Out of the Wild

I hereby dub this week Adventure Week, seeing as I am bored and very over this heat wave in SoCal, and I want to go on an adventure more than I want a coconut popsicle right now, and BELIEVE ME, do I ever want a coconut popsicle right now. I also thought it would make a nice addendum to Shark Week. So buckle up and enjoy as I take you places you probably don’t want to go, because you aren’t depraved as I admittedly am…

Do you know what I love, what I am just a sucker for, what gets me all excited and it probably shouldn’t?  No, it’s not something naughty. Please pull your minds out the gutter people, I’m trying to have an adult conversation here. And once again, by “adult,” I do not mean x-rated. *Sigh*

So T.V. programs about survival in the wilderness are kind of a thing with me.

I know, I know, completely random and seemingly a little out of character – for those who don’t know me very well. I come across as bookish, cultured, possibly medicated and maybe a little very wacko. But no, I am a barbarian at heart. A wild savage who carries a pocket knife in her purse.*

[*Fact. I always have a pocket knife with me, because you never know when you’re going to need one. It’s a beautifully carved wood-handled knife I got in Nontron, France, a town that specializes in crafting knives. It’s come in handy many times, like at baby/bridal showers for cutting ribbons or when I need to cut up an apple or cheese, or just when I need to threaten someone because they won’t take me seriously, and there are no readily available knives. I am my father’s daughter; he always carried one, and it always seemed to save the day, so I guess there’s one lesson I absorbed. PARENTING WIN.  The only time I leave home without a knife is when I go to sporting events or through airport security. Because I have standards. Also, they confiscate those suckers.]

I’ve watched Survivor since its inception because it was a family tradition to eat tacos and discuss strategy, survival skills, and the general merits (e.g., hot or not) of each player. The idea of surviving off the land, without modern conveniences like tacos, running water or tampons, and really taking a juicy bite out of life at its rawest just makes me want to quit my job and go native. Like Lord of the Flies, with fewer children/pig’s heads on spikes, and Robinson Crusoe, without the boring discussion of fencing for a sheep farm and the Anglo-centrist post-colonial subtext.

Mike and I started watching this show from the Discovery Channel called Out of the Wild on Netflix, because I’m cheap and won’t let him get cable. I am now addicted to said show. The basic premise is a group of people from all walks of life are dropped off in the middle of NOWHERE, Venezuela, provided with maps and enough food to get them to their first destination where they can hunt, and they basically go on this grueling designated hike through some of the most gnarly terrain on the planet. Poisonous insects, flesh-eating jungle cats, unstable inclines, starvation – they face all of these on an hourly basis, running on no sleep because it’s the ever-loving rain forest during the wet season so they’re constantly freezing/soaking wet. It’s not a contest so they don’t win anything, they’re all just doing it for deeply personal reasons; most are unhappy with their lives as cogs in the corporate machinery.

Naturally, I love it.

Why, why do I love to watch people roughing it to the extreme, finding larvae to eat for breakfast and not sleeping because of torrential tropical rains? What about a man grabbing for a poisonous Bushmaster by its neck gets me jumping like a pot-bellied redneck at a NASCAR race? I’m a student of Fine Arts, this sort of tomfoolery shouldn’t appeal to me so much.

Theories, anyone?

Maybe everyday life is so tame and monotonous that I need some exposure to a more visceral way of experiencing this earth.  Maybe it’s a primal force within me, the urge to survive entirely on my own without contemporary American society’s extra thick cushion to ensure I never run out of ANYTHING I could possibly ever need or want (or don’t want, for that matter). Maybe it’s a way to share experiences with more of humankind, who have lived without cars, grocery stores or electricity for the majority of human history.

Or yea, maybe I’m crazy. I’m open to suggestions from the audience, and will further explore this topic as the week continues.

In any case, as if you all didn’t think I was loopy enough; some of the guys at work mentioned Bear Grylls (a.k.a., my hero) last week, and let’s just say, I was more pumped than a person ought to be at the idea of squeezing water out of elephant dung.

Return for more Adventure tomorrow!