My reading group has chosen two walking books this go-round, one of which is A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. This decades old book is quite famous, perhaps because it is very amusing, and I’d thought it was about walking the Appalachian Trail, but nay. Bill and his buddy Carl do not come within bragging distance of walking the trail. Rather, it is about how and why one might not do so, as they not did.

At the time of their attempt, Bill and Carl were already too old to carry their packs overhead as they forded a stream, one of many fundamental requirements they lacked for success. At 66 1/2–my half-birthday was yesterday!–I also have long lost the ability to hold 40 lbs at arms’ length over my head for multiple minutes. If you have not, kudos.

I’m not super keen on rough camping, prolonged exposure to dangerous weather, sharing rodent-infested cabins with people bereft of plumbing for weeks, or hiking in the woods for six months at a time, so I had never aspired to this conquest, yet I found the book quite compelling. I learned rather more than I needed to know about the AT, a lot about hypothermia, which is harder to avoid than one might suspect, and a good deal about bears. I think about bears differently now.

As a marine mammal rescue worker as well as an aquarium interpreter, I think a lot about how humans interact with animals, and I tend toward the view that while we think we know more than they do, quite the opposite is the case, and Bryson’s observations (all second-hand, admittedly) reinforce this feeling. Bears, as it turns out, do whatever they wish.

When a bear of any sort sees one of us, a number of things could happen. We might make ourselves “big” and loud, or run, or climb a tree. The bear might turn away, perhaps annoyed, perhaps bored, perhaps remembering that we sometimes carry guns that while they rarely kill, can be a bit ouchy. On the other hand, it might maul us, or maul and eat us. Really, it’s just a choice, whatever they feel like, and not at all predictable or related to what we do. Bears are powerful, free animals which do as they please.

Other bears are ok with this.

How different from people! We are forced to conform in myriad ways, every day of our lives, and if we stray may suffer loneliness, social cancellation, or even incarceration, all at the hands of our own species. Whether we have access to food, medical care, or housing depends in large part on how conformist we are–as well as how lucky, where we were born, and what race we are of course, though I’m not dealing with those today.

I wish people could be free to make our own choices without the constant threat of reprisal. I don’t think about that on a personal basis myself, but I’m constantly reminded of it, mostly in the news, wherein one hears of persons denied freedoms ranging from freedom to move about, for committing property “crimes,” to freedom to continue to be alive, for residing in a location targeted for demolition by the “great” powers of the world and their clients.

Things that bears never, ever worry about.

I’ve also been reading Bernie Sanders book It’s Ok to Be Angry About Capitalism, though I have to take it in small doses. That’s not because I disagree with him. I think that people should be mostly concerned with each other, that no one should be hungry or homeless or unable to get treatment when they’re sick, and that we could easily accomplish this in our post-industrial world if it were a priority, which clearly it is not. No, the hard thing about reading this book is how great a case he makes for Doing the Right Thing and how unlikely it is, I’d say impossible, that we will ever, ever do it, at least not in the US.

Why does everyone want to come here? It’s not as portrayed on TV, unless you’re watching The Wire. Better to set your sights on living as bears do.