Frame of mind/Psychology of solo trips.

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tjwuk

Nomad
Apr 4, 2009
329
0
Cornwall
I like company as much as the next person, but I also think its true that if you don’t like your own company how can other people like you too! Being comfortable alone is more about the type of person you are and not something you grow into. I would say maybe the main point here is its OK to be alone, as long as there is someone waiting for you somewhere. The rest all comes down to positive thinking, and being able to recognise the fact you will have dire thoughts and yes, we are all insignificant. One sobering thought many people don’t like to think of is, how many people will remember you ever existed in 100, or even 50 years time? I added this last part due to a couple of threads here!

The one thing that helps is to have an array of life experience under your belt, and to have learnt from that as well as not just going through it. I know a few people that are close to 70 years old and haven’t really learnt anything from life, apart form where to buy their groceries etc. That in my book isn’t living, its existing and there is a vast difference between the two. This life experience can’t be taught, or passed on. How can you explain the pain of watching one of your family members die? You can try, but until that person goes through it themselves they will never know, due to the fact that we are different and how we view all of life’s situations. Loosing someone is afterall one of life’s hardeners!

The area I bivied at over the weekend is a well known witch, ghost haunt type of place. However being that way also keeps many people away at night, the main reason why I go there. I enjoy getting away, and would relish more time/money available for me to be able to do this, so being alone which we all are really, is something I really enjoy. Eat what you like, get up and go to bed when you like, and if something doesn’t get done, you only have yourself to blame.

I have a fundamental understanding of survival impressed on me from an early age from my father, who survived the swamps of Burma in WW2 as a Chindit. Time alone lets you sort out any s**t in your life, this occurs by focusing more on who you are, and not having the presence of others cluttering up the space (lol, best way I could put it)

In the end we all need our own space, and how far you go depends on how self reliant you are.
 

Grooveski

Native
Aug 9, 2005
1,707
10
53
Glasgow
Didn't get my week away this summer and must admit I missed it.

The oddest bit I find is when you're surprised by someone. A few years ago three folk came walking along the shore after I'd been on my todd for a few days. Was in the canoe fishing but only 50m or so out and the shock I got when the lass yelled "hello there"........:eek:

Another time I got back to where I'd put in and the car was sitting at the edge of a carnival. Lights, music and crowds. If I hadn't been working the next day I'd have just carried on paddling. :rolleyes:

Have hid from hillwalkers a couple of times too, just crouched down in cover and let them pass. Seemed easier than walking by them and nodding a hello. :eek:

Never worried much about safety - be it on the bike, hiking or in the canoe. Not really much of a worrier though, that's another personality trait altogether I reckon that has more to do with being confident of your own decisions.

We've all said how we like time by ourselves and have no difficulty in our own company.
But there's a whole world of difference between having a night alone (or two, or three), knowing you will be going back to loved ones and a welcoming home, and being alone with no one to go back to except more loneliness.
I wonder how that difference affects our attitude to spending time alone...

There are many times I go out just because I feel it'll be a nicer vibe where-ever than sat in the house on my todd. Have never felt I didn't want to go home to the empty house though if that's what you were asking(not sure it was).
Sure do go out a lot more when I'm single but that's just because I can do what I like and I like camping.
 
We've all said how we like time by ourselves and have no difficulty in our own company.
But there's a whole world of difference between having a night alone (or two, or three), knowing you will be going back to loved ones and a welcoming home, and being alone with no one to go back to except more loneliness.
I wonder how that difference affects our attitude to spending time alone...

I think that's a very good point and I wonder how the psychology works here. I would guess it's not a wholly positive experience as Doc recently pointed out in another thread where he mentioned Sigurd Olsens view that old timers who really were on their own always had some sort of chip on their shoulders about society/people, maybe resentment, I can't quite remember how Olsen put it but he certainly didn't see it as a good thing. In my own experience of homelessness when I was younger I would honestly say the loneliness/sadness was pretty aweful at times and although fully recovered from that experience can fully appreciate the difference.
I can even see it in contemporary UK wilderness authors and if you've read Mike Tomkies work you'll be more than familiar with his bitterness, anger and resentment towards society and by all accounts this increased with age/isolation when he needed companionship the most. I can see it even in the works of jim Crumley but not to the same extent.

What Groovski said about avoiding people is exactly how I behaved when I was homeless and it got to the point where I found interaction extremely difficult. It's weird now as I'm a community worker to trade and have worked within a variety of contexts with total social immersion under extreme stress (prisons for example) and someone recently told me I was a "natural" at talking with people. So on that basis I'm not even sure if ones natural leening towards the pack or going solo is fixed. Maybe to some degree it is but I'm a firm believer in the premise that nurture for want of a better term (experiences) shapes our abilities and preferences to lean one way or another and that it's a dynamic and ongoing process relative to your present psychological needs.





 

groundhog

Full Member
May 25, 2005
80
0
67
Manchester
How many of us who are happy by themselves are the oldest or the only child in a family I wonder ?. As a child (when I could lose my younger brother) I used to go for a walk get lost on purpose and then find my way back. Now I find myself being asked for advice by my residents and sorting out their problems constantly so to go out by myself and worry only about a good campsite, when to get out of my sleeping bag and when am I due back at work is blissful. I would probably miss human company after a while but I've been alone for up to two weeks and never felt lonely. I do live a lot in my head though and have never had a mobile phone as I would resent the intrusion of chit chat.
 

chas

Member
Feb 22, 2006
44
0
mid essex
Solo canoeing, way better than two up,(except my partner in the picture,) especially by starlight, even when I met two kayakers paddling upstream with headtorches. Oh! to be paddling right now,.......joy. ATB, Chas.
 

Firebringer

Full Member
Jun 5, 2009
110
0
49
Scotland
I've never been 'alone' in the sense of socially not having a network of family or place to live.

Groundhog's comment's re oldest child struck home though. I know that my sister (younger) is far, far more sociable than I am.

I live alone and have done since leaving university 12 years ago. I do recognise an element of Grooveski's reaction to meeting other people. In my case it's more been passive wishing they would 'f off' rather than active hiding something that at times I'm concious of in social situations as well as bushcraft wilderness ones.

I guess the sociability aspect of personality is probably a bell curve affair. For myself I think it's probably in part an inherent part of my psyche that's probably also exacerbated by a degree of reacting against the high degree of social interaction my job requires.

If there's any clinical psychs on the board I wonder if there's a standard test for 'miserable buggerness'
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
4,570
S. Lanarkshire
Aye, ye're jist thrawn ! :rolleyes:

My Grandpa was, my bother is and so is Son2. Lots of them in the family.
Definitely a character type.
They even have the name right, Grooveski used it; Todd.

Come to think on it, HWMBLT is that way inclined too. He really does not like company on his camping/ walking trips. Makes the effort to phone home every three or four days though to stop me fretting, but that's as much contact with other folks as he seems to need.

I wonder how usual it is in the female though?
Even in a family such as mine where it is common, I don't know any of the womenfolks who really are 'loners'. The few spinsters/ widows within the family were incredibly social people.

cheers,
Toddy
 

Bushcraftsman

Native
Apr 12, 2008
1,368
5
Derbyshire
not sure if this has already been said, sorry if it has,

dogwood said:
it's just the woods (or desert sometimes for me) and it's not your enemy.

Surely here, it's not the woods people are scared about...it's what may or may not be lurking in the woods? That what I find whenever I go camping, I don't know why because not once when camping have I ever had someone randomly appear in the middle of the night but yet, I still find myself slightly more "alert" than usual. I don't know what it is. When camping all your senses seem to be heightened, you hear every snap of a twig, and that sets you off. Paranoia also seems to kick in slightly :p it's stupid, I know im probably the scariest thing in those woods but I cant help it. Oh well, I guess the more time I spend out there my mind will eventually realise this and calm down...well hopefully....TO THE WOODS!
 

Bushcraftsman

Native
Apr 12, 2008
1,368
5
Derbyshire
JEEZ!! well that certainly helped things along. From now on im going to lock myself in, lights off and curl up in the corner of the room whispering to myself..there's no such thing, they dont exist.
 

tjwuk

Nomad
Apr 4, 2009
329
0
Cornwall
I know, don't think vitamin B1 is going to help with this one either and the price of silver these days, I can't afford to make the bullets any more.:AR15firin
 
not sure if this has already been said, sorry if it has,



Surely here, it's not the woods people are scared about...it's what may or may not be lurking in the woods? That what I find whenever I go camping, I don't know why because not once when camping have I ever had someone randomly appear in the middle of the night but yet, I still find myself slightly more "alert" than usual. I don't know what it is. When camping all your senses seem to be heightened, you hear every snap of a twig, and that sets you off. Paranoia also seems to kick in slightly :p it's stupid, I know im probably the scariest thing in those woods but I cant help it. Oh well, I guess the more time I spend out there my mind will eventually realise this and calm down...well hopefully....TO THE WOODS!

When I was doing my masters in social anthropology we often debated at length the cross cultural universals that exist or not, for example the fear of snakes, or the dark and how these fears were either inbuilt or learned (nature vs nurture) and it was fair to say the evidence suggests that nature takes the lead on this and that we may be born with these fears. The psychologists can jump in here and expand on this:D . If this is the case then it's not unusual to have this fear infact, it could be inherantly beneficial for an individual in the far past to have them as they would put themselves at less risk to predators etc. This could mean that all you big girls blouses out there who are scared of being on your own and of the dark are better bushcrafters because you would survive longer!:lmao: Oh well here's me thinking that I'm at one with mother earth, myself and my dug but really I'm in a high risk scenario where I'm likley to have been eaten or die trying to survive in the past! pmsl

Well that's one way to look upon it I suppose however, high risk in hunter gatherer societies usually means higher success in accessing some types of resources so there would appear to be an equally important role for those who are inherantly not afraid of their fears and are willing to take a risk in order to reap greater rewards. So we have balanced roles for lone wolfs, part time lone wolfs and pack wolfs and this could help us understand why we as individuals have certain ways of living with and without the group and what ultimatley makes us feel happy and content. :240:


 

BOD

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
....the fear of snakes, or the dark and how these fears were either inbuilt or learned (nature vs nurture) and it was fair to say the evidence suggests that nature takes the lead on this and that we may be born with these fears.


Curious. What is the evidence for this?

Babies left in a room with vipers crawled to a chair or a corner?

Babies were more fretful in dark rooms than brightly lit ones?
 
Curious. What is the evidence for this?

Babies left in a room with vipers crawled to a chair or a corner?

Babies were more fretful in dark rooms than brightly lit ones?

Seriously BOD, at uni, one lecurer (in a belief, thought and language course-a 2 year course part of the masters syllabous and covered everything from psychology, linguistics, philosophy...)presented us with studies by psychologists who had done the experiments and their findings were suggesting this. I can't quote them off hand but it was a highly contenscious piece of work-the old nature nurture debate and was a significant point that we were guided to be aware of.
 

HillBill

Bushcrafter through and through
Oct 1, 2008
8,141
88
W. Yorkshire
Why is there a natural fear of snakes? I know there is one worldwide, just curious as to why?

Darkness is an instinctual fear stemming back to times when dangerous predators wandered about etc, same as animals now being born with an insinctual fear of humans.

The snake one though??? I have theories :D
 

dogwood

Settler
Oct 16, 2008
501
0
San Francisco
Why is there a natural fear of snakes? I know there is one worldwide, just curious as to why?

Darkness is an instinctual fear stemming back to times when dangerous predators wandered about etc, same as animals now being born with an insinctual fear of humans.

The snake one though??? I have theories :D

It most likely comes from our past in the trees.

Nearly all primate infants have an immediate fear of snakes because, for primates, snakes in the trees were a dominant predator.

Show a baby marmoset a stuffed snake and they flee immediately.
 

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