Selective Delusions

The thing is about Timothy Treadwell is that he seems selective in lying to himself. He fully accepts that he's an outcast in the human world -- in his videos, he's very open about his failed relationships with women. He seems very depressed about that aspect of his life, and has no idea how to fix it, as he laments in the videos. He seems just as misguided in the animal world, yet he doesn't acknowledge it in the same way. Instead, he builds up the delusion that he is a king among the bears, protecting them from evil poachers and living in harmony with them. In reality, the bears merely tolerate him as long as he stays away -- they get kind of freaked out when he tries to touch them. They're not his friends, no matter how many times Treadwell follows them around chanting, "I love you, I love you, thank you for being my friend, I love you." They don't care about him and they don't need him, just like the women Treadwell encounters in the human world. Why can't he realize it? It's fascinating to observe the way Treadwell seems to have built up his own world in Alaska, a delusion where he can be content with his life. None of what he says about his experiences with the bears -- that they're his friends, that they like him -- seems to be true, but he doesn't realize it. He doesn't recognize the parallels between the human and animal worlds. Or maybe he does, and he's just incredibly dedicated to believing that the animal world is different. Maybe it's all a matter of willpower, of deciding to believe in something -- in his case, the love of the bears -- until it becomes true inside his mind.