Today PMB mourns the loss of a fellow bear, the Berlin Zoo's world-famous Knut the Polar Bear. As this report suggests, Knut, who was a healthy, four-year-old cub, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly.
Humans come and go, and, with the capacity to experience suffering in such a panoply of ways, largely fail and disappoint, as 'elevated' creatures, to reduce suffering in the world. When such an embodiment of human joy as our beloved polar bear cub succumbs to death so young, the tragedy is almost too much to bear. PMB is a most melancholy creature today. In what kind of fucked up world does such a thing happen?
Let us hope that the speculation of Peter Trophimof in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard applies to bears: 'Perhaps [bear] has a hundred senses, and when he dies the five senses that we know perish with him, and the other ninety-five remain alive...'
We will miss you dearly, Knut.
