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awakening

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Watch AWAKENING on Odysee

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Video editing: 

Montag

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Music:​

Nomine - Awakening
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Movie:

The Bear (1988) - Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud - Mushroom Scene

Bears Discover Fire - Directed by Ben Leonberg - Discover the Bear Scene

Smokey the Bear - Only You 70's Commercial

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The opening segment “Dawn of Man” in Stanley Kubrick’s 1969 film 2001: A Space Odyssey depicts the rudimentary life of a group of prehistoric hominids, competing for territory and food with other animals and another tribe, and constantly threatened by predators.

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But one day, a black monolith silently appears near the place where they sleep, and contact with it triggers a cognitive shift: one of the hominids discovers that bones can be used as tools and weapons; they begin hunting more efficiently and drive out the rival tribe.

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The segment ends with the leader celebrating and tossing a bone into the air and, in one of the most brilliant match cuts and narrative leaps in the history of cinema, the scene cuts to a spacecraft, symbolizing a jump of millions of years of technological evolution.

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There are many unanswered questions about the dawn of our species, the awakening that brought us this far, but between what we know and what we imagine, at some point Homo sapiens decided to stand upright, gaining a broader view of their surroundings, sensing new smells and following the directions their noses led them, and began to migrate.

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New horizons, the birth of perspective, the emergence of dietary variation, the loss of fear of thunder and lightning, and the awareness of changing seasons.

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And yet, that alone does not explain the evolutionary leaps of the species — and here comes the Stoned Ape Theory, or more precisely, mushrooms.

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It is said that the psychedelic effects of mushrooms very likely gave our species a sudden increase in mental synapses, and that the creative spark made us perceive and admire the beauty and usefulness of fire; it also very likely allowed us to better observe the shapes of things and, possibly, to invent the wheel.

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Just as important, we developed mental abstraction and a sense of collaboration, along with a collective euphoria, and then came language, mathematics, and music.

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We even invented a god to blame.

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But that’s not all — there is also the clearly observable possibility that other higher bipedal mammals are undergoing the same process, such as monkeys, chimpanzees, and, most notably, bears.

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Researchers and wildlife observers have noted that bears often pause to sit silently, staring out at mountains, rivers, or sunsets for long stretches of time and while science hasn’t fully explained the behaviour, many believe it may mirror a human-like appreciation for calm, beauty, and solitude in nature.

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Bears have also been seen using stones as tools, approaching campsites just to stay near campfires, and are famously known for their fondness for getting high on mushrooms.

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In the United States, a typical scene in many suburban towns is the dumpster-diving bear — high or not — rummaging through household trash, licking Doritos empty bags and leftover mac and cheese.

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High is the wonderful, percussive track Awakening by Nomine, which now lends its name and energy to the sensational sequence of bear awakening in The Bear (1988), directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud.

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And if bears discover fire, we don’t know what will happen — they could rebel, take the evolutionary spotlight, or simply tell good stories around the campfire with the hedgehog from Hedgehog in the Fog, or just hang out with humans like in Terry Bisson’s short story Bears Discover Fire.

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Smokey the Bear will have more and more work running campaigns to prevent wildfires, and we’ll have to fight over salmon with our fists.

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There is no copyright infringement intended, the material used in this is purely for entertainment purposes, and it will be removed by request.

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