Berenstein/stain Bears

Do you remember The Berenstain Bears?

Do you, like millions of others, misremember them as the Berenstein Bears? I remember reading about this years ago, and now the web has caught up – people are freaking out about glitches in the Matrix, alternate realities, and other malarkey.

Brace for impact…

It’s always been “Berenstain”.

I very vividly remember my 2nd grade teacher “correcting” my saying “stain” in front of the entire class. I used to read books to the class, repeatedly, every week. The Pokey Little Puppy, The Monster at the End of This Book, and a bunch of other favorites that my mom used to read to me.

The Berenstain Bears was one of them.

This phenomena was created by adults without appreciation for detail, who propagated one mispronunciation to impressionable young minds. It’s the same as everyone playing Monopoly incorrectly for decades.

Human minds naturally trust ubiquity & do not reprocess solved problems.

The lesson? People all around you accidentally influence your perceptions, in ways that have seemingly invisible yet long-lasting effects.

Concepts like discrimination, racism, classism, ageism, and so on, are ideas handed down to us by the people that came before us.

You can continue believing what your memories have convinced you over-time as real, or you can accept reality as it presents itself today, tomorrow, and everyday thereafter.

There are no super heroes or villains. No aliens. No ghosts. No time travel. And definitely, without question, no Berenstein Bears. 🐻