[pct-l] anybody out there?

[Timothy Nye]

I think that the difference in civility between on trail interactions and
some list interactions is cultural; the trail creating a subculture all it's
own.

With respect to the list and the 'real' world, Thoreau noted that most men
lead lives of quiet desperation.  Even Marx was consumed with the alienation
of individuals in society.  As current economic worries impact an increasing
number of people it affects their relationships with all; the the Internet
may just be a means for displacement and certainly better than kicking the
dog.

Interestingly to me, I found that the trail fosters anonymity.  The use
of trail names, that people aren't identified by their occupation, the lack
of an age barrier in social interactions; in short, a diversity of
viewpoints and people from all over the country and 'all walks of life' who
ordinarily wouldn't socialize with one another do and form friendships to
boot ( or perhaps to trail runner).  In this context, the lack of conformity
to the 'real world' culture helps to form an egalitarian nomadic structure
of shifting interactions that is truly enjoyable.

Once people decompress and tell time by the sun and forecast the coming
weather from the clouds, they (forgive the new age sound of this) become
part of the rhythm's of the earth. We are able to approximate the way we
lived for hundreds of thousands of years before the recent development of
civilization.  ( Maybe without having to kill the sundry prey animal or
rattlesnake :-) )

The easy fellowship of the trail is enhanced, in my opinion, by comfort in
being by one's self and confidence in one's ability to be self reliant on
the trail.  It's like avoiding a rebound relationship after a divorce.  Most
people on the trail have all this already, but if for any reason you don't,
embrace any time you spend by yourself.

I wonder to what extent we may be genetically programmed to so easily fall
back into the rhythms of nomadic life.  Man is a an intellectual and social
being, but one that evolved to live in small groups and engage in complex
behaviours that facilitated survival in that context.  Even then it was a
complex emotional and intellectual life.  A domesticated pig becomes feral
after only a couple of generations reverting to it's wild predecessor; an
astonishing physical change promoted by the lack of domesticity.  Dog breeds
within a matter of generations develop webbing, different size, etc.  Recent
studies have shown that starvation by a father in childhood may promote
profound changes in the gene expression of his offspring that promote
obesity.

If this is the case, is it reasonable to assume that people, removed from
domesticity themselves also revert to a default setting emotionally and
intellectually that previously optimized the survival of small nomadic
groups?  Of course, we have the advantage of resupply in trail towns and
don't have to deal with the political issue of the division of resources
within the group.  Similarly, individuals or subgroups could always leave
and start their own groups or remain apart.

If there is any validity to the above, is it also not also possible that our
political beliefs are not also inherent within us?  That is, favoring
an equal versus an hierarchical division of resources based on factors of
perceived need or contribution to the community?  Inherient beliefs that
become distorted with recent change to increasingly large population groups,
surplus production, the introduction of money all of which leads to further
alienation from one another.

Yep!  These are actually the things I think about while hiking.