Well, I’m back from a visit to my mountain cabin and though I failed in my first try to start a fire (I guess the wrong wood combination, as I could drill through the board but got nothing but smoke), I got rid of a huge burden… Books! I burned them and spread the ashes over the earthen roof. Now they will protect me from rain and snow instead of exposing my mind to the winds of useless thoughts and thoughts and thoughts. Now I feel freer, because I have less stuff to take with myself everywhere I go; I feel wilder because I’m not restricted to any definite idea anymore (like a machine that responds to certain inputs and ignores the rest); I feel more like a human and less like an agent who is expected to process ideas to be “useful”, now I’m less useful!
I’ll feel happy to know your ideas. MR
Well hey, I know a lot of people here like reading (myself included), but reading is subjective, reading books, reading people, reading the environment… etc.
I support this thread.
While I support the idea, I still need the knowledge that books provide until I can be surrounded by people that can teach me instead, so I still hold great value in field guides of edible wild plants, instruction books about how to make things, and books like that…
But I definitely hear you! Less “stuff” = more freedom! Good job! And good luck!
-emily
Hey Emily, Guides and that sort of stuff are indeed different. Though I prefer to have them on my PC and not on paper, I absolutely don’t recommend burning them.
We set out in the spring
With a trunk full of books about everything
About solar devices
And how nice natural childbirth is
Recall it?! That is what I meant. You head into wilderness to live free and ironically pack a whole lot of books, mental hooks of civ, about EVERYTHING!
This won’t let you break free, no matter how far you run.
And about that “stuff” thing. When I decided to stop smoking I started smoking as much as I could! that way I developed the hatred I hadn’t. Get my point?
Hey MR! I think that brings up another question, too, how much is the internet just a replacement for books? I mean, you can pretty much find any information on here that you can in books… but i still like to have a field guide to carry with me, which I cannot do with the internet. Thanks for the clarification between guides and such and other books that tie you to civ, I see now…
I definitely see your point about breaking free of the mental hooks of civ. I think the main thing with books is that people used to know all this information, it being passed down from generation to generation, but now it has to all be in books for people to learn from because knowledgeable people are too rare, inaccessible, or non-existent, for us to learn like we are meant to, not from books, but as a natural process of living. Also, things like solar power and such are not going to be feasible out in the “wild” without modern technology… so I understand what you’re saying about that stuff!
I like this, I like this a lot.
-emily
hey questioning child thanks!
Emily, I agree that some data that used to (indeed have to ) pass on orally are now available only in books, but not in every book you find something worthwhile. Not every word has a meaning!
And although right now I need guids to carry with myself, I’m sure one can Learn things needed to be known. As a story tells about Ghazali, a 10th c. sufi, when bandits struck his caravan he told them I just have books please don’t take them, A bandit replied what’s the use of knowledge that comes to naught if I take the books away?! If I need to have a book on botany to know what to eat and what not to, do I really know the veg.?
We should look at books as means and not as necessities. MR
That’s a great parable! So true…
We should look at books as means and not as necessities. MR
I agree, thanks for the discussion, MR!
-emily
i’ve found that once i’ve really seen and met a plant, i’ll be able to recognize it very quickly & easily (even if i’m driving past it at 60 mph), but there’s still a lot of plants i don’t really know all that well.
We should look at books as means and not as necessities.
Yea I feel the same way. All the info on the internet, it’s useful, but it’s probably better to read some, go apply that knowledge and be done with it instead of lugging around 20 pounds of books or a computer into the countryside. I am a minimalist when it comes to material possessions, this was in fact one of the reasons why I first started re-wilding in my own way, because I felt burdened with too many things and the whole produce-consume useless junk mentality. I feel more free the less things I have, which is also why I like the desert as material things are reduced to the bare necessities and you can live with very few possessions.
In a way I see libraries as these vast knowledge repositories but on the other hand at the same time they feel like dead museums. Like an artificial tree in place of a real one. There is no wind or sun or outdoors there, it’s very sterile and the atmosphere is not one of festivity or joy. It’s all “hush hush keep your voice down others are trying to read”.
There is also something to be said about the information overload produced by the internet.
Man, even from a rewiling perspective, I can’t get behind this. Get rid of your books, surely, but destroy them? Gah, you just hit one of my sacred cows. Here I am trying to find room for More books.
I enjoi libraries, I own probably 10 books total… inc. harry Potter series which my grandma got me. Not including my text books for school