I was looking through an old notebook from the fall, 2007 Wilderness Bushcraft Semester course last night and I found a quotation I wrote down spoken by Mors Kochanski when he was here for the final week. It was November 1st, 2007, and we were up late discussing the role of bushcraft and wilderness survival with the semester students. The discussion focused on the breadth of skills and knowledge held by indigenous people and how poorly educated most people today are with regard to anything practical. Then Mors said:
“This is not wilderness survival. It’s fundamental knowledge of what it means to be an educated human.”
Self-reliance isn’t high on the list of what our culture determines to be fundamental knowledge of what it means to be an educated human. Thankfully there are still guys like Mors carrying the torch.
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Great quote.
We still have the body and mind of a creature which is ‘designed’ to and most importanly capable of being self-reliant. In my opinion, these tools are the trademark of a species which thrives on exercising them, and degrades when they become redundant. If evolution picked up the pace and moved fast enough to combat this redundancy, then so be it, but I suspect that its top speed is still way too slow for this adaptation. Until then, maybe we should temper our ‘progress’ by taking on board what our body and mind is telling us.
Good point, Steven. That would be a good tatoo; “Designed For Self Reliance”. Hope you’re have a great summer over there.
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