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[Dan Garmat]

Hi, I go by Dan out here. I live in Pittsburgh, PA currently and have 27 years on me.

I blame Malcolm Gladwell for getting me into rewilding. In “The Tipping Point” he mentions Dunbar’s Number, 150 -maximum group size a human brain processes effectively- and I could see everywhere how this created the problems around me. I’ve always considered Native Americans more sane, though, so probably rewilding had to get my attention at some point.

Watching Avatar (embarrassingly ) got me to look more into Dunbar’s number on Wikipedia, and a few links later I found Jason’s 30 Theses. I started reading Friday night, and by Sunday afternoon, could never again play my life-long favorite video game, Sid Meyer’s Civilization.

Now that I had all this free time, I’ve thought a lot about rewilding and collapse, and done some dirt time, which I’ve enjoyed. I find doing it on my own, I let time go by without doing much and don’t experiment as much, so look forward to talking and listening here, and with the people in my part of my bio-region.

[timeLESS]

Hi Dan,

i still play Civilization every now and then. I find it fun as a game, and it reminds me how horribly weird and effed up nation states are with their grand pretense and whatnot. Also i found Avatar pretty compelling as well 

Hope you enjoy your stay on the forums here!

[Fenriswolfr]

I have a hard time playing many games that I used to play now-a-days. Especially the strategy games, where the basic purpose is some type of world, or even galactic, domination.

Well come.

[Dan Garmat]

timeLESS, Fenriswolfr,
Thanks. Yeah, I like strategy in games, but I wish Sid Meyer would come out with Tribalization

[Peter Bauer]

Welcome Dan,

I know how you feel, I too, am a great lover of civilization.... the game. I actually think that it brought all the hidden premises of civilization to the fore front of my mind, so that later in life all of the critiques of civilization just made sense. And I still play it from time to time but eventually get bored. I'm talking about the original though. I have to use DosBox to boot it on my mac, but it's so worth it. I wish there was a game like "tribalization" lol. I am also a huge fan of Settlers of Catan which is basically like a simplified board game version. I keep trying to brainstorm a way to play the game backwards.

[heyvictor]

My name is Billy. I'm in western Canada. I was here a couple of years ago. There are a lot of my posts still on here from back then that will tell you a lot about me.

[Fenriswolfr]

Hi Billy,

Welcome again

[Ike]

Hi there,

My name is Isaac. I live on 40 acres of prairie and creeks in eastern Washington state. Slowly, I am trying to learn how to live more simply, and someday, disconnect from the system.

I work as a web developer and 3D modeler, but I would love to find something to do that is simpler and more tangible in the real world.

I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian, and I take my faith very seriously. Eastern Orthodoxy is a very mystical, rich faith - and I am excited about seeing how rewilding can blend into the deep well of Orthodoxy.

Fortunately, I live relatively close to Portland, so I hope to attend some of the Trackers PDX classes. We will see.

For a disjointed and confused view of my interests all jumbled into one place, visit my blog at crossdiver.tumblr.com.

Alright, I look forward to interacting on this forum.

Cheers,
Isaac

[Peter Bauer]

Hey Ike,

Welcome to the forum! Interesting about the christian thing. Please start a thread about that!

Also, what brought you here? How did you get into rewilding? What are your goals with it? What do you want to get out of this forum? Looking forward to hearing more!

[Ike]

Also, what brought you here? How did you get into rewilding? What are your goals with it? What do you want to get out of this forum? Looking forward to hearing more!

I have been interested in the outdoors and "survival" since I found a book by Dean Olson called Outdoor Survival Skills. I was probably about eleven. Then I became acquainted with Tom Brown, and I read almost everything he wrote. I found out about the "rewilding" movement recently, from the Urban Scout and Trackers PDX websites.

My goals are to use this information to better prepare myself so that someday, I can unplug. I am working, slowly, to cut back on time spent on the internet, to grow a bigger garden each year, to learn how to hunt and fish, to build structures using alternative, sustainable materials, and to explore all the amazing wild plants in my area. I hope to continue this learning until I can just let go of modern society.

I think that this forum can help me network with people who are also wanting to simplify their lives. We may not agree on everything, but we will share the common angst of questioning the status quo, and wondering if there is something that goes beyond the consumerist, materialistic world we live in - something that approches reality.

[DeAnnaD]

Howdy!

I'm DeAnna. I live on the southern tip of the Puget Sound in Washington state. I teach wilderness skills here in Olympia year-round, and in the summers I work up around Seattle as a wilderness educator. I also make money doing web design and coding. I love the juxtaposition of the two livelihoods, and I especially love weeks where I can do some of both, each providing a break from the other.

I have a dog. He's pretty cool and way smarter than me.

I also have a partner. He is also pretty cool, but only a little bit smarter than me.

They will both be handy to have around when civilization collapses.

I'm really into fibers of all sorts. I work with wool a lot, but I'm mostly inspired by nettles and cedar as fiber sources. I teach workshops about working with native fibers, and I also run a regular retreat that combines fiber arts with nature awareness skills.

[Jeff Coleman]

Hi, my name is Jeff. I'm 26 and from St. Louis, MO. I got into primitivism about a year ago. I'm pretty serious about it and want to learn how to live outside of civilization. It seems like I'm not in a very good spot geographically to learn from those who are like-minded, though.

 I read a lot, and have been in college for a long time now. Still no Bachelor's degree. I'm not in college for degrees, but to learn. I think I'm about at the end of what universities can offer me, though. I'm taking this semester (Spring '11) off to help watch my sister's kids and then possibly doing an internship at an organic farm. Gotta start the withdrawal from civ somewhere!

[Peter Bauer]

Welcome DeAnna and Jeff!

[geo]

Hey, I like to go by the name Geo. I'm 27, currently living in northern California. I'm originally from eastern Ontario up in Canada.
My childhood was spent in a small Ontario town in a small house across the street from a forest that seemed to me like it went on forever. I was endlessly exploring little niches in the forest and constructing with friends little pit dwellings, treehouses, and our imaginations generally went all over the place. This was when I became really interested in Native Americans (because to my young mind, they could live like we wanted to all the time, without their mums coming to yell at them about having baths).
We moved to the city when I was 12, after my dad passed into the other world. Fortunately, there were a lot of green spaces around where we moved to, including another huge forest, only this one had more people to hide from and spy on from the trees! It was here that we started playing around with making really primitive bows and arrows, and spears, and building more elaborate underground debris shelters, and fighting imaginary wars with other groups of kids in the bush.
Life changes moved me away from such accessible wilderness, and I was sucked into the internet for about 3 years, playing too many hours of computer games and bombing at school.
Ill skip forward a bit. After living in some green spaces on the fringes of the city and generally bumming around a little, I started desiring a little more mobility. I met some people and started doing some fun jobs that didnt really seem like work (bicycle couriering and doing temporary tattoos in a farmer's market). I managed to save money and then started travelling to Central America during the inhospitable Canadian winters. I met my Californian partner in Guatemala 2 years ago, and after a couple of hectic nomadic seasons crossing borders and getting stressed out over the political boundaries our culture is obsessed with, we recently got married!
I got into reviving my primitive skills at the Buckeye gathering last year here in California, and after some searches online for a more holistic cultural approach to what I realize now is called "Rewilding" I found Jason Godesky's "Thirty Theses" and Urban Scout's blog. I've been lurking in this forum since last August, hoping for more opportunities to hone my writing and exchanging ideas with like minded folk.
I hope I didn't go over the top. I can't wait to ask and answer questions.

[bereal]

Hey everyone!  I haven't spent much time on the internet for quite a while now (over a year & a half - unbelievable, it only feels like its been a few months), but lately I've been feeling the urge again - particularly to reconnect with the forum here.  So here I am!

Not much has changed for me in the interim, actually (unfortunately).  I had hoped to have bought land by now, to begin living more primitively and to work towards building a rewilding community, but it hasn't happened yet.  Major major bummer.  It's looking pretty certain that I will have the money to do so sometime this next summer, but until then, I'm still waiting....  and doing what I can while still living a modern lifestyle in a modern house.  I have a feeling that the rewilding forum will help a lot to keep me sane, and to keep my spirits up, in the meantime.  Not to mention helping me in more tangible ways - connecting with others, fleshing out my plans, and learning many things.

Looking forward to it!
-Jessica