Post on 06-Apr-2018
8/2/2019 Grizzly App Essay
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Leon Moore
19 October 2009
The perception of normalcy in the present culture isdefined by how well one is able to fit in. A person must be able
to let go of their own beliefs, and be sucked into a world that
seeks to steal cultural identities and replace them with “the
norm”. To be normal in today’s society is to break away from
oneself and to strive to be someone else. One has to convince
themselves that he or she is normal based upon society’s
definition of normal. This disillusioned interpretation of
normal has, not surprisingly, been developed by the current
society, celebrities, and the media.
In viewing Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man”, and analyzing the
seemingly abnormal Timothy Treadwell, who spent thirteen summers
with wild Alaskan grizzly bears, the question was asked,” How
come brilliancy has to come from outside the box of normalcy?”
The image of brilliancy, much like the image normalcy, has been
seriously distorted. Brilliancy, like normalcy, starts in the
mind. It all deals with the way one thinks. Normal-minded people
tend to think inside of a box. This box restricts the higher
levels of thought that are often reached by brilliant people.
There are two problems with recognizing true brilliance.
The first is that some of the people who are stamped as
brilliant in our society are actually normal. They have tried toescape the box of their limited thinking, but allowed the “need”
to be normal to pack them further inside the box. A great
example is the explorer Christopher Columbus. Columbus almost
broke free from the box-like mentality by thinking that he could
reach India by sailing west. But upon arriving in the Americas,
Columbus then proceeded to kill and plunder like the rest of the
conquerors that conquered before him, keeping him inside the box
of society’s “normal”
The second problem with recognizing true brilliance is that
when brilliant people are honored, only the image of the person
is honored. The legacy and beliefs of the brilliant are often
left with the brilliant because they are too abnormal to conform
to. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was a brilliant man. Unfortunately
the only thing that he is honored for is what he was widely
known for, his contribution to the civil rights movement he is
not honored in his efforts to end the militarism of our
government. Dr. King did not like how the United States acted as
the world’s super police. Now over 40 years after his death the
8/2/2019 Grizzly App Essay
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United States continues to be the super police in every country
that has a problem.
True brilliance is most often achieved by the “little
people” rather in our communities than the large looming figures
in our society. True brilliance lies in the mind of the single
mother or father that is doing everything to provide for their
children with the little resources that they have. True
brilliance lies in the mind of the firefighter that runs inside
of the burning building without hesitation to save a life. They
have allowed themselves to think outside the box of fear and
failure that normal people frequent.
Now the question again arises, how come brilliance has to
come from outside the box of normalcy? It all boils down to
man’s need for competition. Someone has to be, to have, or to do
better than someone else. If everyone was brilliant, then
brilliancy would be the norm. Man would not and could not beable to compete. There would be nothing to strive for and nobody
to look up to. The world would be stuck in a cycling system of
societal socialism where everyone would be the same, where
everyone would be normal.