What means the most to you in life?

[Shattered Soul]

Hello, folks....interesting place you have here.

So, what means the most to YOU? If one day, you just decided that you couldn't take it one minute more, and considered biting the big one, what is the single thing that would stop you from doing that? Apparantly, for some of you, it's whale penises, but to each his own, I say. I guess they're great if you can get 'em. But for those of you without access to whale penisis (can you order those online?), what makes life worth living?

I think for me it would be, oh, a good book, true friends, and good coffee. In that order. All three are hard to find, and all three are immensely satisfying once found. Good books and good coffee are two things in life that can truly be savored, and true friends are just too rare to let go of once found.

[Uryoces]

The night ends, and the day begins again. I start the decision tree over again. Each one is new and not like the others, and the difference is under my control.

[mrnoodle]

My family, up to and including my niece and nephews, who are very dear to me. Being single and with no immediate prospects, I play the role of doting uncle these days. God, I love those kids.

On the personal pleasure front, I would have to say being in the woods in about September qualifies as the closest thing to nirvana I experience. The mornings are crisp enough to rattle your teeth, but it gets almost summerlike during the day before cooling down again at night. The elk are bugling, other critters are busy getting ready for winter, leaves are turning, etc. etc.

I had started a lovely little nature essay here, but I clipped it because I was in danger of nauseating myself. But the etc. etc. encompasses a wide range of warm fuzzies. Not the least of which is reserved for bowhunting. For 48 weeks a year, elk are majestic woodland creatures. For the other 4, I want one dead and hanging from a tree in my camp.

Ahh.

[farfromhome]

I was nodding and agreeing with noodle for the first half of his post.
And here's where I will probably take a detour from a lot of the cellar community.
What gene do you possess that I do not?Or vice-versa?What is it in you that gives you joy about killing a wild free thing?I don't get it.And I never will.

[lumberjim]

yeah, must be a gene. I never had the urge to kill a deer either. ALL of my friends hunted, their dads hunted, their uncles hunted, the neighbor that didnt have kids hunted, but me and my dad didnt...didnt fish much either. We had a lake right nearby, and all of my friends were avid fishermen, too...i had a rod and i'd take it with me, but, i just wasnt nearly as into it as they were. and if you ask juju, he'll tell you im overmasculine......so, yeah, must be genes.....we must come from a long line of familes that didnt have to hunt for their food or something.


$.02

edit: oh, and ...my kids, at this point. sorry for the hijacking

[Elspode]

The opportunity to learn and experience new things, and to enjoy old things once again.

[mrnoodle]

Originally posted by farfromhome
What gene do you possess that I do not?Or vice-versa?What is it in you that gives you joy about killing a wild free thing?I don't get it.

I get that response a lot from people on forums like this. In the old days, I really, truly thought the animal rights people were insane. I still think that about some of them.

Human society at its most civilized is the farthest removed from nature. Civilization is good for humans who are all packed in together and need to get along. But it comes with a price. We are no longer an integral part of the planet we live on (i'm talking metaphysically here). Because we don't like being uncomfortable, we've built enormous concrete cities, connected by ribbons and ribbons of concrete roads, upon which we travel safely out of the elements in our vehicles. The closest many people get to "nature" as it were, is if they have to get out of their Hondas to take a leak. This is usually an unnerving experience for them, so they would rather do it in a filthy sewage-infested gas station restroom filled with disease than next to a pine tree where something might eat them.

We surround ourselves with other people and people-made things to the extent that most of us don't know of a world where we aren't separated from it by a sheet of glass or a tv screen. Since our only true interaction is with humans, we have no real basis for proper animal/human relationships. We dress our pets in human clothes, feed them human food. We watch talking animals with human emotions on TV. When one dies, we are saddened, and rightly so -- but we look at the dead critter and can't help wondering if its mother is saddened. I know my mom would be. The problem is, we have completely severed contact with the way it is "out there", outside of our concrete islands.

This stage of our evolution is, oh, about 140 years old. A blink in the history of our race. On a timeline, the generation that goes to oxygen bars and spends $4 for a cup of water that has been run over coffee beans is about a micron removed from the generation that hunted, gardened, and gathered for its daily sustenance.

My love of hunting, the more primitive the better, doesn't stem from bloodlust. It stems from what I feel is already preprogrammed in all of us - the desire to be part of the world again. Yes, something might die, and for some, it's too high a price to pay. They'd rather have their protein in a sanitary looking, pre cut package. That's ok by me, but I like being there from the start.

The kill is bittersweet -- joy at success, some soulsearching over the death you've caused, thankfulness to the prey, to God...the emotions involved are deeply subconscious and we all share them. Some of us have 'educated' ourselves away from such unpleasantness, some, like me, decided we preferred the old version.

No, the whole experience is what drives me to hunt. If you're willing to put aside enough time and work at it, you can connect with your world on a very primal level. When hunting, you hear more clearly, you see farther, you can distinguish scents better. The cold is colder, the heat hotter. Food tastes better. At the end of the day, nothing sounds better than your shelter and a small fire. In fact, the plastic bags that you brought your food in seem utterly incongruous. You can hear a plastic bag for 100 yards. When you roll out of the sack in the morning, the intensity of the cold is negated by the fact that *you get to go HUNTING!!*

You wondered when I was getting to that, huh? Well, after a day or three in the woods, eliminating all the white noise that's been assaulting your brain for the last however many months and tuning in to your environment, the idea of hunting suddenly doesn't seem all that extreme. If you watch closely, you can witness maybe a dozen deaths in a day, from insect life on up. Death is part of the cycle. To me, watching something being born and witnessing its death create almost the same emotion - a kind of quiet awe.

The aggressive, "let's go bag us an elk" mentality is, in me, how I psyche myself up for success. I want the meat. In 20 years of hunting, I have kept one rack of antlers. It wasn't even that big, it was more of a keepsake from the experience. Nope, it's the protein. And I determine to myself that I will stretch my resources, my body, and my mind to the limit to get meat in my camp.

This isn't pretense. Think about it. I weigh 180 lbs. I have no claws, I can't run fast, I stink like a human, and my white skin practically glows in the dark from all the flourescent light it's been exposed to for so long. I'm a beacon. And now, I'm going to try to sneak up on a 600-lb animal that has better instincts, vision, smelling, hearing, and speed. On its own turf, with a sharp stick and a string. I must get within 30 yards or so of this animal undetected and put that sharp stick into a target area the size of a paper plate.

Usually I lose. Sometimes I win. The elk in question has run from wolves, mountain lions, starvation, plague, and harsh winters all its life. I'm small potatoes in its world.

And at the end of it all, it breaks my heart to have to get into a stinky truck and burn gasoline all the way down to the concretelands again, where my food will come wrapped in paper with a clown drawn on it, and I will have to listen to people tell me what I'm doing is wrong. Wrong was coming back, not going.

That's how much i like hunting. And we have the same basic genetics, you are just more skilled at filtering out old, old urges. That works for some people, just not for me.

I promise I'm not bloodthirsty. And for what it's worth, I like people, too. I play guitar in bars and would like my band to tour with Iron Maiden, if they're still alive when we hit it big. I vote, I support a peaceful society, and if someone finally manages to make it illegal to hunt, I will comply out of respect for the institution of law.

But it'll be bullshit.


edited to get rid of one or two "huh?" things that pop up when you try to soul search at 2 am

[Shattered Soul]

I applaud you....that's the best explanation I've heard, ever, about why one hunts.

I, personally, could never do it. I'd rather shoot it with a camera than a weapon. But I've always had at least a grudging respect for certain hunters, the ones who pay their dues in order to protect the animals they hunt. Those who hunt animals for stupid reasons, such as fur, and hunt them to near-extinction, can die painfully from Ebola, as far as I'm concerned.

Now, I do know people who hunt for food. They use every part of the animal, and nothing goes to waste. I respect them, too. And the fact that you hunt with a bow ups my regard for you a LOT. Anyone can kill an animal with a high-powered rifle and a scope. What you do is more what I consider hunting. You vs. the animal, as close to equal as you can get.

And you seem to have a genuine love for nature and a desire to become closer to it. I never thought I'd say this, but from what I read in your post, I think you're the first hunter I've ever actually APPROVED of (not that you need my approval, just that your views on hunting impressed me that much).

[staceyv]

my grandmother and my chihuahua.

[Kitsune]

If one day, you just decided that you couldn't take it one minute more, and considered biting the big one, what is the single thing that would stop you from doing that?

The knowing that several people have sacraficed a lot to assist me through life and that I owe them plenty in return before I pass from this world.

[Undertoad]

Noodle, awesome post. Save and recirculate, because it's a winner.

[ScottishDude]

I've been Veggie for 20 years and I totaly agree with mrnoodle.
Hunting for food is a totaly ok idea by me, but as also mentioned hunting for fur etc isnt.
Maybe people wonder here "then why the fuck am I veggie?"
Well it's not actully eating meat that gets me, its how the world works I just refuse to eat the bullshit meat they put in the shops. Plus I'm unhappy about certain ethics of the word today so it's a political stance too.

[mrnoodle]

Geez. you guys make me feel smart I thought it sounded like rambling, myself.

Unfortunately, I might have to lose some of the goodwill I seem to have garnered in order to avoid being slightly hypocritical. While I totally get off on nature and all the things I talked about, I am also 100% in favor of all hunter's rights, whether or not they reflect my personal brand of ethics. I disagree with certain practices and find them disrespectful to animals. Some people do things that I disagree with, but do so without any intention to be evil or sick. One example is hunting with dogs. To me, there's something kind of barbaric about it, and I won't do it. But I know people who do, and they at least *feel* the same respect for wildlife that I do. I can't account for the difference in our outlook though.

By the way, unless you're one of those asshats that empties a magazine of ammo at anything that moves, skillfully hunting with a rifle isn't as easy as it seems. At 500 yards, moving your barrel an inch will cause you to miss by something like 20 feet. Everything from wind to relative humidity, altitude above sea level and the physical structure of the bullet factors into making long-range shots. It's really a science if you are conscientious about it.

Thanks for all the nice thoughts, hope I didn't lose too many of you by not being the utter purist I sounded like :p

[slang]

Originally posted by Shattered Soul
Anyone can kill an animal with a high-powered rifle and a scope.

Yah, you should see what these Jersey fellas do to our cows. *

* - This is a regional joke. Please dont be offended at my attempt to be humorous and leave the forum.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Human society at its most civilized is the farthest removed from nature.

I'm not buying that statement, not one iota.
The rest of your post was spot on, however much of what you experience can be simulated by a person with a camera for people that can't kill. Well written.