Once upon a time, many people knew how to survive in the outdoors. Skills like archery, trapping and how to live off the land were common knowledge. I know this because I saw it once on a television program. Whilst sitting comfortably on my sofa, waiting for a friend to go online so I could resume shooting and killing in the digital world, I watched enthralled, yet utterly confused, as a man not too dissimilar to me spoke about the practical techniques of setting up traps and snares in the wilderness. He used foreign terms like "channelization", "squirrel-poles" and explained the importance of leaving no signs of human presence. Perplexed, I walked to the refrigerator and put a pasty in the microwave.
I have come to terms with my impractical nature. Knowledge of the outdoors is a continuing yet distant mystery to me but as I waited for the microwave to deliver my pasty I began to wonder when was it that important skills, once familiar, are now forgotten and only advertised as a lost art on Sunday afternoon television.
The answer, at least on the surface, seems self-explanatory. During the twentieth century we as a society began to be enveloped by a cocoon of quick fixes, where huge technological improvements surpassed traditional methods of self-sustainability and adventure. In today's society, personal connections with nature seem hard to come by. While technology has certainly improved conditions in the home - both recreationally and domestically - it has also pushed children and adults alike further indoors. This is worrying. Not only will it have a domino effect on future generations' concerns and relationship with the outdoors but, as recent studies have shown, it will be detrimental to their future physical and psychological health.
Frequent excursions into the countryside and revisiting "lost" skills, such as trapping, archery, clay shooting and fishing are important to the mental and physical growth of an individual. Beyond the cognitive and health benefits that these activities provides, they will also promote a sense of wonder and encourage a deep understanding of nature far removed from staring at a television screen. New skills which are practical in the "real" world will always be more rewarding than "top scores" in the digital realm. While activities in the outdoors are an ideal way to relieve oneself from the stresses and rituals of daily life, a large percentage of people are still genuinely hesitant to going back outdoors.
Despite this looming reluctance to free ourselves from the stranglehold of technology, there are numerous organisations, such as Center Parcs, that cater for those wishing to embrace the great outdoors, but with all of the home comforts that we have become accustomed to. Moreover, activities such as clay pigeon shooting are readily available once people actually try and locate them. So, rather than developing carpal tunnel syndrome, sofa-sitting-shooting-adults could instead learn a new skill, which mixes their fascination with shooting things whilst placing them back in a healthy outdoor environment.
The proliferation of television, computer games and, the rather paradoxical, social media in modern culture has essentially left a generation under house arrest. We have come to a point where individuals can identify more corporate logos or cartoon characters than common types of vegetables or wildlife species. The connection between our current experiences with the natural world will undoubtedly affect our behaviour, health and attitudes in the future, so learning some of these lost skills could be paramount to re-embracing a sense of wonder about the world around us.
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