It’s Giving (Momma) Bear: On the Way Out of Goals, Passion, and Misery

We seem to know that goals make us miserable. But we keep setting them anyway, like clockwork—because we don’t know how to live without them. Jenny Craig is counting on that.

FX’s hit series The Bear helpfully illustrates why we are not wrong to think that goals are the literalization of our passions, and that our passions are the sources of our misery. Passion makes us miserable because it immunizes us against receiving (the touch of) O/others. 

But The Bear also reveals something else: maternal love—unexpected, unconditional—can free us from passion’s grip.

In season 3, episode 9 of The Bear, Uncle Jimmy (Oliver Platt) makes a distinction between passions and goals (You can watch the entire scene here):

Well, dreams are a son of a bitch, aren’t they? I went to this lecture series, U of Chicago. . . . Anyway, dreams, they always. . . start from a place of passion, right?

And, by the way, when I say dreams, I mean goals, not like when you’re, you know, asleep and you’re stuck at the bottom of a swimming pool, and your fucking teeth keep floating up out of your head. And you look down, and you have a fucking tattoo of a bulldog on your cock.

Anyway, so I’m at this lecture, and it’s called The Day Tomorrow Began, right? It’s all about these breakthroughs in, like, science and fucking culture and whatever . . . . Crazy fucking shit, let me tell you. Like carbon dating . . . .  It’s inspiring, really.

Because it’s kind of like, if you really nurture these dreams, these goals, no matter how batshit crazy they sound—and trust me. There are, like, 15 more of these breakthroughs—positively fucking idiotic, right?

But you can make an impact, right? You can actually change the fucking world, as long as you have a place like the university to, you know, take care of you, to let you do your thing, let you drive, right?

And, uh, keep you financed. I just remember the whole time thinking, “Whew, not everything can be that. . . .”

Jimmy’s lecture mirrors a dream of floating teeth and bulldog-tatted cocks, but its warning about passion is clear enough.

Dreams, “like when you’re, you know, asleep,” are “a place of passion.” Goals “start from a place of passion,” from your dreams. Your dreams (re)surface your passions. In your dreams, your “teeth” come out of your head to speak your mind, and your “dog” is free to sniff out a place to piss on the world. 

Goals (i.e., teeth and bulldogs) are forms of passion. And they ain’t pleasant. They’re “a son of a bitch,” “crazy fucking shit,” and “positively fucking idiotic.”

The idiotic—or passionate—person hasn’t lost their mind. Their teeth are speaking it. What they’ve lost is their head—their, I say, pleasure.

Passion sacrifices pleasure. As the late Leo Bersani writes, “Passion is an obstacle to pleasure” (Receptive Bodies, vii). 

Passion blocks your pleasure by immunizing you against the reception of O/others—for example, the university you need to “take care of you,” the investors you need to “keep you financed,” the business partner, family members, and/or girlfriend you need to run a successful restaurant and experience something like a good life. 

Your goals get realized—if they do—in spite of you. More importantly, goals immunize you against yourself. 

Season 4 Spoiler Alert! “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

In season 4 of The Bear, we learn that being a world-class chef is more than Carm (Jeremy Allen White) can bear (You can watch the final scene of season 4 here and here):

I—I think I have put a lot of stuff in the way, of not dealing with other stuff. . . . And I think I’m trying to run into that. All right. So, I’m not blocked by it anymore. I’m not scared of it anymore. I’m not sprinting from it anymore.

. . . . 

I don’t know what I’m like, Richie. . . . Like, outside of the kitchen.

We know what Carm is like inside the kitchen. He is like his mother inside the kitchen (I only recently completed watching season 2 of The Bear because episode 6, “Ma Does Seven Fishes,” caused me so much anxiety that I could not bear to finish watching it). 

Carm’s curiosity about what he’s like outside the kitchen is also inspired by his mother, who is now in a similar position. Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) offers her apology for years of parental neglect just outside of their family home’s kitchen (You can watch the scene here):

I’m trying to make things better. And I am–I’m here asking if I can be part of your life again because I miss you. And I– I know I never said it enough–I know I didn’t–but I love you, Carmen.

You’re my baby bear. I know. And I love you. And I’m so sorry. I just didn’t say it enough. I just didn’t.

Donna’s unexpected apology—her unexpected expression of sincere maternal love—somehow moves Carm to think about his pleasure, about who he may be outside of the kitchen.

Maternal love redeems us from our passions, and it opens us to ourselves. Lots of love to you, dear reader, in 2026.