I’ve learned so much about fishing from hanging out with regular fisherman, sitting down and listening to their stories. There’s no good book I’ve encountered on how to fish the ocean, especially primitively, and spending time with the old-timers is fruitful in many ways other than just pure skills- it’s fun to hear about different times, other points of view, and how to do things the conventional way.
I find just about everybody amazing once I can get past their intellect to the person inside. So far, anyway!
God, would I love to do what you suggest, heyvictor, and 5 years ago That’s exactly what I would have done. The very thing that prevents me is the thing I wish to escape through learning: my 8 to 6 job.
Like I’ve said elsewhere, I only spend time on the internet talking instead of doing when I am at work. It’s time I couldn’t use for practical skill learning anyway, and so it’s time stolen back for me, not time lost.
So I’m an 8 to 6 corporate office worker (middle management, even) who gets most of his food from a store. Obviously my claims to be a “rewilder” are pretension at best. But like I’ve learned, it’s OK to be a hypocrite, it’s OK to go slow, even a single step back from being a consumer is a positive thing. I don’t need to be a perfect primitive tomorrow, and I shouldn’t push myself or my family too far to fast. And talking about the philosophy during the day, even when I can’t live up to it, keeps me sane and gives me hope that eventually, I will be able to escape.
Damnit, Andrew, every time your post, I respect you more and more.
I totally agree about having to throw hypocrisy out the window. “Rewild” is a verb. I do what I can when I can based on the situation I currently live in. If that makes me a hypocrite in someone else’s eyes, I feel okay with that because I have to chose my path for myself.
cool! i didn't even know you could tan fish skins.
Yet another reason to love the forum.
But I have to say that the self-righteous rude boy attitude that I see floatin' around here would put most of 'em right off.
Could you tell me more about the “self-righteous rude boy” attitude you see, heyvictor? Feel free to PM me if you don’t want to voice these things openly. But I feel like you maybe have misinterpreted something somewhere, and I don’t want you to mistake something for rude when it wasn’t intended that way.
Like I've said elsewhere, I only spend time on the internet talking instead of doing when I am at work. It's time I couldn't use for practical skill learning anyway, and so it's time stolen back for me, not time lost.
You and I ride in the same boat, Andrew. For an analytical cerebralist like myself who wants to get out there and do things, this place functions as the perfect springboard for new experiments and trials in rewilding. I can spend my 8-5 here, filling my brain and then put my body to work when I get home.
Man if you went to a meat cutter who cuts wild game this fall, when hunting season is in full swing and said, "I want to learn what you know, I'll do what ever you want me to do so I can learn how to skin and cut meat." Most of them around here would think it was great. They might not be on the same wavelength as you when it comes to socio-political discourse but in the month or two of deer season you would really learn how it's done. Way better than spending the same amount of time on an internet forum. And they'd probably turn you on to a bunch of wild meat and hides if you want 'em.
Great advice. No better way then to be up front and go out and ask and learn from experienced people. Most of the time people are more than willing to help out if you are willing to work. That is exactly what I have been contacting people about the past few weeks, apprenticing with game meat cutters and learning more hands-on how to skin and cut up large wild game. I learned how to skin and cut up goats from watching and helping experienced folks do it and found that the more goats we skinned and the more times I got to participate and watch the more I got the hang of it. I also found that learning from an experienced tanner was the most practical way to learn how to tan for a beginner. Books have their place but are no substitute for hands-on with an experienced teacher, especially when it comes to outdoor skills.
I have doubts that any in this communication really want the “stone age technology”, visible or invisible, being apart from civilization. But was the paleolithic way of living really so sustainable, as was stated? I will say, there was sustainability in the human population numbers being so low. It was not more sustainable for animals being hunted as opposed to getting food from growing vegetation. Where indigenous people still hunt, their population numbers are low for the area they inhabit. But areas where there is wildlife are diminishing in size, as civilization encroaches everywhere. Rewilding with hunting in these situations is not helping for sustainability. I think though paleolithic living worked, it is too big a change for people to really change to, from the domestication they have been through. Civilization will not work out, with the unsustainability it cannot continue, and will face its end, very possibly sooner than any of us could be ready for. My emphasis is on the most sustainable ways people can come to, at the soonest it may be. I would be foraging and growing things for what is needed, for this most sustainable way possible being needed.
The ultimate goal of any serious bushcrafter or survivalist is to acquire “stone age” skills of the neolithic period. That is to say, begin their wilderness adventures with high quality, factory manufactured equipment purchased from outfitter stores and slowly progress towards being able to construct that same equipment with their own hands via materials provided by nature. The only politics I’ve ever concerned myself with in regards to this quest are the modern politics of containment and control. Modern society, especially government, doesn’t like the idea of fully independent and untraceable citizens. Thus the difficulty in finding large swaths of land not under constant patrol by representatives thereof. As to any religious (codified mythology) aspect, nature can be trusted to instill a sufficient spirituality in the individual that far surpasses anything humans have invented to date. I’ve never felt “religious” in wilderness. But I’ve experienced an extreme spiritual connection with the natural world. Finally, I’m still not entirely clear on what you mean by “Rewilding vs. Primitive Skills and Survivalism.” In my mind and from my experience, the two are inextricably linked. You can’t “rewild” without extended periods of direct contact with nature and you can’t do that without the proper skills and equipment necessary to survive in the wild. Ergo, one must concern themselves with primitive skills and survivalist techniques before attempting to reconnect with the natural world.
