But it didn't and that somehow the problem would go away. But it didn't and, in the end, resulted in a huge mess with severe consequences for all involved.

We say nothing at all. Photograph by Elena.

Lion, panther, jaguar, tiger

Lion, panther, jaguar, tiger

Lions are social animals that live in prides, in which the females do most of the hunting. They inhabit open plains, though their once vast range is now reduced to the savannas of Africa. Lions are often followed by scavengers from vultures to hyenas, which has contributed to the idea that lions are kings attended by a court. The male has an enormous head and luxuriant mane, which suggests the sun sending forth rays.

Tigers, by contrast, are usually solitary, and they are found in the jungles of Asia and the forbidding hillsides of Siberia. Though normally shy near human settlements, they will occasionally attack human beings.

Panthers, which are almost identical to leopards apart from the color of their fur, are smaller than either lions or tigers, and they rely more on stealth and speed in hunting. They are able to climb trees, where they can hide meat from scavengers, observe while unnoticed, and pounce suddenly upon their prey. Panthers and leopards are solitary, nocturnal hunters, often associated with chthonic realms.

Even in Paleolithic times, the great cats seem to have had a special religious significance, and they were given a place of honor among the cave paintings of Lascaux in a cavern known as the “Chamber of Felines.” At the dawn of urban civilization, people already thought of these animals as primarily feminine. Our words “female” and “feline” both ultimately come from the Latin “felare”, meaning “to suck”. Several figurines of women, possibly goddesses, accompanied by great cats have been found at Çatal Huyuk in Turkey, the earliest known walled town.

In early pantheons, the great cats are most closely associated with feminine deities. Among the foremost of these was the Egyptian Hathor, who was the goddess of love, dance, feminine arts, but was also capable of great fury. When men rebelled against the sun god Ra, she attacked them as a lioness and soon developed an insatiable thirst for blood. When Ra himself was satisfied that the rebellion had been defeated, she continued to kill, and the gods feared that she would destroy all humankind. They left out bats of red wine, and she drank them, mistaking the liquor for blood, fell asleep, and finally awakened with her anger appeased. Hathor in her incarnation as a furious avenger was known as Sekmet and was depicted with the body of a woman and the head of a lioness. The Babylonian goddess Ishtar, in her capacity as a deity of war, was represented standing upon a lion. Lions were harnessed to the chariot of Cybel, the Syrian goddess who was adopted by the Romans as their Magna Mater.

Male lions, however, are just as common in the visual arts of the ancient world. Both the Egyptians and Mesopotamians placed stone lions as guardians on each side of the doorways to temples and palaces, a practice that eventually spread eastwards all the way to China.

In Sumero-Babylonian animal proverbs, which are among the very earliest literary works to have survived, the lion is already established as the king of beasts. This motif soon became one of the most widely established literary conventions, found in fables attributed to the semi-historical Aesop. The lion often appears as a figure of brute power that terrorizes other animals, and the sly fox in one fables observes that many tracks lead into his cave but non lead out. The lion is not always dominant, however, and in another fable the ass and other animals he once tormented beat the aged lion. In African legends as well, the majestic lion frequently falls victim to weaker but cleverer creatures such as the hare. The motif of a lion as monarch has been used in the Hindu-Persian Pancatantra, the Medieval European stories of Renard the Fox, the Narnia stories by C. S. Lewis, and countless other works throughout the world.

(From The mythical zoo by Boria Sax).

Leopard in the Toronto Zoo. Photo by Elena.

Bear in Myth and Legend

Bear in Myth and Legend

By Boria Sax, excerpt from The Mythical Zoo, Animals in Myth, Legend and Literature.

Of all animals, the bear is probably the one that most clearly resembles human beings in appearance. Even apes cannot stand fully upright, and only walk with difficulty. The bear, however, can run on two legs almost as well as a human. Like a person, a bear looks straight ahead, but the expression of bears are not easy for us to read. Often the wide eyes of a bear suggest perplexity, making it appear that the bear is a human being whose form has mysteriously been altered. Bears, however, are generally far larger and stronger than people, so they could easily be taken for giants.

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of bears is their ability to hibernate and then reemerge at the end of winter, which suggests death and resurrection. In part because bears give birth during hibernation, they have been associated with mother goddesses. The descent into caverns suggests an intimacy with the earth and with vegetation, and bears are also reputed to have special knowledge of herbs.

At Drachenloch, in a cave high in the Swiss Alps, skulls of the cave bear have been found facing the entrance in what appears to be a very deliberate arrangement. Some anthropologists believe this is a shrine consecrated to the bear by Neanderthals, which would make it the earliest know place of worship. Others dispute the claim; true or not, the very idea is testimony to the enormous power that the figure of the bear has over the human imagination.

The cult of the bear is widespread, almost universal, among people of the Far North, where the bear is both the most powerful predator and the most important food animal. Perhaps the principal example of this cult today is the one followed by the Ainu, the earliest inhabitants of Japan. They traditionally adopt a young bear, raise it as a pet, and then ceremoniously sacrifice the animal. Eskimo legends tell of humans learning to hunt from the polar bear. For the Inuit of Labrador, the polar bear is a form of the Great Spriti, Tuurngasuk. The name of Arthur, the legendary king of Britain, derives from “Artus,” which originally meant “bear”.

The Great Golden Bear overtaking the Transit Commission System Map. Photo taken by Elena.

Countless myths and legends reflect an intimacy between human beings and bears. The Koreans, for example, traditionally believe that they are descended from a bear. As the story goes, the tiger and the female bear had watched humans from a distance, and they became curious. As they talked together on a mountainside one day, both decided that they would like to become human. An oracle instructed them to first eat twenty-one cloves of garlic, and then remain in a cave for one month. They both did as instructed, but after a while the tiger became restless and left the cave. The mother bear remained, and at the end of a month she emerged as a beautiful woman. The son of Heaven, Han Woon, fell in love her and had a child with her., Tan Koon, who is the ancestor of the Koreans.

The Greek deity Artemis, whose name literally means “bear”, was the goddess of the moon, the hunt, and animals. The bear was also sacred to Diana, her Roman equivalent. In a story from the Roman poet Ovid, the god Jupiter disguised himself as Duana, and then raped her nymph companion Callisto. On realizing that Calliston was pregnant, Diana banished the young girl from her presence. Eventually Callisto gave birth to a boy named Arcas. Juno, the wife of Jupiter, turned Callisto into a bear and forced her to roam the forest in perpetual fear. Arcas grew to be a young man. He went hunting in the forest, saw his mother, and raised his bow to shoot her. At that moment, Jupiter looked down, took pity on his former mistress, and brought both mother and son up to Heaven, where they became the constellation of the great and little bear. This is only one version of the story among many, but the Arcadians traditionally trace their origin to Callisto and her son.

The ancient Hebrews, who were herders, regarded carnivorous animals as unclean, and the bear was no exception. In the Bible, the young David protected his flock against bears (1 Samuel 17:34). The bear became a scourge of God when small boys followed the prophet Elisha and made fun of his bald head. Elisha cursed them, and two she-bears came out of the woods and killed the children (2 Kings 2:23-24). According to tradition, however, Elisha was later punished with illness for his deed.

The Tingit and many other Indian tribes on the northwest coast of the North American continent have told stories of a young woman who was lost in the woods and was befriended by a bear. At first she was afraid, but the bear was kindly and taught her the ways of the forest. Eventually she became his wife. She grew thick hair and hunted like a bear. When the couple had children, she at first tried to teach them the ways of both bears and human beings. Her human family, however, would not accept the marriage, and her brothers killed her husband, whereupon she broke completely with the ways of humans.

No longer greatly feared, the bear has become a symbol of vulnerability. Everybody in the United States who was born before the 1970s or so has seen posters with Smokey the Bear, who was created during World War II to warn people that Japanese shelling might begin a conflagration in the woods of America. When the war ended, the United States Forest Service retained Smokey as a symbol in a campaign to prevent the careless ignition of forest fires. Far from being bestial, he has a rather parental image. He wears human clothes and a forester's hat. His facial expression is mature, friendly, and a little melancholy. Yet if Smokey seems almost absurdly civilized, his role remains that of bears since archaic times – protector of the wild. 

The enormous size of the bear, together with its similarity to human beings, often makes it an object of both awe and derision. Photograph by Elena.