The Bear - life, family, and purpose

People talk about excellence and ambition as if it were that the journey was everything, and the true objective was just an ancillary reward. That's actually false. Excellence is everything. The journey is just preamble.

Most people don't like that bluntness. They'd rather while their entire lives in an ideological cave; ignorant of the fundamental truth, avoiding any assertion to venture outside and survive. And should Icarus ever make the mistake of stumbling into (Plato's) cave, they'd point and laugh at his burnt wings, in the feeble self-assuredness that mediocrity often buys.

For most of my life and perhaps with greater emphasis in these past few weeks, I've been thinking about my purpose. Reflecting on where my life is headed, and what it is that I'm supposed to be doing, more so than anything else. I'm not confused about who I am or who I want to be. But the question I ask myself is if I'm willing to pay the cost?

Paying the cost.

The part of me that's philosophical is a little bit of an idiot all the time. That part of me loves The Bear. Because The Bear doesn't shy away from being in your face about the cost of greatness. The Bear doesn't hide the warning that excellence will destroy you as much as it will make you. But if you're willing to concede that semblance of ordinary as something which never really mattered, that's purpose.

Food, in many ways, defines the essence of who we are. They say you are what you eat, which is an oversimplification but not altogether inaccurate. To craft, to make - that's artistry. To dedicate your life and time into creating. That's effort. Yet when you cook, you don't make just about anything; it's a battle to make us. Cooking for me isn't just nobility and nourishment. It's fierce. It's art. It's purpose, manifest. Hitting boiling point. That's excellence.

I'm not going to spend my time describing scenes of The Bear. Not the music, the light, the plot, the cast. You name it, you won't find it here. This isn't a textual analysis or a frame study. I've known for too long that I don't have the technical wherewithal to contextualise or even address those things. I didn't go to film school. I didn't study photography. I can barely put a sentence together. What I do know, I feel, and strongly enough to manufacture this sermon on what this show makes me feel.

Boiling Point.

The Bear is a monolith of ideas, carved and shaved dextrously, about a family that remains ambiguous about the future of it's purpose. The sacrifices they must make to be great, and the burden of that cross which they must bear, may end up proving all too much for this found family of chefs, of warriors better still. Time will tell if they hit boiling point. And though their fortitude lies hanging in the balance, mine remains callously within my grasp.

And as the Ides of March approach, greatness will break only the ordinary that I have forsaken, but never my fortitude.