You never take a trip? Never travel? Same time, every single day? Okay.
You never take a trip? Never travel? Same time, every single day? Okay.
See post #10......
Geezer Squad....Charter Member #1
Evoking the 50 year old rule...
First 50 years...worried about the small stuff...second 50 years....Not so much
Member Wahoo Killer knives club....#27
Last edited by Sarge47; 07-23-2015 at 07:59 PM.
SARGE
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
Albert Einstein
Proud father of a US Marine....SEMPER FI!
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
I completely agree. Mostly I use a lighter when camping because it is very fast and I am so busy doing so many things then socializing or watching wildlife when done with all the chores. It seems foolish to waste time with practicing primitive fire starting methods that I can and do practice in my backyard or at a local park. Exception may be if some other people want to do it because we started to talk about it, and/or found some interesting wood for drill or tinder materials, i.e. natural accelerant etc.
However, I never rely completely on a lighter because they are relatively fragile, a larger diameter fire-steel/ferrocerium rod in a protective tube/cover/sheath is my preferred backup unless it will be raining a lot then a large magnesium block. Mag blocks are a pain to use but good if only accelerant you can find, i.e. not much juniper or birch bark around.
But if a person practices with bow, spindle and fire-board, once it is all made and tinder-bundle and twigs and other firewood is all ready it can take as little as 10 minutes if air is not super humid and you gathered and keep tinder and some twigs while it was still sunny and relatively dry. A few times I have gotten out of car and started a trip when it was raining and it never stopped for over 24 hours. THEN I really needed mag block!
A agree with you that paper is not very effective at cleaning especially for people who have hair back there. And PHS (Poopy Hand Syndrome) is a well documented issue especially among campers in low water areas, but in all areas and as many men as I have noticed leaving a restroom, the stall and not using the sink, I suspect in normal office environments as well. I don't like the handshake part of our western culture.
Here is one of many outdoors articles that talks about PHS (paragraph on illness):
http://www.rapidmedia.com/canoeing/c...dventure-spots
Last edited by TXyakr; 07-22-2015 at 03:34 PM.
I guess I kinda sorry I brought up TP, to start with.....being primitive or not.....LOL
Oh well,
"In days of old,
When knights were bold,
and toilets were not invented....
They laid their load,
beside the road,
and went on there way contented"
or
"In days of old
When the Knights were bold
And toilet lights were dim
You'd hear a crash
Then a splash
OH GOD! He's fallen in!"
or
"In days of old,
When knights were bold
And paper weren't invented.
They'd wipe their arse
On clumps of grass
And walk away contented"
Geezer Squad....Charter Member #1
Evoking the 50 year old rule...
First 50 years...worried about the small stuff...second 50 years....Not so much
Member Wahoo Killer knives club....#27
Well, this thread has gone to crap.
Weeell okaaay. Ya got me. I just wasn't counting atypical instances. Wasn't going to be anal and explain everything. Hehe Arg!
Hehe. Crap. Anal.
Sorry for my part.
Though...we're not really getting anywhere if we just concede that Wilderness and Primitive should only be relative. And I'm thinking per the wording of the original thread question.
The words are used relatively and flexibly, and this isn't wrong, but words can also have a more objective, versus subjective, formal definition. Otherwise, words can begin to become useless. A word is meant to differentiate one thing from another thing for which we therefore use another word.
Wilderness and Primitive can be used relatively...correctly. But on the other hand, I myself had the impression that we were looking for a more objective fundamental definitive as it applies to camping and survival.
Oh boy, this is a hard discussion to step into.
I look at it like this:
People tend to define primitive as any thing that is better than not having anything, I mean we can all agree that primitive people had sophisticated ways of living comfortably. Way before that we were basically animals trying not to die all the time, it sucked. The way people live today even with all the fancy gadgets still live only a little better than animals. Wouldn't you agree?
It's all relative in this way I believe.......
I don't think anybody would argue that the Neanderthal Man lived primitively.
I don't think anybody would argue that the Cro-Magnon Man lived primitively.
Fast forward a bit to the early Native Americans. Yep, living primitively.
Early Colonial America? I would say yes, they lived primitively.
Pick any period you like. We tend to evaluate things based on our own experiences, so those that came before us are often considered to be living primitively. Just ask your teenage daughter about life with black and white TV's, rotary phones and no computers. You lived primitively in her eyes.
The thing is (IMO) that all of these primitives used the most modern means at their disposal. They would embrace advances in technology or materials to make their lives easier. To them, those that came before them were primitives.
Today, we "live primitively" for periods as a form of enjoyment or entertainment. Maybe its a hobby? Maybe a way to learn about those that came before? For some it is a desire to disconnect I suppose.
Last edited by Wise Old Owl; 07-23-2015 at 07:18 AM.
“There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
Neanderthal didn't think any of those others were primitive and that the kids were taking the world to heck in a handbasket. Kids were more interested in painting on the walls than tracking and hunting mammoths. Some of them wouldn't even move out of their mother's cave.
......and would have waited in lines for the latest Bic lighter.....
I see what you are doing there.....
Geezer Squad....Charter Member #1
Evoking the 50 year old rule...
First 50 years...worried about the small stuff...second 50 years....Not so much
Member Wahoo Killer knives club....#27
I myself am "guilty" of using PRIMITIVE in relative fashion. I've said that I want to live deep in a wilderness primitively, even ultra primitively. But what I have in mind includes taking a good armload of items with me.
My attempt at an answer to the thread question was using the approach of stripping away all of the denominators which make it arbitrary and relative. But I wouldn't want to do it that way. Alas, it has a relative element in it indeed.
Right on Crash! Native Americans used knives & axes made from flint and stone until white traders came into their camp and traded them steel knives and axes. They hunted with bows and arrows until they could score a nice rifle. They made their canoes out of Birchbark yet never lost one of those rifles out of it...oops!...
SARGE
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe."
Albert Einstein
Proud father of a US Marine....SEMPER FI!
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
This Neanderthal thought it was cute to make the kids lips wet and stick them to the stone wall for fun and entertainment. It was all good until one sucker came off the wall while attempting to text help and lost an eye.
Oh wait ....nevermind...Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum.
Last edited by Wise Old Owl; 07-23-2015 at 09:18 PM.
“There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag … We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
Theodore Roosevelt 1907
I used to be a purist. Rock tools, bone and stone points on self bows, sinew string, whew! Then I got married, had three kids and realized sleep was important. Somewhere an evolution of the skills occurred and included recycling roofing rubber in the absence of giant trees to peel bark from and adding windows to Passamaquoddy trappers lodges to offset the dark, depressing, and all too short days of winter. Now we are making rocker stove radiant floor heating systems and using perlite to prevent conduction from robbing the heat from our thermal mass. Those of you who are primitive purists, I can only say in my defense that last winter we stayed warm for six months with night time temperatures in the twenties and colder and we did so with just over half a cord of wood no bigger the throwing stick size. Primitive by it's very nature IS efficient, but with modern materials on their way to the dump, evolutionary processes dictate that we remain flexible and (in the importable words of Bruce Lee) absorb what is useful. I carry a lighter and a ferro rod, but feel like I just passed gas at a funeral when I have to use them because of a self imposed value system of keeping my skills sharp. This might change in twelve to fifteen years if I end up with arthritis of old injuries dictate otherwise. In this context, Primitive is working ones edge with minimal gear to remain self reliant and in a mutually beneficial relationship with the landscape and what it provides for as long as it is sustainable. Just my perspective.
Bookmarks