A full bookshelf, to some people, is like a genteel version of a stuffed bear, or an enormous mounted pike. A record of beasts overcome, semi-public and concrete.

Of course, the process of obtaining a stuffed bear, of waiting by a salmon-rich river for just the right moment and then having the body stuffed in the most threatening posture possible, is nowhere near as hard as making a bear – enduring cold nights and winters, perpetually struggling for the necessities (some might say, bear necessities) of life. Hunting a bear is sport; being a bear is, well… the entirety of an existence. It is not something you can just roleplay at the weekends, it is something that you have to struggle with every moment of your life.

I wrote this on a Saturday. I am a hunter, not a bear. But I thought it up while trying to sleep, already halfway through to the next morning. I am a bear, not a hunter.