These past few months have gotten me thinking in somewhat different patterns (life rarely follows the script).<br><br>I’m going to go out on a limb here, and so I want to make it clear right from the start that this is not criticism of this site, this forum, our approaches, our thoughts, or anything else. Think of it as philosophical musings, or incoherent mutterings, if you prefer. Note that this is in the “campfire”.<br><br>It seems to me that, once we’re past talking about attitude and “will to live”, the essential skills that we associate with survival are mostly what earlier generations called “making do”. After all, if we have all the resources we need, we’re not in a survival situation. The specific skills that we practice mostly boil down to using what’s available to substitute for what we need and don’t have- but the more specific the skill we learn, the more it seems like it’s imitating someone else’s innovation, rather than learning to innovate. Not bad, but not versatile. <br><br>"Making do” in general is probably something most of our grandparents could teach us a few things about, and I think that becomes more and more true the further back we go in generations. There are some disadvantages to growing up in a society where everything is available.<br><br>We, myself included, spend a lot of time going over our kits and refining items. This is something we’re very good at, having been trained nearly from birth; selecting the optimum items from millions of consumer goods to suit our purposes. We set the limitations in size, weight and cost, we develop scenarios, and we try to choose the tools that are most useful and versatile within those bounds, for those scenarios. It’s a necessary, essential process, it’s fun, and it never ends- and I enjoy it more than most. But… it’s essentially consumerism.<br><br>What it isn’t, in any sense that I can see, is practice for “making do”. In fact, it’s almost the exact opposite skill. It’s choosing the optimum from a near-infinite set of resources, as opposed to learning to accomplish a goal with a very limited set of resources. As much as I personally enjoy the process, it does sometimes feel as though we’re practicing and reinforcing a set of skills we’re already very good at- and maybe not the ones we really need.<br><br>Again, I’m not saying that the selection process isn’t necessary, and I’m not suggesting we abandon it.. I’m just wondering if we’re missing something else that’s important.<br><br>I'm not sure what to do about it. Our society goes out of it’s way to avoid ever having us “make do”, because that’s how free markets work, and they work well. The survival training that I’ve seen is very good at supplying specific skills and techniques, but seems less successful in teaching innovation, and thus might not be as versatile as one would hope. I think what we might need is a balance with exercises more like “Here’s a drawer full of junk and a the contents of garden shed. Create a safe way, with ventilation, to have an indoor fire.”, or “Here’s three wrecked cars and two trucks and some woods - you need to get four people across that river.” Or even, “Here’s two pieces of plastic tarp, but no cord.. it’s going to rain”. If you follow me, it’s not so much knowing how to make a stove out of a coffee can, as learning to think like the first guy who made a stove out of a coffee can.<br><br>I think a key factor is that the goal and (limited) resources are unanticipated- anyone can figure out solutions from an armchair with plenty of time (many of which won’t actually work). The specifics aren’t important, I’m NOT looking for solutions to specific scenarios- it’s the baseline skill that I’m talking about- and I still think our ancestors would tend to do a lot better than we would, because they were practicing innovation their whole lives in much the same way that most of us have practiced consumerism. <br><br>Admittedly, it’s difficult to figure ways to practice for the unexpected, as compared to stocking items for the scenarios we can anticipate… but maybe we should be trying.<br><br>I’m not going to push this line of thought, and I’ve only half thought it out myself… but does anyone else feel that sometimes we should be practicing the innovative skills we lack a little more, and the consumer skills we already have a little less?<br>

Lost, I understand your point exactly. There is a two volume work called THE MYTH OF THE MACHINE by Lewis Mumford ( about 700+ pages of text.) It was a favorite in college, mainly because I discovered it on my own and it irritated a certain teacher's aid. It is a massive work on the rise of technology and the social inventions which enabled it . To few "survival manuals" ask the reader to lower their comfort levels or to even find pleasure in the experience. If we could distill all the information, all the gadgets and strategies to "survival," the commonality of gear, the SIMPLICITY of whats needed would send many fleeing into the forest in a panic. We log on ever hopefull some messiah like poster will have discovered yet another gizmo for a need unthought of. The fact is "survival" to us is and was daily living to more cultures and generations than we can talley ( we still haven't lasted longer than the Neanderthals.) Perhaps this is part of the emotional appeal for "traditional" skills advocates running around in buckskins while we sadly read our polypropylene long johns are "no good" compared to the latest fishnet, organically grown merino wool and nepalese silkworm set in international orange. Improvisation is a skill worth having. Perhaps the lesson of nature will help. Generalists hang around while specialists die off.

I agree. Done some of that; crafted some of those (practice or training situations). Great fun and useful. Dunno if it works to "change" folks, tho - suspect that takes a lifetime. Hope I'm wrong...

Lost,<br><br><br>You may have hit the nail right on the head there. Or, you may not have. I can't decide. In my experience, those who are methodical in their planning and preparation, those who agonize over every detail, those who search endlessly for a better way are often adequate improvisors. If only because they've covered more ground and have seen more options. I have also noticed that those who did not have or could not afford the "perfect" item for this or that are also good improvisors; they have to be. . . <br><br>I have been through several of those "thinking out of the box" exercises. One was at work, one was at church (which stunned me), and several while in the military. At work, it came as no suprise to me that management rarely managed to solve a "puzzle" of this sort, whereas the workforce, which due to long years of practice from management induced budget cuts, were masters of workable improvised solutions. At church, it was one of the children who found the best solution to one of these "puzzles." The military. . .well brute force isn't always an option, but it often works.<br><br>What's my point? I'm not sure I have one. Your post certainly got me to thinking. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that it really isn't a skill that is possible to teach. It can be learned, I'm sure, but not taught. Given that, excellent preparation makes even more sense because it (hopefully) makes improvising less neccessary. If making a fire becomes essential to your survival, isn't it better have 2 or 3 or even 4 means of firestarting on you, than have to improvise something? I'm not saying that improvisational skills aren't important, only that it is far easier to compensate for a lack of those skills through preparation, than it is to improvise around a lack of preparation.<br><br>Take care,<br><br>Andy

Thanks- I will see what info I can find on that book.<br><br>I had a great teacher once who spent several weeks on how nomadic societies "evolve" into agricultural societies, and the patterns that get set at that point, and still exist. I've never found a book on the subject that was nearly as adequate as that class, it explained a lot of things I'd always taken for granted. You can't tell where you're going without looking back to see where you came from.<br><br>You and I have talked about the "primitive" aspect before, and I think we're in general agreement. I think it has value as a learning experience, and as history. I understand the appeal, but if my life is on the line, that's not the way I'll choose to go. <br><br>I took fencing for some time. We students in the class fussed over "weapons" and equipment, stainless vs. chrome vs. aluminum bells, different styles of grips, French vs. Italian blades, foil vs. 3-weapon masks, canvas vs. synthetic jackets. The master, on the other hand, seldom bothered to bring his own, and would pick up anything at all to show a move or illustrate a point- a student's weapon, a yardstick, a pointer, an umbrella. He could easily out-fence anyone there with anything, and simply did not spend much time worrying about it.<br><br>Not saying that I still don't appreciate the feel of finely balanced fencing weapon, I do... but I'd rather have the skill.<br>

Practice beats knowledge and understanding beats learning every time.<br><br>Perhaps re-phrasing the question wil encourage a new solution - or problem. <br><br>If I list survival needs:<br><br>warm<br>dry<br>fed<br><br>then immediately list gear to satisfy these needs<br><br>fire-starters, candles, trangia stoves, bonfires, solar water heaters <br><br>ponchos, tarps, tents, log-cabins<br><br>fishing gear, slingshots, snares, side-arms / long-arms<br><br>then haven't we missed a few steps? Like why do I need to be warm? What will happen if I am not warm? How does fire work? What are the components and behaviors of fire that I need to understand in order to start one safely, manage it so that it warms me without burning me or something else I need unburnt, and prevent it from suffocating me as we (the fire and myself) compete for the same oxygen? I think that innovation and the ability to innovate come from a deeper understanding of the problem you attempt to innovate around.<br><br>A deeper understanding of the list of basics yeilds the simple innovation that, to a certain extant, they can be substituted for each other in the order listed. If I am not warm I can get warmer if I can get dryer (sheltered), if I can get neither warmth nor shelter I can stay alive if I am well enough fed. (extremes of climate make this a little less true). <br><br>Understanding that fire is the result of properly combining heat, Oxygen, and fuel is all that is needed for a persistent individual to eventually improvise fire.<br><br>Understanding the effects of windchill may lead me to improvise a shelter that blocks the wind even if I don't have anything to water-proof it with. <br><br>Understanding the issues surrounding hygiene may save my life from threats I would otherwise never know of till they killed me. Without this I would never think of boiling my water on an 80 degree day or for that matter I might never attempt to start fire in a summer setting if I don't know that I need to boil my water. <br><br>Understanding something about basic cooling that is demonstrated by boiling water in a paper cup is necessary to the innovative solution of boiling water in a container of birch-bark. Otherwise you might think I can't boil water without a metal container and therefore expose yourself to needless risk.<br><br>Increasing the understanding will replace much of the gear while increasing the skill through practice will render what gear you have much more effective.<br><br>We cannot teach innovation but we can help people to understand why a solution works and what a solution looks like. We can teach problem solving deductive and associative thought in everyday situations. Don't tell your kids the answer to "Why?" rather reply with "Well, why do you think?" and see what you get.

If you've crafted the training situations, you've obviously given the subject more thought than I have.<br><br>I remembered an incident that illustrates the quality I'm talking about, though;<br><br>Sometime in my early 20s I was hitchhiking and was picked up by a guy driving a ‘60s VW Beetle (the real one- and not so very old then). He had had his accelerator cable break on him.<br><br>On the old VWs, of course, the engine was in the rear, and that meant that the accelerator cable went all the way from the gas pedal, through the tunnel in the floor, under the seats and the behind-seat luggage area, through the rear firewall to connect with the carburetor. The cable connected to the bottom of the throttle arm and pulled it forward, but the top was longer and swung back.<br><br>Now, most of us probably would have cursed the luck and called a tow truck- replacing that cable was not trivial, even if you had the part. Maybe Richard Dean Anderson would have repaired it on the fly, with improvised materials, better than new … :-)<br><br>This guy was a surveyor on a construction site, and what he had on hand was his synthetic chalk line. He tied one end to the throttle linkage, threaded it through the (rear) louvers in the hood, around the outside of the car on the driver’s side, and in through the vent window. He was driving by pulling on the cord with his left hand to accelerate, and releasing it to slow down. He had come some distance, and when he picked me up we looked at the cord- there was a little fraying going on where it passed through the louvers in the hood, but it was holding up pretty well. By the time he picked me up he was getting the hang of it, and talking about deferring permanent repairs until his next paycheck.<br><br>I have no idea if he ever thought of “survival” at all, we certainly didn’t talk about it, and I never saw him again- but I bet he’d do Ok. He was the sort that, in earlier generations, whittled about half the things they needed on the farm with a jackknife.<br>

>>Don't tell your kids the answer to "Why?" rather reply with "Well, why do you think?" and see what you get.<<<br><br>Sounds familiar...<br><br>"Never tell people how to do things, tell them what you want to achieve and they'll surprise you with their ingenuity."<br>Gen. George S. Patton

Andy,<br><br>Thanks for taking the time to consider it.<br><br>But… I wanted to avoid framing it as an “either-or” question. The preparation and equipment is certainly necessary, and I have no intention of slacking off on either… I just feel that we might be missing another quality that is also important.<br><br>As for whether innovation or improvisation can be taught- well, probably not by me, at least… but if, as you seem to indicate, those that you’ve worked with seemed to have learned it, or not, depending on their jobs, isn’t that an indicator that it can at least be learned from outside sources?<br>

Sure - I've done that stuff professionally and otherwise. Very interesting.<br><br>The hard part (not really) about contriving those situations on purpose is seeing group after group come up with OTHER solutions / ideas than the ones you had in mind...<br><br>BUT - those are small group situations; individually, the folks may or may not be as innovative. Depends.<br><br>My parents grew up "making do" and very much passed it onto the elder two of us. The younger two, arriving in an era of less "need", have the abilities, but not the confidence in themselves (hope that my meaning is clear).<br><br>My in-laws were both very priviledged growing up (one would say not, but in fact he was). My wife, pretty well taken care of growing up, has been absolutely astounding at how she morphed into a self-reliant person (among other things I am specifically talking about wilderness survival in tense situations). She never gives up; "OK, this is not working, so I'll try that instead..." Each time she learns something that works, it's in her skill set. I did not "teach" her much of anything; she learns.<br><br>My kids (spoiled darlings) have an enormous set of skills and knowledge - the eldest (finally!) remarked this past weekend how much he appreciates all the opportunities he has had to learn...<br><br>oops - must go - I'll try to pick this up later.