Consuming the Outdoors
Growing up outdoors is where I went to get away from everything, unless I was doing chores like splitting wood but even then I was doing it outdoors. I enjoyed the increased quiet, the non-angular shapes, the interplay of light and shadow, the creatures I could usually hear more than see and yes I even enjoyed the varying weather.
I have always liked the silent sports. I’ve always enjoyed cycling. When cycling you can hear and see more, experience more than on motorized vehicles. Walking too is a great way for this and I do enough of that too.
To me, the less equipment is better. Even when camping. Yes, I say that even though I have been known to go radio camping.
I would like to relate a story of one camping trip where I and two of my university friends went near the summit of the Sierra Nevada mountains and where we were met at our camp site by two others who I did not know but who had been in the Navy SEALs with one of my friends.
We three, plus two dogs, rode up in a single El Camino with a camper shell. We had everything we needed from my tent to cooking utensils to water and even our coolers to keep our food cool…wait? Did anyone pack the food? No. When we arrived at our campsite 40 miles from the nearest anywhere we realized that we had forgotten to put anything in the coolers except for water and our preferred adult beverage. So, after we set up, the two I rode up with jumped into the car and went back down the mountain to find food. (The other two had not arrived yet.) I was left alone to guard our campsite.
Well, that was usual for us too. We always forgot something.
If you had heard me tell about the night I was awakened by a bear in camp, this was the night.
The bear went through the center of our camp about 1:00 a.m. and did not find anything interesting. I was awakened by the presence of the bear and I saw its exaggeratedly large shadow cast on the wall of my tent because of the light from the lantern we always kept on in the center of our camp so that no one fell into the fire pit on the way to the toilet. My tent was way on the opposite side of camp from the El Camino where the other two were sleeping and under a tree. The bear decided to walk between my tent and the tree and give my tent a playful little shove. The bear hit the wall of my tent right where the cot was so I felt a solid push as the bear walked by. I am glad that I had already been awakened before that happened.
The bear went quietly on its way. I never did hear it walking, and I quickly fell back to sleep. I will never forget that large bear-shadow on the wall of my tent.
Was I scared? No. Was I nervous? Who wouldn’t be. I stayed quiet, didn’t give the bear any reason to be alarmed and we all went our separate ways.
I woke up again about five, just before the sun rose and sat quietly enjoying the morning birds and the lightening sky. Morning has always been one of my favorite times of day and it is especially peaceful high in the mountains surrounded by pine trees.
Yes, I said that we were near the summit. We camped below the tree line because none of us were mountain climbers and the fishing was often better downslope.
About 9:00 everyone else woke up and I relayed the bear story as we made breakfast. As we ate our peaceful morning was interrupted by the appearance of a large, expensive looking motorhome making its way ponderously down the pitted dirt road to our campsite. This monstrous machine with a satellite dish looked as though it was moments away from falling into a pothole and never making its way out.
We looked at each other a bit shocked. That type of motorhome up here? If we saw any other campers, they drove beat up pickup trucks or two-decade old land-yachts pulling collapsible camp trailers. A fancy motorhome was just outrageous.
We hoped that they would not get stuck because they would make the entire campground completely inaccessible for hours until one of the large tow trucks could be found to drag them out of the hole.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-motorhome. They have their uses especially if you need a base of operations with solid tables.
Just, at the top of the mountains where the roads are barely tracts between trees?
Okay, enough on that though.
My whole problem with motorhomes, jet skis, powerboats and the like is that I feel that the more of these things you acquire, the less you are appreciating the outdoors for what they really are, outdoors, away from our busy lives filled with noise, somewhat organized chaos and stress.
I have never understood why so many people want to bring all that with them on a vacation.
If you are willing to spend $50,000 on a motorhome that gets 8-miles to the gallon just so you can drive 200 miles to sit on top of a mountain and watch your satellite television, yes, you obviously have far too much money than you know what to do with.
We see you, we feel that your life is sad and thank you for getting your monstrosity to your campsite so that we were able to make it back to our lives on time. We thank you for parking your rig far enough away from us that we could still enjoy the quiet and peace that you ignore when you close the door and lock the windows on your motorhome.
How We Have Failed as Storytellers
Long before radio, television and $110 billion dollar Hollywood movies our ancestors developed the art of storytelling. It was a good way to pass on good or bad advice, to teach our children, to convince our friends or enemies of things they did not want to do and eventually it devolved into a form of entertainment.
However, I would like to propose that from the very beginning we must have done something wrong. We neglected to include some element, or did not use the magic turn of phrase that actually convinced our audiences of anything. As an example, let me go back to our distant past:
Two elders in their 30s and two young adults are seated around the fire in their cave. We see four in the firelight but since that there are more unseen further in the cave but it is too dark to see them.
One man lays on his side, groaning in pain. He has one leg which is severely mangled. Through the blood and gore on his leg you can see that his flesh is swelling and turning red. He is struggling to breath but manages to relate his story in his own native proto-language. I will translate for ease of understanding my example.
“I was walking down the trail from our cave,” the man struggles to say, “and I heard a sound in the near bushes. When I stepped closer to see what made the noise a lion sprang out at me and grabbed me by the leg. I managed to beat if off with my club and crawl back to the cave.”
The next morning the two young men rise from their sleeping furs and find their father dead. After dragging his lifeless body out of the cave and dropping the corpse into the river, they head down the same trail to find the lion.
Neither of them are seen again.
So, what happened here? I think the moral of the story should have been “don’t go seeking lions.” You know, if an experienced and successful hunter barely escaped, certainly too less experienced hunters are not likely to do any better.
No, these two go off to try their hand at revenge on the beast that killed their father not even considering that when they went down the hill they might not find only one lion but six and all of the hungrier since yesterday’s hunting went so terrible. One of those six even angrier because it got a nasty knock on the head and its prey managed to get away.
Do not think that my story is so absurd. We have been telling each other cautionary tales for thousands of years. People have built entire religions around cautionary tales. Yet there are always people who completely disregard them.
One of the earliest of the cautionary tales I can think of that we are still dealing with today is that of lead. Countless alchemists died from lead poisoning, some early civilizations invented the first indoor plumbing but used lead pipes and many of them died. Lead is still everywhere and it is still killing people. Maybe not as many as it used to in rich countries but it is still in use in poorer parts of the world.
No one listens until it starts to hurt and then not even than with some people.
Look at climate change. We have known about the dangers of climate change for decades and we have had warnings that we are making it worse and you know that could make life difficult for us. Since when? About 1940.
Nope, that’s not my problem. My super-smart-extra-special kids will figure something out.
Too bad that the lead and chemicals that you’re pumping into the water and made into the globulous, flavorless monstrosities you call food is actually making your precious children less healthy and less intelligent.
Okay, perhaps the computers we make will save us?
Too bad that we’ve programmed everyone to believe that science and technology are evil and it is going to send us straight to a totally undesirable version of Hell which sounds an awful lot like northern California in the summertime during a nine-year drought.
Which is survivable, I grew up there.
If the entire world turns into that though? No, we will not survive.
So, where did we go wrong? What did we leave out of our stories to get people to listen? Did we vilify the wrong characters?
Perhaps if the old hunter said, “I was an idiot and should not have got in the lion’s personal space.”
I understand that there is no magic word or phrase that we can use to convince people to act sanely because we are all different and we all hear what we want but I am wondering if there are ways that we can change our stories to increase caution, respect for others and the natural world that surrounds us.
Well, while you’re off getting eaten by the lions, I’m back at the cave inventing beer.
Cheers.
I don't know if it's a failure of storytelling that people don't act sanely. There are a lot of influences that pull on people. Stories aren't just cautionary tales. They're news, gossip, a funny thing that happened, projections, fantasies, and who knows what else. We also have different interpretations of the same story. A cautionary tale to one person might mean something else entirely to someone else.