#jon mccormack

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In most instances, feeding a grizzly is a bad idea for both bears and people.

© Jon McCormack

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GRIZZLY BEAR

With TNC's support, First Nations have developed rigorous scientific data on grizzlies. Thanks to these efforts, British Columbia banned grizzly bear hunting in 2017.

© Jon McCormack

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WHALES

The Great Bear Sea is home to several whale species, including orcas, humpback whales, and fin whales.

© Jon McCormack

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SPIRIT BEAR

A recessive gene makes approximately one in ten black bears as white as a polar bear. Only about 400 spirit bears persist in remote regions of coastal British Columbia.

© Jon McCormack

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A Kermode bear or “spirit bear” (Ursus americanus kermodie) on Gribbell Island in the Great Bear Rainforest in Canada.

Photo: Jon McCormack

[torenhoog]

[alunah-lalunah]

Enlightenment: The Consolation Prize for Failure

This perspective strips religious philosophy down to its bare utility. The doctrine of impermanence may be seen as merely a catchy psychological balm, if not propaganda, designed to rebrand worldly failure as spiritual triumph.

By balancing the fleeting nature of existence with the claim that life is precious, spiritual systems keep people engaged; otherwise, pure impermanence would just lead to a logical, paralyzing nihilism. When a person completely fails to achieve the standard markers of human success lacking love, money, status, or any realized desire then society needs a way to rationalize their continued survival. Calling them an "awakened sage" or "enlightened" solves this problem perfectly.

It takes someone who has absolutely nothing left, someone whose persistence defies normal human logic, and invents a narrative that they see a higher truth. In reality, the glorification of non-attachment is just a clever safety net, transforming a lack of material achievement into the ultimate, fabricated virtue.

Because if a person has no success, no love, no meaningful projects, no achievements, and no engagement with life, what exactly distinguishes enlightenment from adaptation to deprivation? That is a difficult question because from the outside the two states look similar.

The enlightened sage says, "I no longer need these things." The exhausted person says, "I no longer expect these things." Or I can't get them, but on the outside I say "I don't care about them". The words may be almost identical. The inner reality may be completely different.

Is this wisdom born from fullness, or wisdom born from exhaustion?

Prominent religious figures or philosophical authors spend thousands of pages discussing desire, suffering, attachment, and enlightenment. Yet that simple question often remains in the background, rarely examined directly. And it should be one of the first questions asked, not the last.

The reason is simple. A philosophy is not merely a collection of ideas. It is also a response to a human condition. Before deciding whether a map is accurate, it is worth asking what kind of traveler drew it and what landscape forced them to draw it that way. Because your path may not become the road less traveled, but the road lost.

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The Holy Trap

Imagine repeating exactly the same afternoon forever. No change occurs. No growth happens. No risk exists. Many people first see this as paradise. Yet, reflection reveals it as a prison. This is the exact trap facing a target of impermanence propaganda. The individual sits completely stuck. He cannot alter his reality. He knows he cannot earn money. He cannot pursue relationships. He experiences total stagnation. All personal agency vanishes.

Just when despair peaks, the self-healing gurus and religious brigades arrive with a twisted piece of logic. They tell the survivor that outlasting this agonizing stagnation makes them superior to ordinary people. Choosing life in such hardships means achieving true enlightenment. Through this clever manipulation, a horrific trap is suddenly rebranded as a glorious badge of spiritual honor.

This scenario is describing a psychological danger that can occur when teachings about impermanence are received by people whose lives already contain very little agency, opportunity, or hope. Imagine a person who feels trapped because they are powerless against the reality in which they live. No meaningful work, intimacy, achievement. No realistic path toward changing their circumstances. If that person hears, "None of those things matter anyway," the teaching can become deeply attractive. Not because it is true but ecause it removes the burden of comparison. The painful gap between what one wants and what one has suddenly disappears. The game itself is declared meaningless. That is psychologically elegant. If I cannot win the race, the race is an illusion. If I cannot obtain the prize, the whole competition was worthless.

This is precisely the sort of mechanism Nietzsche worried about. This way certain doctrines can function as adaptive narratives for people who feel defeated by ordinary human goals. The narrative says that you are not unsuccessful but have transcended success. You are not unloved but you have transcended attachment. You are not powerless but ou have transcended worldly concerns. You are not stuck but you have awakened. One can immediately see why such a narrative would be attractive. It transforms loss into superiority. Defeat into wisdom. Limitation into transcendence.

Now, that does not prove the narrative is false. Sometimes people genuinely discover that they no longer care about things they once cared about. But it does mean that the psychological incentive structure deserves closer examination.