[at-l] RnR's *worthwhile* cell phone questions

[infinity1plus1 at yahoo.com (Robert)]

One clarifying point... when I said that one might use a phone to call home for encouragement I should have made it clear that the outcome of that call could have been to keep going or to go home as I have heard of both happening. 

Jim and/or Ginny Owen <spiriteagle99@hotmail.com> wrote:First - for anyone who's been around here more than 20 minutes, you know 
that Roxy and I have little to say to each other - except for the fact that 
attacking me is his second greatest passion in life. But I don't believe 
I've answered one of this posts in over 3 years. Not since the day he made 
it plain that he considered "people" to be a plague on the Earth and he'd be 
happy to see us all vaporized by aliens. So let's don't get the idea that 
he and I are on the same side. But -

Jim Bullard wrote:
>My point has been to challenge those assumptions which I regard as untrue.

I'm gonna start with your last statement because --- it's a good place to 
start.

What you have done for the last week is to challenge statements made by 
people who have more experience and knowledge than you. You have challenged 
statements that were never made - or that you've misunderstood or 
misconstrued in some way. You should have let this go - I had. I won't 
again - regardless of how many stories Felix tells. Sorry, F'mon.

>Speak for yourself. When you say it "affects YOUR hike" you assume that
>what is true for you is true for everyone.

This is the first "misunderstanding" - one that you were told about 
repeatedly and have chosen to ignore. The original statement applied ONLY 
to thruhikers and/or long distance hikers. It does not and never did apply 
to you - it "may" or may not apply to Robert at some time in the future. 
His choice.

>You also imply that lack of
>consideration for the feelings of loved ones is important to feeling
>disconnected. If you said that being inconsiderate of other hikers in the 
>way you use a CF, I'd be right there with you. It is ironic that you defend 
>being inconsiderate to loved ones but (I assume) would not defend
>inconsiderate behavior toward strangers who happened to be in close 
>proximity.

There is so little in that paragraph that has any validity that it's worth 
only one comment -
Only YOU have implied anything of the sort. Those of us who advocate 
leaving the CF at home have also repeatedly said that there are those who 
SHOULD take them. And frankly, some of those who should - don't. Usually 
because, like Robert - they "get it."

>This argument ends up saying that virtually every piece of gear
>we carry is a barrier between us and a deep wilderness experience.

Yes - just as every item you have in your house - and the house itself - 
stand between you and ultimate "freedom." You don't want that "ultimate 
freedom" - those who come close to it are called "homeless." And even they 
aren't totally "FREE".

There's an entire philosophy lesson that goes with this concept - but the 
bottom line is - everything you own - owns you.

>That all depends on your definition of wilderness and the definition of a 
>deep wilderness experience. As Shane has pointed out wilderness is a human 
>concept. It's definition varies according to the society and even the 
>individual. At one time in England an unkept area of a garden was referred 
>to as a wilderness. In colonial America it was something to be feared and 
>conquered. Shane says he goes out not to confront 'wilderness' but to be a 
>natural human in nature. I tend toward the same idea though I use different 
>words because to me 'wilderness' implies that humans don't belong there. I 
>see myself as a natural creature, as much a part of the natural world as 
>any other animal or as it says in the Desiderata, I am "a child of the 
>universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you (I) have a right to be 
>here."

For the most part, we can agree about this - the Desiderata has embodied 
many of my life principles. But the most important of my life principles is 
to never hurt someone unnecessarily. The problem you might have here is 
that last word. The problem I have with it is that your post was an 
unnecessary attack on Robert. The fact that he's a potential future 
thruhiker just compouonds your offence because you're preaching from a 
position of ignorance and violating HYOH to boot.

>As for an admission that I don't *need* it, the truth is I don't *need*
>anything with me to go to the woods. I could drink from streams and pools. 
>I could eat berries and roots. I could kill a deer and wrap myself in the 
>hide. I could choose to freeze or starve to death. There's a genuine
>'wilderness' experience for you that happens to our fellow creatures on a 
>daily basis. Or I could turn around and go home before I was in danger of 
>that.

But little, if any, of that applies to a thruhike - which is where we 
started this ""discussion." So it's irrelevant.

>So which is of more value? Which allows for greater depth of
>experience? Carrying those things that allow one to feel sufficiently safe 
>to remain in the natural world or deliberately putting one's self at risk 
>so that there is temptation to go home?

LOL!!! So you've gotten to the "safety" button. Which for thruhikers in 
general is not a convincing argument. And for me - is a total turnoff 
because it's a mask for ignorance, helplessness, lack of personal 
responsibility and cowardice. And in direct opposition to everything that 
HYOH represents.

>The implication of the statement that sparked this debate was that the
>presence of a CF not only 'affected' the hike but did so in a negative way,
>preventing the hiker from achieving a 'quality' experience.

And exactly what evidence can you provide to refute that proposition? Maybe 
you'd lke to consider the identities and experience of those who support it? 
And those who don't? And the relative levels of experience? We'll get to 
the quality experience later - that's another conversation. The basic 
problem here is that YOU believe it to be false - because it doesn't fit 
into YOUR world. Fine. No one has asked YOU to leave your CF behind. In 
fact, no one has asked ANYONE to leave their CF at home. You seem to have 
missed that point.

But the original statement did NOT concern your world - and in fact, YOUR 
world is irrelevant to the statement because YOU are not - nor, by your own 
words, do you intend to be a thruhiker. And the statement applied only to 
thruhikers/long distance hikers. Therefore your opinion on the subject is 
irrelevant.

As I said before - your belief, agreement and/or permission is not 
necessary.

>The problem I have with that notion is the assumptions that underlie it:
> * That everyone views the natural world in terms of 'wilderness'

Really? What the hell does "wilderness" have to do with it? I view the 
world as a linear continuum between "nature" and "civilization". I'll put 
something out here later and you can chew on it. But that statement is 
nonsense. For most of the audience here, we're talking about the AT for 
Chrissake. "Wilderness??!!" - Don't get silly on me.

> * That everyone carries a CF for similar reasons and regards it as a 
>crutch

Again - you've oversimplified the argument to the point of nonsense. 
Everyone carries their CF for what they consider good reason. Not all those 
reasons are the same - nor should they be. I even supplied some reasons re: 
those who "should" carry one - like illness, a dying Granny, small children 
(either at home or hiking with them), etc. But carrying one AS A THRUHIKER 
is, in general, for only one reason. And that is - communication with the 
outside world - whether to "keep in touch" with family/friends or for 
"safety". So let's take a look at those - "safety and the cell phone" is 
the subject of one of Bun-Bun's essays - here: 
http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/bb%20cell.html

And I don't need to repeat that.

For family/friends - a thruhiker will go into town on the average every 2 or 
3 days. So, tell me why it's necessary to communicate with family in the 
middle of a thruhike more often than that? Oh, yeah - you don't have to 
look for a phone when you get to town, do you? Sorry - that may be a good 
reason for you , but for me it's not worth carrying the weight of a cell 
phone for 50 or 100 miles so I can save 3.5 minutes when I get to town.

And finally - it is without question - a crutch. Look at the people around 
you - how many of them carry a cell phone? Why? It's a crutch that 
relieves them of anxiety, of necessity for faith, of the responsibility to 
be self-reliant. Somehow in the previous incarnation of this discussion, 
you missed this quote:
"As a nation, we've made ourselves less self-reliant by developing a 
dependency on "magic wands," such as cell phones and GPS units. We live in a 
culture that demands 'safety' above all else and encourages us to place 
responsibility for our lives and actions on someone else. George Orwell 
labelled it "protective stupidity."

The man who said that had a lot more experience than you do with "cell 
phones in the wilderness." You should maybe pay attention.

> * That a CF, to a greater extent than say a tent or sleeping bag, will
>insulate the hiker from nature, thus its mere presence is a bad thing
>relative to having 'a wilderness experience'.

Yup - and you're not gonna believe that, are you? But then - you'r belief 
isn't necessary, is it?

If you'd actually read the Thruhiking Papers, you might realize that one of 
the major reasons why people don't finish thruhikes is that they're torn 
between two worlds - home and the trail. And that frequent communication - 
like carrying a cell phone and calling home every night - is one of the most 
absolutely negative parts of a thruhike. As an example, one of my hiking 
partners on the AT went home for exactly that reason. Every year there are 
many thruhikers who go home for that same reason. And YOU want to 
facilitate their failure by encouraging them to carry the instrument of 
their own failure? That's called "enabling failure."

So far - I'm sure you're not happy with where this is going - but there's 
more - because you keep trying to lecture me about HYOH - and I was the one 
who taught you what the words meant in the first place. It would be more 
profitable for you to teach your Grandma to suck eggs. So - let's talk 
about HYOH - it ain't just the "do your own thing and don't say anything 
about what anyone else is doing" philosophy that you keep pushing. There's 
more - for example - another part of HYOH is "don't damage either the Trail 
or the Trail community."

And you've failed that part of HYOH simply because you've taken a 
proposition that was stated very specifically to be for thruhikers/long 
distance hikers, twisted it into appying to ALL hikers - and then, in your 
circular logic, come around again and said - it doesn't apply to thruhikers 
either.

You are the one who insists on talking about ALL hikers - as if the hiking 
community were homogeneous. But it's not. I'm a thruhiker. I'm also a 
dayhiker - and a weekender. But I KNOW the difference. You apparently 
don't. So you give advice to future thruhikers/long distance hikers as if 
they were intending to be dayhikers. And you thereby damage their 
experience as well as the trail community because what you're teaching them 
doesn't apply to what they intend to do.

Bottom line - If I want advice about butchering a hog, I don't go to a 
plumber. If a future thruiker/long distance hiker wants advice and goes to 
a non-thruhiker, they deserve the results they get.

For Robert - nearly everything you said is "right on" - with one glaring 
exception. You said:

>However, with a cell phone inside your pack, you might call someone for 
>some words of >encouragement and end up staying on the trail.

As you might have gathered from what I said above - calling home (espcially 
when you're "down") is one of the fastest ways to get home from the Trail. 
Nostalgia is more powerful than most people would credit - unless you've 
seen it in action.

Now we can continue this circus if you'd like. I'd rather not. But I will 
if there's any backsplash on this mess. I'm damned tired of being told I'm 
a liar, that I don't know what I'm talking about, that I'm a terrible 
person, that I'm telling everyone to hike "my" hike, etc. As Ginny said 
last night - I bend over backwards to NOT tell people what they "should" do 
- I just tell them what I think they need to know and let them make their 
own decisions. THAT is what HYOH is about.

For JimB again - you've got a problem. And the first part is that you owe 
Robert an apology for the unnecessary attack. The secomd part is that you 
should pay more attention to what Robert says. With the single exception 
that I noted, he said it right and he said it well.

Walk softly - Bun-Bun bites,
Jim

http://www.spiriteaglehome.com/




		
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