Top of the Food Chain...

Saw a book on wilderness survival today at work. It was one of those hardcore expedition type guides that assume the reader is going "off the grid" to live in the far reaches of some Thoreau-inspired backcountry. I get a little excited when I read these kinds of things, imagining myself hiking along the Appalachian Trail, communing with nature and experiencing life in its most elemental form. Rediculously romantic and naive, I know--it's just the thing that every sensitive, doe-eyed philosophy major beard-o who cites either Walden or On the Road as their favorite novel pines after.

I have been camping many many times. None of these outings would be anything like what that wilderness guide or Thoreau had in mind. I like to go out into the woods of the lovely and serene Daniel Boone National Forest with my folding chair and cooler full of beverages and listen to agreeable music on my portable stereo while staring at a fire. Maybe some hiking, a little light rock climbing, I even spelunked there once (bar none: one of the most terrifying experiences of my life). While the area does offer some "extreme" options (rock climbing, kayaking, rappeling), it ain't Alaska.

There are virtually no threatening wildlife (save for an occassional copperhead, though I've never seen one in 15 years of dumbly tramping about the bushes and underbrush), and the locals are pretty tame and friendly (it's actually a little touristy along the main roads--I guess the residents would rather sell me firewood than murder me in my tent at night). I enjoy getting out there and away from the city, I even NEED it from time to time or else I get rather grouchy.

I sometimes fantasize about going somewhere a little more remote, somewhere you'd read about in one of those adventure magazines, but there are two major issues that strike very real fear into my heart: 1. murderous hillbillies, 2. bears. That's it. Not scared of insects, poinson ivy, falling off cliffs, breaking an ankle in the middle of nowhere, pooping in the woods, hypothermia...just other people and bears. But those are the Big Two, aren't they? We are human F-ing beings: top of the food chain, the dominant life forms--If we are going to get killed off, it will most likely be by the destructive forces of other human beings and the terrifying creatures that still manage to roam around outside of zoos. To leave behind the relative comforts of home--piece of mind, safety, security, convenience--is to strip away quite a lot of that buffer zone between our trivial concerns (jobs, cars, computers, etc) and certain death. I guess thats part of what is attractive; I can tell you from personal experience that your life gets put into perspective post haste when you are laying prone in a tent in the middle of nowhere in the deep dark woods, sure that you just heard twigs snapping...