Boxes or Circles

I really have a love/hate relationship doing this website.    While it is full of relevant information and a great medium in which to encourage folks to get to get to the field, it also means I was sitting in front of box typing this, and you are now sitting in front of a box reading it…

“I live in nature, where everything is connected, circular. The seasons are circular. The planet is circular, and so is its passage around the sun. The course of water over the earth is circular, coming down from the sky and circulating through the world to spread life and then evaporating up again. 

Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them.

When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box, they live their lives in a box! 

Does that sound like anybody you know? Break out of the box! You don’t have to live like this because people tell you it’s the only way. You’re not handcuffed to your culture! This is not the way humanity lived for thousands and thousands of years, and it is not the only way you can live today!”

Eustace Conway, as quoted in The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert

About Christian Noble

Chris Noble is the founder of MasterWoodsman.com and Woodsmoke Camping Company. A Master Naturalist, he holds a Bachelor of Science in Forestry and has worked as a Registered Forester and Certified Burn Manager in several states. Chris is also a Wilderness First Responder and since the late 90’s has been “practicing primitive” skills and taking lessons from numerous Master Woodsmen throughout North America. An advocate for Conservation, teacher of Wilderness Living Skills, and happily married, he enjoys passing what he has learned thus far to others, especially his 2 children, Emerson and Duncan.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. “The Zone” for Bushcraft | Master Woodsman - February 24, 2013

    […] way, most of us are always in the unfortunate beta state.  Living in boxes, watching boxes, driving a box, eating out of a box, typing on a box… we have no need for a high level of awareness.  In this beta state, our brains actually work […]

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