I am thinking back over these 18 months of doing this
mentoring program and keying thoughts into the memory of this computer that
will find their place out there in public view here on the WWS blog.
An integral
part of the thinking and keying is the process of processing … thinking through
things … evaluating … not only evaluating the progress of these young guys in
their woodcraft journeys … but … reflecting on my own progress in my own
journey and evaluating my effectiveness as a mentor, teacher, and guide.
18 months.
A year and a half.
One Saturday morning each month.
Around 3 hours each month.
Let’s round it off and call it 60 hours.
60 hours.
Where a time-perspective is concerned … what we have is both
a good bit of time and hardly any time at all. 60 hours. What we really have in
this measure of time, in the big scheme of things, is honestly a miniscule
increment.
One of the courses of thought meandering through the tangle
in my mind concerns how the popular shows on television have a tendency to
glamorize and romanticize this realm or dimension of outdoors doings. I think
these shows have a positive effect in that they generate interest at all age
levels. Interest in the natural surroundings provided by personally getting
outdoors, especially outdoors away from established parks and off the well-worn
paths, is a good thing.
There’s a world of wonder to wander out there that most have
never experienced … a world that most will never experience.
The downside to these shows is that they are weighted heavily
on the side of survival. They are
weighted heavily on the side of enduring the
adversities that Ma Nature can and will present. Not that enduring and
surviving are unimportant. They are essential if you want to stay alive in a
bad situation. A well-rounded repertoire of tuned survival skills ought to be a
definite cache safeguarded by every individual.
Another downside to these shows is that their producers are
bent on finding the most remote, dire, difficult, and hostile environments to
film the shows … places where ordinary everyday folks will never wander … places that appear to be selected (at least to me)
to destine failure in the efforts of
the survival candidates. The shows
make for good entertainment. I think though that a lot of people in contemporary
society take a look at the shows on TV and instantly conclude that they will
never be “there”. True enough but it’s a conclusion that leads to inactivity in
other important areas of personal preparation and preparedness.
Developing skills and acquiring knowledge is a pursuit that
takes time and effort.
I enjoy doing weekend courses. A lot can be told and shown
in a weekend “crash” course. There’s a lot of value in these courses. Doing the
short courses always leaves me wondering though.
A lot can be shown and told in a weekend. But just how much
can be honestly caught in a weekend?
How much of what is told and shown over those pitifully few hours simply fades
away and falls to the wayside in the first moments and days that follow the
crash course? How much time is invested afterward by the course participants
practicing skills, enlarging their base of outdoor knowledge, and perfecting
their woodcraft? These are questions that I am unable to answer.
A crash course is better than no course. It is, however, a
beginning place rather than an ending place. The real work comes afterward
where individuals have to allocate time to get some dirt and smut on their
hands and on their clothes. Without the allocation of time and effort, something
that involves working outdoors in the array of conditions and circumstances
offered by nature, owning skills is not possible.
It takes work. It takes
practice. It takes commitment.
Mentoring these young guys provides an entirely different
educational environment … one far removed from a crash course. It provides an
arena that we enter together on a regular schedule that allows me the
opportunity to observe growth on an individual basis. It allows me privileged
bites of time to study individual strengths and weaknesses. It is an arena
where I can introduce new things, hone skills already in development, and, all
the while, move the guys a little farther along on their woodcraft journey.
Teaching skills … and learning skills … is kind of a mechanical
thing that involves showing, telling, and repetition. It’s really not that
difficult. It simply takes time, effort, and place. It’s about a lot more than
mechanically learning skills and teaching skills though. At least for me it is.
Somewhere, along the way and in the midst, there is the hope
that people will discover a transition away from seeing the natural world as
something to endure … as something to
survive … as something to conquer … and begin discovering it as
that world of wonder to wander.
There
is the hope that people will begin developing a love affair with the natural environment and begin understanding,
appreciating, courting, and embracing it as a lover.
The thing about this transition is that it is something that
cannot be taught. It can be talked about. It can be shown. It is something that
can be seen in the lives of those that have entered into the love affair. We
really don’t catch it though. Not like we do a butterfly or frog. We discover
it surrounding us, touching us, wooing us, drawing us. And we begin yielding
ourselves to its embrace.
