About that bear cub...

In my last post, I compared our ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS cycle — especially the SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION part — to the old European belief that bears were born as shapeless lumps that had to be licked into shape by their mothers.

(Yes, that’s where the phrase comes from. I had always presumed it meant that one had to be beaten or whipped to become what the abuser wanted.)

And it probably feels like that at times for those of us who MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT: We stand there, looking at that shapeless lump that we’ve produced, and becoming increasingly frustrated that it just doesn’t look like the shinyperfect that was in our head. Who wouldn’t want to pick up a cane and whack the crap out of it until it shaped up?

Instead, we should learn from Mama Bear and patiently, kindly, with love or at least concern, lick that bärklumpen until it’s adorable.

(Should we capitalize that, do you think? Should it be Bärklumpen or bärklumpen? It’s pronounced behr-kloomp-en, by the way. The umlauted ä is already a bit of a finger-twister to type; adding a capital B to the mix is probably a bit much. Also, bärklumpen is also the plural.)

Anyway.

The image/metaphor of the bärklumpen is very helpful, I think. I know that I always hope that what I’ve brought forth is a baby goat — a couple of helpful licks and off it goes, all cute and boingy-boingy from the very start.

But that almost never happens. I get a bärklumpen, or worse, a kitten whose eyes aren’t even open. Or worse, a joey, who climbs into a pouch somewhere and won’t even show its face for most of a year.

The bottom line is that we’re all stuck pushing out bärklumpen or worse, and all we can do is start licking.

Okay, fine, here: Look at the BABY BEARS YOU GUYS!