Wednesday, June 12, 2013

The Many Headed Hydra of Motivation:

This is a post by Mike Akaganglian 
Again I find myself contemplating the motivations of many of those who comprise the community. And every now and then I consider it from a little bit of a different angle. I'll lead off with my own motivations, I want this mystery solved. Whether the creature exists or whether it doesn't, I want to know. I don't need to be the one who solves it, but I want to know. My take from that angle is pretty simple, yay or nay, I wanna know.

Branching out from there let's take a look at the apparent manifested motivations demonstrated by others as we witness to the various daily news on the mystery is it trickles out of the various outlets, face book, youtube, twitter, etc. And motivation is key. How I write is indicative of my motivations as much as how someone reacts to reading it. So let's start by applying my motivation in a broader context. First of all, method.

From my standpoint, under a hypothetical of being in the field and finding something interesting, conjecture is a waste of time, IF, you don't do the forensics, etc to make every effort to identify the source. My usual approach generically speaking is to begin with the most known, the most obvious potential source and attempt to confirm or rule out it as the source. From there you begin the trek backwards towards the least likely source, eliminating each of the most likely as you can or can't and ultimately you will find the culprit or end up with something strange. Once you get to that point, then you have an interesting find, and the sad truth is that the typical yield is inconclusive. It's a crappy reality but that is the case when you are looking for evidence of something that has eluded discovery for so long. But it's also the correct approach in getting hard evidence. Anecdotal evidence solves nothing. Audio unfortunately without visual confirmation of the audial source doesn’t do much better. Once you get things that can be touched, tracks, to a degree, hair, scat, etc, then you have something to work with. The other sad truth is that technology has advanced video/photography means that hoaxing has greatly damaged the potential evidence coming from that particular direction. I'm not trying to be a downer, but blobsquatchs and pareidolic pictures, let alone flat out deception has done the harm and those who distribute that crap are at fault.

But those things are the physical, you also can't rule out the mental aspects as well. That is where motivation creeps back into the equation. From the viewpoint that I've already specified, and from where other approach the mystery, here's the question. Do they actually want it solved? Most people will say yes, but, consider motivation. There are those who are in it with a scientific outlook, and in their case they likely do want to see a day when a potential squatch type creature is proven to exist, acknowledged by mainstream and possibly protected as well. Not to mention they get the pleasure of telling folks I told ya so. That's the sciency types. But you also have the more paranormal minded types and those who are newer to the mystery, the so called finding bigfoot generation, and the hucksters/hoaxers and those who otherwise riding the wave. So looking each mindset, here's my take. It's highly possibly that those who see the creature as something paranormal often feel they already have the truth, or some knowledge no one else does, or if it's some kind of resident of the Spirit World then there's no need in their mind to "solve" the mystery.

From where I stand they don't want the fantasy world interrupted by the real world, my opinion, but the motivation clearly isn't the same. Next you have the Finding Bigfoot generation, effectively BFRO groupies. Not meaning to lump all of these folks or the BFRO under one umbrella, but for the newer elements of this segment of the community many are still finding their way through this community and many I have noticed have a certain trait. They like to be "titillated" or "Blair witched on night operations. They enjoy the snipe hunt factor often and as a result they don't seem to want to know what's making that vocal, or knocking sounding, it ruins the giddy thrill of it. With any luck they will outgrow this mindset and begin to pursue the research with a more serious bent, otherwise in my own take they as just as well off taking up ghost hunting. One could argue the various mindsets are competing for the hearts and minds of these folks. Then we walk across the train tracks to the other side of town.

The hoaxers are easy, they enjoy the attention, they enjoy being pranksters, and as far as solving the mystery goes, they are effectively useless. They should be ignored and ostracized, but yet they're not. In my opinion that's only part of what's in the way of the end game, there's a whole slew of people who have been around the block with the Community and one really has to wonder how badly they want to see the mystery solved. The BFRO's cash cow would quite possibly run out. Speaking appearances might not carry the same appeal, especially if squatchy were proven not to exist. It might sound cynical but if you look around there's a certain percentage who seem to have a vest interest in not having the solved, and the underlying motivation seems to be profit. I have nothing against someone's desire to make a buck, provided it's done ethically, but when it's in the way of any actual research related progress, it's, in the way.

I've been watching and am curious about the Falcon Project, which in concept is an intriguing idea, but it's taking on some old patterns of late. Donations yes, but there will be a point where the right minded will want a return on the invest so to speak. It's got some big names attached to it, Meldrum among them, so it would be painful to see this project tank like the Ketchum farce did. Anyway, that's my take on motivation from the standpoint of wanting to see the thing solved. In my opinion not everyone wants to.

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1 comment:

  1. If the Falcoln Project isn't free and interactive I'm gonna be pissed.