Most men camp as a compromise. Men don't want to camp - they want to LIVE. They don't want to hike, they want to simply move from one place to the next with all they need to live on their backs. Modern man 'hikes' and 'camps' as a socially acceptable way of being what he wants to be. Men don't want to 'hunt' - they want to kill to live. (No wonder we are pissed off when hunting is challenged.)
Men desperately, and I mean that in all its force, desperately want (I think need) to challenge themselves, to do things that matter, to live where their lives are on the edge of survival, and where decisions need to be made properly or death is a real possibility. However, due to what we have created in the name of ease and relaxation (society) we have neutered ourselves.
Like Thoreau said:
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
In our current society, most men live their lives inert, emasculated, neutered, and domesticated. They do things, sports, collecting, business, and so on, in the attempt to live the life of testosterone and adrenaline. What camping and hiking is, is the attempt to live our lives by our terms, do things that matter (cut the wood, make the shelter, kill and dress the food...) and live like men... not the feminine men we have become.
I want to forge a blade that destroys the political correctness of modern culture (be honest and true, call people what they want to be called, but don't pussy foot around every subject so that it cannot be expressed at all), the artificial ease and pace at which we live (we make BOB's because we know this security we have is temporary and false), the lack of nature we build, the shoes on my feet that remove me from nature, and the rest of the things that drain my manhood, remove my purpose, and destroy my soul.
In a response, I want to load my pack, pick it up, move out with my family, and live a life that has purpose... It is difficult to do this any more... so I camp.
TF
