What I Cannot Teach

We take an awful lot for granted in this world of ease that we live our day to day lives in.

Flip the switch on the wall and the lights go on and off. Heck. Some smart somebody even invented the “Clapper” so a couple claps of the hands turns on a light.

Turn the knob on the stove and the elements heat up to make cooking a lot easier than firing up and standing over a wood burning cook stove. Some stoves use gas, either natural or propane, to serve the same purpose. The most modern gas models do not even require striking a match or pushing a button to generate the lighting spark. Technology has replaced the box of “strike anywhere’s” that hung on the wall by the stove. That is pretty smart as long as the power is up and flowing through the wires.

Microwave ovens. I do not personally know a home without one. Ours went on the fritz a few years ago. Since all it was used for was to heat things up we decided to do without that convenience. And we did … for about three months … until I broke down and invested again (a small one) in that convenience.

The same goes for heating the house. The thermostat on the wall that controls the thing in the closet does the work of chopping, hauling, and stacking firewood for the winter. It also operates the business end of that mechanical contraption that cools the house in the summer.

Water comes through pipes. All we have to do is open a faucet. Gas or electricity keeps a tank constantly full of hot water. There is plenty of hot and cold water for all the daily needs. Hit the handle on the porcelain chamber pot in the bathroom and things are flushed out of sight and down the pipe into the system, whether it is one built in the yard or a municipal sewer system.

Every bite of food, for the greater majority of people in this modernized country, is purchased at the grocery store and at restaurants replacing the necessity to engage personally in the business of growing, harvesting, hunting, fishing, foraging, processing, and preserving food to eat.

Even our homes and closets full of clothes figure in. The vast majority of us live in structures built by someone else. The idea that we need to know how to construct a dwelling … and invest the time to do it … does not enter into the mind of most people. We pay dearly for it with decades of mortgage payments but, for the sake of convenience, we sell ourselves to the bank. The “home” issue is also complicated by all the various building codes and restrictions that constrict and limit the freedom of individuals to take care of themselves as best they can within their means.

What about the clothes in the closet? Bought or made from material that was bought from a store of one sort or another.

I have used all the above verbiage to lead into a very basic and simple point.

Though our means of satisfying our essential needs has changed a lot with the progression of time and technology … our essential needs to sustain life have not changed one iota. They are as basic now as they were 200, 2,000, or 20,000 years ago …

FIRE, WATER, SHELTER, and FOOD ...

regardless of climate, circumstances, or conditions.

It is easy to take these for granted. Modern life, with all its technology and convenience, is a comfortable life. I enjoy living as comfortably as possible. I must also admit that comfortable living, with all its conveniences, bothers me. The more I recognize its bothersome effects the more it bothers me.

Why?

It has a way of slipping up on us. It has a way of taking us over. It has a way of robbing us of our desire of independence. It stifles thought and creativity. Its intrusive nature depletes our ability to fend for ourselves. It has a way of depriving us of a lot of personal enjoyment, adventure, learning, and experience that can never occur as long as we are surrounded by insulated and painted walls where our several senses are entertained and overwhelmed by our own preferred and selected noises, entertainments, and conveniences.

One of the things that deeply impresses me about folks like Nessmuk and Kephart is their personal philosophy regarding being “out there” in the wild. Sure. Their personal woodcraft skills are impressive. They knew how to go deep and long and come out on the other end of it still smiling and looking forward to the next trip. It is their philosophy though … their appreciation and understanding … their love for it all … that impresses me most.

Skills can be taught. They can be learned by those willing to learn. I think though that the love of wild places … the love of the sounds and smells and changing faces of Ma Nature … the preference to be “out there” in and with her … is something that is more caught than taught. I can lead folks to the edge of it but the catching is outside my control.

Deeply inherent in all that we are doing in these classes and outings is our desire for folks, young and not as young, to discover for themselves something of this philosophy … to find themselves caught by it … equipped with a good, practical, and usable set of woodcraft skills … anxious to grab their kits, go for a long walk, set up a camp in the woods to stay a chosen while, and walk out after that while with smiles of accomplishment on their faces anxious to go and do it again.