As a related point, when a "survivalist" *doesn't*: why is he still called a survivalist? Wasn't he more of an UnSurvivalist?

I suspect, it has been confided by a few of the more self-aware people I know, that a considerable number of people who are engaged in adventure type activities are in some way exploring their will to live. Some are willing to die if the terms are favorable. Quite a few people in 'survivalism' are simply looking for an appropriate setting to give up.

The diminishing prospects of the middle class and middle age whites, high unemployment, relative worthlessness of the individual and inability of people to find a place and make a mark are causing a lot of males to question the value of their lives.

Some are just waiting for a situation where they can go down in a 'blaze of glory', 'heroic action', 'noble sacrifice'. Death by cop, going postal, school shootings, and attacks on public buildings are the antisocial version. Running into a burning orphanage to save the children, and joining the military and falling on a grenade the much more socially positive side.

Going toe-to-toe with mother nature and falling short is somewhere in the middle. So far in the middle that the desire for an end may not have been conscious. He may have been in denial as to his novice status but he strikes me as having gone through enough that he was fairly self-aware. I suspect that at some level he knew he was taking a big risk. But I also think that at some level it didn't matter.

Gosh, Art, I was feeling pretty perky today until you called my attention to the swirling, sucking eddy of despair that is my wretched, useless life...but you do identify a significant re-interpretation of what we are about here. Add to that the observation that suicides account for more than half of the gun deaths in this country, one might conclude that the manufacturers need to add a suicide hot line button to the personal rescue beacon products.

I sure hope we are keeping in mind that Mr Code might have just exercised really, really bad judgement.

I agree...

I'm always happy to be the resident optimist and ray of sunshine on the board.

Several very good friends are LEO's.

I have noticed a sharp increase in single vehicle, single occupant motor vehicle accidents during the last few years in the news. When I asked the LEO's, they told me many more are actually going unreported by the news, and the number is more than ten times higher than five years ago for this area. Almost none of the occupants phone records show them to have been using their phones during the crash, but the phones were almost all used just prior to.

Many have taken a "don't ask, don't tell" stance as to whether said collisions are an accident, or an "accident".

Probably checking that their life insurance premiums were up to date. Getting killed by a pothole and not having life insurance could be a major headache for the victims family.

That could be part of the cause. Using a phone is dangerous, not because it takes up a hand, but because of the mental distraction needed to conversationally model someone who isn't present. That distraction continues for some time after the call is over.

Personally I don't think the "suicide" explanation is plausible or insightful for Code.

Neither do I. But I do believe his life situation may have contributed to his almost pathological devotion to hard core "survival" trips. A sort of everything else stinks, let's do THIS and show I've got what it takes to make it kind of response.