Survival Instinct

Visions of the Rewilding Renaissance Rewilding Mind & Heart
#1

For some reason this:

Made me think of a question I’d like to ask of the group. Do you think our desire to rewild is a result of an all natural survival instinct? Do you think most people are just so out of touch with their natural instincts that they’ve lost the vital survival instinct inherent in all living beings?

I know some people think of rewilding as a sort of rebellion, or a revolution, against civilizations horrifying destruction. But I take a very different perspective on it, one that I find to be more embedded, if you will, into my psyche.

Common sense would tell anyone that the world is ending right? Sooner or later iron oar will run out, clean water will run out, petroleum will DEFINITELY run out, silicon will run out, coal will run out, basically at the rate of extraction that civilization utilizes no resource can be everlasting. Coming to this conclusion of unavoidable collapse my survival instinct kicked in and I instantly started wanting to learn how to live without civilization. I then started the process of seeking out the necessary skills in order to survive without civilization.

I would just like to hear some other peoples opinions on this. Are we rebelling, or surviving? Or both?

#2

i used to approach this whole rewilding thing with kind of a rebellious attitude but it really wore me out pretty quickly. now i mostly just try to exist. i find it takes much more effort to try and stay civilized than it does to just let myself go wild. that’s not to say it isn’t hard at times, but i wouldn’t say it’s a survival situation. now that i’m kind of in the swing of things, i find it hard not to rewild. all domesticated creatures will eventually go wild if someone doesn’t make an effort and a conscious decision to keep them domesticated. i feel the same thing applies to me. unless i make a conscious effort to stay civilized, i’ll go feral because that’s ultimately who i am. i’ve never felt like i was ever fully civilized, but more so that i was (and still am more or less) just a restrained human being.

my personal “revolution” and rebelliousness against civilization is something i can’t help, something that comes naturally (pun not intended). i’m not trying to sound mystical or poetic when i say that my rewilding is something i can’t help, just like a raccoon can’t help doing what raccoons do, or a river can’t help doing what it does. now that i’ve found rewilding, it would be really hard for me to stop because it would mean going against
who i am.

i hope that answered your question.

#3

I think what Willem meant by 'survivance" in that context was the fight for the survival of a “wild” way of life as a culture, not the traditional meaning of the “survival instinct” as something that kicks in when someone is faced with death. But I’m sure that for many people, the attraction to rewilding has something to do with that type of “survival instinct.”

Initially, I think I was led to rewilding through experiences that made me rebel against the dominant culture. I think most young children still have some bit of “wildness” in them that stays around long enough so that they remember it when they grow older.

Through our experiences, I think some of us are able to hold on to our wildness longer than others. I was a middle child (of divorce), a boy scout (and my dad took us camping often), and an overall introverted and sensitive kid… I think this made me able to “stop” and keep a different perspective than the majority had, although I sometimes suspect (like you do, John and Thuder thighs) that rewilding has always been “embedded in my psyche,” and that it just needed some support to come into consciousness.

But as I get older, and more societal civ pressures try to mold me to their desired shape… that’s when I think the survival instinct kicks in. I seem to have a need to hold on to feelings that I know are true to nature, and now if I try to “do civ’s bidding” it just feels physically and morally wrong.

So, to answer your question, I think it was a little of both rebelling and surviving for me… Rebelling first…then keeping the spirit alive. But I’m honestly beginning to think the rewilding spirit originates from somewhere deeper and that it’s realization is experiential, and more likely in some people than others.

Brian

#4

While I do think the drive to rewild is often rooted partially in the simple desire just to survive, I think the motivations of rebellion and/or philosophy can’t be overlooked. After all, realizing that collapse is inevitable and wanting to do something to increase one’s survival odds just means practicing survivalism for some people. I’ve been something of a survivalist for years, and I’ve noticed that plenty of survivalists don’t have any sort of critical understanding of civilization (and plenty do, to some extent). I recently wrote a very short essay on my LiveJournal “Survivalism vs. Rewilding” (completely ripping off Scout’s essay naming pattern :P). Here’s a bit of it:

...the aims of the two interests/philosophies/lifestyles are different, though not oppositional. Rewilding aims, as I've said many multiple times, to create healthy, sustainable, undomesticated cultures outside of civilization based on hunting, gathering, gardening, permaculture, etc. Survivalism is simply the practice of being prepared for emergencies, some people taking it to the level of preparing for TEOTWAWKI ("the end of the world as we know it"), which many of them view a collapse as being that. Me, I'm one of the overlaps in the two fields. I prepare for emergencies and even collapse, but not by piling up canned food and ammo in a bunker (though we have plenty of canned food and ammo at my house, interestingly enough, though most of the food is just because we're poor and take advantage of sales and food pantries). Instead, I prepare primarily by trying to build social networks (like gift economies), developing "gentle survival" skills, and most of all trying to be smart. Mostly I'd say that the survivalism compliments the rewilding, since bug-out-bags, small stockpiles, and firearms serve ultimately to cushion a transition to wild living, especially in the case of hard times or emergencies, and hopefully to keep the "tribe" safe.

So I guess my point is that it definitely isn’t just based in survival instincts, but it’s definitely there for most of us. However, rewilding is just as much based on a particular understanding of what a healthy culture is, and going beyond just survival to create healthy, vibrant, thriving cultures. Wanting create such cultures puts us at odds with civilization, which is what makes rewilding ultimately rebellious in our setting.

#5

instincs are easily catagorized… Fight or Flight

If you look at the group here… everyone knows there is something wrong. Some want to activly persue change (Fight) while others contemplate abandonment, to allow civ to collapse unimpeded to free us from it (Flight).

I elect Flight…

After that, it is in the nature of every creature to move in the direction of adequate existance.

For some… that is Civ life and the comforts that come with it.

For others it is a rejection of Civ and the damages it brings.

I elect to reject.

We all want love and acceptance, but place conditions on it… but this is the one that we fail miserably on.

I feel I can no longer seek love or acceptance if it requires my continued involvment in Civ.

#6

So the instinct for survival, which translates into fear of annihilation and death, is the energy behind adaptation and hence, conditioning. The child finds himself in the situation of having to be what his environment (parents) dictates in order for him to survive. So we can say that it is due to the instinct for self-preservation that acquiescence to the coercive forces in the environment occurs. The child, then, adopts his parents’ values and attitudes or rebels against them. In either case, he is conditioned to be and to act in certain ways, which, through the passage of time, become so ingrained that he takes them to be his identity. Slowly he forgets his true identity and becomes what he is being conditioned to be and to believe.

#7

I call this process enculturation - something that happens to every person as they grow up and learn how to become part of the community/society. In this sense it is innate, since we are a herd animal by nature (so we all want to be accepted by and join the community we are born into). This process can seriously damage people, however, if they are enculturated to suppress their inner feelings and self in order to be accepted. This happens in authoritarian environments where the relationship of parent to child is one of power-over (domination), which devalues those who don’t have power (abuse). Arno Gruen (“The Betrayal of the Self” and “The Insanity of Normality”) and Alice Miller (“For Your Own Good”) both do a really good job of explaining this process.

#8

For me, the impulse to rewild is about having a real connection to the Earth. Even if the petroleum supply were infinite, there is still a middleman who could cut me off any second. When I was a cyclist, it was the best feeling to go whizzing by a gas station with the wind blowing through my hair, pondering which restaurant I might eat at to “fill my tank.” That feeling of independence and control was addicting. A few years into my cycling lifestyle change, I realized that if I were wealthy, I would much prefer to walk everywhere, because then I would be free from the need to find replacement parts, etc. for my bike.

Gathering and eating wild food gives me the same feeling - no store can keep me from eating because I have no money, am not wearing shoes, or whatever. I enjoy nursing directly off Mama Gaia’s teat, in other words, because she doesn’t judge me or make me jump through artificial hoops beforehand. And her milk tastes so much sweeter than the formula in a bottle we are told is civilized progress! Cars and packaged food and cable tv. Compared with walking and eating fresh berries and enjoying stories around the fire!

I guess my rewilding is based largely and selfishly on pleasure. Does that make it less legit? 8)

#9

I believe in responsible living, this done with others allows the best way of living sustainably with independence living on land growing things that are needed for it, that cannot be done with living in civilization. I believe in providence so things will work toward good, but this is not apart from responsible living, so being independent of what is destrucitive as what is in civilization is essential.