Preparing for camping or something else?

Thoughts of an outdoorsman in the social media era.

My social media feed consist of a wide range content from camping, urban farming, survivalist to doomsday prep content. I can’t lie…I watch it all!

Diagram generated w/ Claude AI and minimal prompting

It's so interesting to see people’s perspectives. But unfortunately I realized I’ve now been mildly influenced to be concerned about the safety and future of my family and friends. I believe that we create the world that we want to be in. Our thoughts and nervous system work together to bring more attention to the things we think about. So while I may be looking for the best gear to invest in or learning outdoors techniques; I have to constantly remind myself why.

I got deeper into my outdoor backpacking and hiking practice as a means to relieve stress. The more time I spent in the wilderness, the more important it became for me to learn how to take care of myself and others in the event of an emergency. I want to be able to have a safe and fun time on extended camping trips. Will my ability to camp over a period of a week+ improve my ability to navigate the end of the world? Sure but that's not my goal. But I do feel safer knowing I have a wide range of skills.

I live in a city that I think would be a bad place to be if I was in a SHTF(Shit Hits The Fan [see why do I even know that's an acronym?])scenario. Social media has taken advantage of the fact that I am interested in camping. I’d love to live on a homestead and farm further disconnected from the glare of MTA screens constantly advertising something. But these idyllic visions are constantly clouded by fear mongering. There's an interesting overlap between homesteaders, survivalists, campers, doomsday preppers and earthy/crunchy people. See diagram I made with an AI( It went into way more detail than I was expecting)!

Even this Ai generated diagram uses stressful language in every combination of relationship to the outdoors. Self-Sufficiency, Nature Connection and Community Mindset; for me, bring together positive imagines. But algorithms all over the place have different ideas all influenced by a wide range of social media influencers. Depending on who you ask, any of these groups will have varied connections with outdoor lifestyle.

The comforts and convenience of a city are nice to me. But there is something nice about not needing much. It's a boon to creativity and nature. The more you’re able to learn about the skills of self sufficiency within nature the more you realize why humans are inherently social. It takes a lot of time to do everything by yourself. Leading my hiking groups and camping groups has allowed me to put participants in [safe] situations where they need to take ownership of a responsibility. Some approach it with anxiety but they pretty quickly adapt and are proud of their role and group contribution.

I believe metaphysically, camping and community building in the wilderness also feeds other areas of life. I think it's on a very individual basis but here's an example. One of the early members of my hiking group, Liv, started leading womxn’s hikes on her own. Seeing herself as a leader has for sure bled into the work that she has taken on in developing a housing cooperative in New Jersey. The more she saw herself as a leader who could navigate people through uncertain terrain, the more she was able to do so in the legal landscape of cooperative housing structures.

Taking a multi-modal learning approach has dividends in different areas of life and craft practices. We diversify and strengthen our tool box through outdoor lifestyles. For me practicing ultralight backpacking has given me an appreciation for living on less. I’m able to go farther with a lighter pack. Planning routes, emergency action plans, rations and measuring pace has its place both for pleasure camping and survival scenarios. But I want to bring myself close to the pleasure of being outdoors. I definitely don’t want to be forced into a scenario of survival. But knowing I’ll figure out how to move either way bolsters my ability to prepare myself to gather the tools, resources and community necessary to prevent the need for emergency survival situations. Instead I continue to align myself for happy survival, a full belly, and continuing to build the strength of my community; for good times or bad.

So the next time you see a video of me working out with all my gear on and wonder if I’m training for something. The truth is I’m just camping! I like to push myself but out of pleasure for being in as natural of an environment as I can get compared to the concrete jungle of NYC.

But I’m TTG so don’t push me!

Anyway, Thanks for listening or reading! Tune in next time.