I made fun of this video when I first saw it.

I watched it…my smug attitude barely in check…and thought, “Good gosh…this guy is in for a bruising.  Imagine him living off the land?  Holy smokes…it’s going to be a train wreck.”

But then I thought about my own limited experience “living in the wilderness”.

When we moved down here, the road was dirt and it felt like living out in the woods.

Now the road is paved, and it feels like we’re in another subdivision.

I have a lot of books about living in the woods…a lot of books about survival and cabin building and making things work…but when it comes down to it, I’m just a doofus trying to figure any of it out.

I guess that at this point I’ve figured out that it’s not about the books I’ve read or the movies I’ve watched…it’s about the nails I’ve bent and the things I’ve actually built.  It’s about my life… not the things I’ve “absorbed” that other people have done.

So for me to have any attitude about some young guy’s aspirations is ridiculous.  Except for my inability to grow a good crop of dreadlocks…or any hair on top of my noggin now…this guy is me…all philosophy and inexperience…ready to get in over his head and trying to figure stuff out on the way back to the surface.

I saw a video about a guy getting his internet installed in his “wilderness” Alaska cabin.  He was getting a HughesNet system installed so they could have internet and a VOIP phone.

It doesn’t feel like wilderness to me when you have internet service.

I don’t know how far out we’d need to get for it to feel like we were living out “in the wilderness”.

It’s all trial by voluminous error.  I’ve made some goofy, goofy, goofy mistakes.  I’ve made mistakes that I’m sure made our lives a lot harder than they needed to be.

Maybe getting used to doing things in ways that are a little more sophisticated and “right” is what keeps this from feeling like a “desperate wilderness experience”.

This guy, Malcolm, has a dream and it’s a “right” dream.  Living out in the country is the way to go.

More power to you and your dream, Malcolm.