Read time 3 minutes. Season 4 of The Bear explores chaos, dissonance, and the search for balance.
In season 4 of The Bear, the clock is always ticking down to zero—
and never ticking at all.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” says Carmy.
“Tomorrow is today,” replies Cousin.
At one point, Philip K. Dick is arbitrarily quoted:
“Everything in life is just for a while…”
Of course, arbitrarily is unfair. In season 4, nothing is arbitrary.
The Bear strives toward multitudes. No big question is off limits.
One clock is set to hit zero—and then the money stops coming in.
Another clock is left unset, flashing 12 o’clock for infinity.
It’s a struggle for balance. A hunger for harmony.
A search for center in the midst of uncertainty and chaos.
But then the question is posed:
“Dissonance. What does that word mean to you?”
“Harmonically fucked.” That is the reply.
All of this is compounded by that voice in the head—obnoxious, relentless—
claiming it’s only trying to help.
“It’s pretty loud in there, isn’t it?” Claire asks Carmy.
But then she drives it home:
It’s loud in there for everybody.
None of us are immune to the incessant chatter in our heads.
Not to the criticism.
Not to the fear.
Nor to the worry.
These selves that are not ourselves.
These bears that seemingly cannot be tamed.
The kitchen isn’t just where it happens in The Bear
—it is what happens.
Sure, The Bear leans dramatic.
But these struggles are real, and they are universal.
The whirlwind that endlessly bombards them in the kitchen
isn’t reserved for the kitchen alone.
Not on The Bear, and not in our own lives.
And it’s loud in there for all of us.
But then there’s Cousin Richie’s revelation—
which hits him, right in the eye of the storm.
He’s pondering a Zen garden—
those calming fields of raked sand and stoic boulders.
Are the rocks planets? Countries?
Families or people?
Are they expressions of the separation between us?
Are they alone?
Then there is the sand, which connects them.
And it dawns on Richie—he’s not a rock.
He’s the sand that joins all of the different planets in his system.
He’s the sand that keeps them all together.
No, it’s not Zen. Not in the traditional sense, anyway.
But it’s not-not Zen either.
Clearly, undoubtedly, it is the seed of Zen—
the birth of a particular type of desire:
for something different.
Something sustainable.
Something less and something more.
Cousin Richie’s moment of clarity exemplifies a deep, subtle, and important truth.
The Zen garden teaches without telling.
It points and directs.
Only when Richie feels it all slipping away—
the teaching completes itself
and becomes clear.
Dissonance. What does that word mean to you?
Each of us has our own rhythm.
For Richie, the realization of balance and harmony
comes by way of a continuous dance
between experience and understanding.
Until finally, one day, the dance of experiential understanding dances itself—
a revelation.
And then, in the end, there is a deeper revelation…
Are you a rock?
Or are you the sand?
To some degree, it depends on how you see yourself.
If the Zen garden could speak, it might say something like:
You are the rock.
You are the sand.
You’re the Zen garden—
Holding it all together.
(Even Dwayne Johnson is sometimes the sand. That’s how it works. Go figure.)
Now get your Zen together.
Lest you remain harmonically fucked.
Explore more:
Curious about Zen gardens? Explorer and art historian Langdon Warner observed that Japanese gardens are designed “to express the highest truths of religion and philosophy precisely as other civilisations have made use of the arts of literature and philosophy”. This article on BBC will tell you everything you ever wanted to know about Zen gardens and more.
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