Ask Urban Scout #9

Rewilding…sounds great, but I don’t know where, when, or how to start. I created my life goals and direction before I realized where civilization is going and fully developed my hate of it. I’m a college sophomore on track for grad school and then working in early intervention… But now I question this path and envy, more than ever, those born before the spread of western civilization. I would know what to do with my life if I wanted to stick to a civilization-appropriate path… Get married, work in a school district as either a speech pathologist or as a pre-school teacher in early intervention (depending on where my interests in college lead me), have children, and raise them as United States (or possibly Canadian) citizens who go to college and get a job… Now that I’ve changed my views, this isn’t the path I want. I want to break free from civilization. I lived in a rural area until I was 8, but I’m mostly a Salemite who knows next to nothing about surviving in the wild. I want to be serious about doing something different and meaningful with my life. At this point, I don’t know enough to be able to do that. It seems like people are more likely to think “this suck but I don’t know what to do so I’ll just go back to my domesticated little life,” than they are to see the problem and take action. Right now I feel like that first group, but don’t want to be a part of it; I want to take action. Do you have any advice for me?

First off, I know just how you feel. Sometimes when you see something so insane, and yet you have no other story to live in, you can’t give up the one you have for… nothing. We need another story, and rewilding gave me that.

Secondly, having another story to live in doesn’t always mean people will choose it. In every story, every myth, at some point the hero reaches a place we call “the point of no return.” Everyone has a different “point of no return” depending on their own physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs that civilization does not meet. Most of the people I know who rewild suffer from some sort of “disfunction” (i.e. constant fatigue/depression/add/autism) caused by civilization. Mostly the point of no return comes with the recognition that civilization has caused our suffering and that a way out of the suffering involves rewilding.

My point of no return happened the day I read Ishmael. I dropped out of high school and started rewilding the next day and have never looked back. Though I work jobs here and there, my life-long goal involves dismantling civilization and creating rewilding cultures.

As collapse intensifies, more people will feel the pain and suffering of civilization and reach the point of no return and discover rewilding. People will change when they can no longer look away, no longer ignore the suffering. At present, rewilding feels easier today than it did 10 years ago. No one had heard of climate change (or thought of it as a threat) 10 years ago. No one had heard of Peak Oil 10 years ago. I have so many more elements to go on now when talking with people than I did 10 years ago. I lost most of my friends trying to convince them civilization has begun to collapse. These days it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or an angry teenager) to see how fucked things stand.

That means that 10 years from now, rewilding will look and feel even more easier. Of course, the pioneer people like me fight an uphill battle initially. But in theory, I know the harder I work, the easier it will get. And I don’t really have the choice of going back to civilization because I have passed my own personal point of no return. The more people create other programs for sustainable subsistence. I don’t think collapse will happen over night. I think it will happen slowly over the next 100 years. Though, we stand on the peak right now, so we have a lot of work cut out for us, if we choose to do it, but in the end I think it will pay off.

Secondly, I would say that it may pay off if you can come up with a plan that will help you fulfill your dreams, with a collapse or without a collapse. I hate civilization and want to rewild, regardless of collapse. You say you want to teach preschool? So teach preschool, and teach rewilding. We can do the things we love, and encourage rewilding through them, knowing that soon we will not have the same system. I wanted to make films in Hollywood all through my teens. When I read Ishmael, I ditched that vision for rewilding. Later on I realized I could use filmmaking to encourage rewilding, while filmmaking exists.

We can’t simply jump from what we have now to a fully transformed culture. We need to take it step by step, and that happens over time. I often feel impatient and want civilization to collapse quickly, but I also understand that things will happen when they do. If a gang of people could collapse civilization overnight, I would love it and support them ideologically. I can’t and don’t know anyone who can, nor do I feel inspired to do that work. I feel inspired to create more biodiversity and teach people how to do that too.

In short, I have some rhetorical questions for you… Do you feel like you have reached the point of no return? Do you see any ways that you can mesh your current dreams and rewilding together? Can you use the tools you love to dismantle civilization?
Thanks for the questions. I hope this helps.

Scout

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