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[pct-l] tech
No one needs technology at home either. The human race has survived for
millions of years without it and much of the world still does. Why
don't we get rid of our appliances and live as the ancestors of our
ancestors did? Then we won't need to go to the wilderness and get away
from it all because the wilderness won't be any different from home.
However, I choose to keep my refrigerator.
The question of what you need misses the point. However minimalist your
approach may be a clever person can always get by just fine with less
or nothing at all, but that doesn't mean they want to. Some people,
clever or not, gain comfort from or find utility in their gadgets. It's
a matter of what you want, what you're comfortable with and what you
are willing to carry. If you think that the sound of a stream is the
most beautiful thing then leave your iPod at home. If listening to your
favorite song beside that same stream brings you bliss then bring your
iPod with you. If calling your beloved from the top of a mountain just
to say "Guess where I am?" brings happiness to you and your loved one
then bring your cell phone. And if you see someone typing away at their
laptop while sitting under a tree at the edge of a serene meadow full
of dear and procreating rabbits consider this before you criticize
them: How does that compare to the view from your office? None of these
people are any more or less deserving of the wilderness experience and
it should not be assumed that any of them enjoy or appreciate the
wilderness any more or less than anybody else. Just be happy that
they're happy.
Some of us enter the wilderness to get away from it all, some of us
just want to get away from most of it, and some people have other
reasons that nobody will understand. If you are bothered by somebody's
technology the problem is not the technology. The problem is within
yourself.
I think that the whole "getting away from it all" thing is a myth. It
all goes back to recreating that romantic vision of John Muir and his
pocket full of stale bread. If you truly wanted to get away from it all
you wouldn't be bringing a couple hundred dollars worth of gear. You
would sleep on the ground, cover yourself with pine needles for warmth,
fish with your bare hands and make fire by rubbing two sticks together.
You would be gone for as long as you please with no return date and no
destination in mind except maybe "over there." The fact that you bring
a sleeping bag and gore-tex (which, by the way, is a synthetic material
made possible by technology) and follow a structured plan, however
loose that plan may be, is proof that you aren't getting away from it
all, even if you left your watch and sundial behind. You're just
getting away from some of it. The point of this rant is that we all
must choose for ourselves what we want to get away from and accept the
fact that we will meet other people who made different choices.
So, if you see me in the wilderness jotting a note in my palm pilot and
it bothers you, keep on walking. It's ok to think that I'm strange
because I am. Just trust that I have my reasons for bringing it along
and it makes my life easier. Before you know it I will be out of sight
and, hopefully, out of mind. And it won't bother me if you're bare ass
naked and chewing on a raw fish with pine needles in your hair. I may
think you're strange, but that's ok.
Mark
I guess I could have just said HYOH and let me HMOH, but that would
have been too easy
-----
Have fun or die trying - but try not to actually die.
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On Jan 18, 2005, at 11:00 PM, Kraig Mottar wrote:
> No one "needs" any technology when hiking...
> If a person can't do without a cel phone it is doubful they would
> enjoy hiking to begin with.
- References:
- [pct-l] tech
- From: kraig.mottar at verizon.net (Kraig Mottar)