Do you feel a need to unwind, disconnect, chill out ... for at least a while? Worse, are you filled with stress to a point of breaking, considering substance abuse to alleviate your pain? Then, try this. Kill your cell phone by any means necessary. Hit it with a large rock or sledge hammer until the little parts explode from it. Or throw it off a bridge into deep water. (Mine will disconnect permanently tomorrow due to my purposeful failure to pay the bill. I'm getting a land line. Henceforth, I'm only available by phone at times that I chose, and when I'm away, I'm away.) ---- Next, buy yourself the best carving knife that your funds will allow. (I'll describe mine later, complete with pics; it's the best bushcraft knife I've ever owned, obtained last Saturday. The day before, I received the 2nd best bushcraft knife I've ever owned as a gift. Pics to come. ) Sharpen it using a DMT diamond stone (or what ever you prefer). Sit in a comfortable chair with a 2' - 5' piece of hardwood fresh from the nearest woods -- mine is about 53" long, walking stick size, from the top of a 20' ash sapling taken down by a big fir when it fell --- and carve off the bark (on ash, very thin and smooth), cork cambium, phloem and xylem, letting the shavings pile up on the floor (preferably uncarpeted) in front of you for use later to build a nice fire using a ferrocerium rod, or flint and steel if you prefer. (Friction fires are just too much work.) Continue carving for at least an hour, paying attention to the topology, topography and geometry of the wood: curves, ends (where you sawed it), knots (which are places where branches emerged), etc. Wear gloves to prevent cutting your fingers (off) when you get mesmerized by your carving meditation. Any questions?
I posted this on another popular forum (faceplant) and the first comment was an uptight, passive-aggressive retort about how that person needs her cell phone for business and family, doesn't feel stress, and that (implicitly) I should just shut up. Missed the point of my post entirely. (She also drives like a bat out of hell at 75, including 45 in a 25 mph zone in the small towns she inhabits.) I deleted the comment, and added this: "It's just f****** poetry. Try to a see things a different way."
Anxiety and stress relief for me is fishing, but when winter comes and destroys my fishing with ice I get sad... No I'm not sitting on the ice to fish, its to cold for my white ass. I end up switching my hobbie back to shooting at the range and playing my xbox live, there is nothing like beating these newbies that just got a xbox for Christmas and telling them there mom is fat. I don't recommend braking your phone I heard Xanax also helps haha. Also working out a bit helps with stress, I seem to work out a lot more during winter and when I'm stressed out....
Another fine way to spend time, as long as the cell is either off or left at home/basecamp. I plan to take up fishing again this year for the first time in decades. I fished a LOT as a kid -- 6 - 16 -- then life got in the way. Now that I'm living in a state famous for its rivers and lakes -- 10% of the state's land surface is water -- I need to take up fishing again. Easier getting food in some cases than by hunting, and a hell of a lot quieter. Need to redevelop those skills before the great collapse happens ... As much as I want to smash this stupid phone (the opposite of smart phone), I'll keep it intact for now. Conceivable -- though not likely -- that I may need it for business reasons some day. (My plan is to get an i-Phone in late spring for business only.) This was my third cell. I purchased the first about 1998 during my move from NM to the Pac NW. About a year later, it wound up as an art piece on my wall called "cell phone with nail" (inspired by such classic art names as "still life with fruit"). I had a pic of it somewhere, but can't find it now. I wouldn't touch that stuff -- or any other big pharma stress reliever -- with an ESEE 6 except with the blade, touched with some amount of force. I agree with this. I walk (1 - 4 mi) or bike every single day, regardless of weather -- blue and beautiful or full on blizzard (our next nor'easter -- first of this winter -- begins this afternoon; I'll do today's walk during it, in the woods just out the backdoor where I'm establishing two experimental bush camps and hammock study areas -- it's an ash (tree) grove -- such superb hammock trees (why another day).
I walked around out there for about 2.5 hrs, hovering around sunset, with most of it after dark. I didn't even need to use my LED (except once trying to adjust my Halftrack's rain -- er, snow cover, first time I've ever used it; thick, wet, heavy snow. (Reminded me also: even if you've got good insulated gloves, pull them off for a minute, and stick your wet (from snow) hands back in them, they don't stay insulated too long -- note to self: dry hands before back in gloves. Same is true getting stuff out of the pack: get it out, zip pack up before putting on extra layer.) Anyway, I shot about 20 pics, half with flash after dark. Here's my fav so far. My Halftrack, snow cover on, hung with the sling on a tree over the ground snow; beech leaves in the foreground. The flakes are not really that big at that point in the storm (5:30 pm; now near midnight, and it's really starting to crank up; expecting at least 1'), but even the little ones scatter the flash to make a big light splash. More to come ...
