Are you a nature lover or a survivalist?

I figure most of us serious campers could be classified into one of two groups; nature lover or survivalist. I'm just curious as to how you would identify yourself since what drives us also determines our goals and what we hope to learn from our experiences.

As a young girl, the woods is where I felt peaceful and collected. We moved a lot (19 schools before I graduated) so maybe I was a loner by choice or maybe by design but being alone in the woods was like being home when home always felt like a house we'd soon be leaving. My favorite place to live was when we lived in the woods of Oregon. As our 'driveway' was really a long path with a small mountain on one side and dropped off to a river on the other, when our home caught fire, the fire department could not get back there to put it out and, with that, my dream home was lost. Second place was where I am now. A hunting property purchased in 1976 that became home when I was in high school and that I inherited when my father passed away. So, I'd consider my beginnings nature lover. Now, however, I identify more with survivalist. I enjoy challenging my skills and learning to prepare and stock things that may help us should SHTF for any reason. I'm not an alarmist or a sky watcher but someone who realizes our world is filled with spoiled people who just wouldn't be able to survive out there if their precious technologies were terminated.

Maybe we all resonate with both but I think most of us will resonate with one or the other a little more strongly.

 

The word survivalist has several connotations and can convey various messages. It's a word that I don't use. I'm not a survivalist.

What I have done over the years is to learn how to be comfortable alone and to embrace solitude (by choice). I'm not an escapism type of mentality either but I've come to enjoy the created world. More than that I've learned how to take care of myself, really know how to cook in the outdoors, appreciate the character of animals and enjoy the simple life. It's not me against them...it's just me being a part of something greater than who I am. I'm just being me.