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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.