It has to do
with seeing everything in the peripheral while at the same time concentrating
on an objective. It has to do with taking everything into consideration in
order to determine and maintain a desired … or perhaps necessary … course.
Being able
to focus … and maintain focus … is one of the ingredients necessary in making
it through survival situations that pose the potential to inflict harm or end
physical life.
There’s more
to it though.
This
business of focusing has a definite application to life in general. Making the
application, in whatever circumstance or arena, involves having enough personal
fluidity to be able to accept presented conditions without being controlled by
those presented conditions.
There are a
couple of built in levels that come to mind when I consider focusing. There is
a lot more to them than addressed here. Time and space allows for only a brief
summary in this blog article.
The first is
evaluation.
There is a
lot to continually consider.
One day in a
wilderness setting presents a multitude of variables … variables that will
either assist in the venture or go hard on the adventurer. What, for some,
appear as hardships can, for others, work as helpers provided there is a skills
and knowledge frame of reference to work from that allows for personal fluidity
and adaptability … a frame of reference that also directs us away
from or around potential hazards.
Without this
team of skills and knowledge working for us, our evaluations are apt to lead us
into dire straits that worsen our condition.
The natural
world has its own inherent set of rules that govern it. Learning those rules
and finding our role within the perimeters set by those rules is a challenging
proposition for modern folk so far removed from them in their daily lives.
The second
is discipline.
There is no
success, unless it is accidental or Providential success, in anything on its own. The
onus, when it comes right down to it, is on us
as individuals.
Discipline
is a matter of personal devotion to a course and a commitment of time to it …
regardless of the course or course content … whether it is wilderness survival
or piloting a space shuttle to the space station.
Acquiring a
few tools and learning about a few skills are simple. Becoming proficient and
efficient with those tools and skills is another matter altogether … one that
involves a lot more from an individual than taking a class or watching videos.
Getting a
fire going, even for a novice in the woods, can be a relatively easy thing to
do on a fair weather day. Today? With all the woodland resources soaking wet
from these days of rain? With rain coming down by the buckets adding wet to wet
and rivers of water running on flat ground? These conditions present a Bring Your A Game day that can be
prepared for only by advanced preparations and discipline to dress rehearsals in miserable conditions.
A change in direction?
Changes?
Definitely.
I am not
entirely certain of what all the changes will be now that I am officially retired from the hamster
wheel. I am still slowly fleshing all that out in my mind but, at this point,
it’s still a skeleton. There are definitely some serious interests to pursue
that involve, in a fuller way, personally practicing skills that I know,
learning more, and living more fully these woodcraft and self-reliance skills.
Our next
major steps are to get Shirli on the back side of her second knee replacement
surgery that is coming up in a few weeks and then finish up this matter of
relocating to Somewhere In The Woods,
USA.
There are also
woods waiting to be wandered, new trees waiting to be seen, creeks waiting to
be fished, and camps waiting to be spiked.
Who knows?
There may
even be a Go-Pro in the big picture.
Stay tuned. There's more to come!
