Thought I would start a thread dedicated to hunting, fishing and love of the outdoors. Getting away from screens and the degeneracy of big cities is never a bad thing.
Please share your stories, questions, tips, recipes, etc.
I wanted to share the below thought with you to kick off this thread.
Hunting is like birth for men
Perhaps the most masculine endeavour, hunting, in a sort of inverse way, becomes our version of birth: dangerous with the possibility of injury or death during the act, and its commensurate emotional journey.
Hunting defines our relationship with the animal. It reaffirms our dominion over nature and our place within the natural law. It provides us with an appreciation for the animal’s life and the sustenance it provides. Hunting allows us to marvel at God’s creation by experiencing both the immense beauty and brutality of the natural world.
To guide an animal mercifully towards a swift death requires both strength and grace, like ushering a new life into the world. You feel emotions of excitement, frustration, fear, relief, satisfaction and validation that your aim was true and your family won’t die of starvation. This perhaps being a masculine analogue of the validation a mother feels -- that all her lady parts ‘work’ and she created a family – when her true calling has been fulfilled.
Hunting allows men to get close to the miracle of life, in a way that most women don’t understand because they don't need to – with the “but why did you have to kill that poor thing?” being the prevailing objection as they partake in the nourishing fruits of your labour. She will never cease to feel sadness first, no matter how accustomed to it she is. As we are different, and we love differently. Like the saying goes, women are born and men are made.
Men and women have a different relationship to children. Their instinct is to nurture and ours is to fight and provide. Ever notice how the office or workplace instantly erupts in both cheers and tears from all the women the moment a colleague emerges from mat leave to show off her new baby? It’s the most important thing in the world. She relishes in the attention and validation of her peers. The same phenomenon exists, albeit to a lesser degree, with puppies or cute little pets (child substitutes among many liberal/feminist women in big cities). It’s also a form of female bonding and cooperation, where she now joins others in the ranks of mother and can discuss remedies and anecdotes and partake in that sacred tradition. It also raises her status among women.
Men simply don’t feel that same surge of emotions at the sight of another man’s child or a little purse dog. But they will giggle like little school girls and high-five each other after landing a giant fish or bringing down a trophy animal.
Men are not able to infiltrate that foreign world. We give space and reverence to it, standing on guard patiently and with vigilance at the border. We pursue difficult and dangerous activities to strengthen ourselves, so that we can guard that border more effectively.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, overall the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them
Then God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
- Genesis 1:26-28
Please share your stories, questions, tips, recipes, etc.
I wanted to share the below thought with you to kick off this thread.
Hunting is like birth for men
Perhaps the most masculine endeavour, hunting, in a sort of inverse way, becomes our version of birth: dangerous with the possibility of injury or death during the act, and its commensurate emotional journey.
Hunting defines our relationship with the animal. It reaffirms our dominion over nature and our place within the natural law. It provides us with an appreciation for the animal’s life and the sustenance it provides. Hunting allows us to marvel at God’s creation by experiencing both the immense beauty and brutality of the natural world.
To guide an animal mercifully towards a swift death requires both strength and grace, like ushering a new life into the world. You feel emotions of excitement, frustration, fear, relief, satisfaction and validation that your aim was true and your family won’t die of starvation. This perhaps being a masculine analogue of the validation a mother feels -- that all her lady parts ‘work’ and she created a family – when her true calling has been fulfilled.
Hunting allows men to get close to the miracle of life, in a way that most women don’t understand because they don't need to – with the “but why did you have to kill that poor thing?” being the prevailing objection as they partake in the nourishing fruits of your labour. She will never cease to feel sadness first, no matter how accustomed to it she is. As we are different, and we love differently. Like the saying goes, women are born and men are made.
Men and women have a different relationship to children. Their instinct is to nurture and ours is to fight and provide. Ever notice how the office or workplace instantly erupts in both cheers and tears from all the women the moment a colleague emerges from mat leave to show off her new baby? It’s the most important thing in the world. She relishes in the attention and validation of her peers. The same phenomenon exists, albeit to a lesser degree, with puppies or cute little pets (child substitutes among many liberal/feminist women in big cities). It’s also a form of female bonding and cooperation, where she now joins others in the ranks of mother and can discuss remedies and anecdotes and partake in that sacred tradition. It also raises her status among women.
Men simply don’t feel that same surge of emotions at the sight of another man’s child or a little purse dog. But they will giggle like little school girls and high-five each other after landing a giant fish or bringing down a trophy animal.
Men are not able to infiltrate that foreign world. We give space and reverence to it, standing on guard patiently and with vigilance at the border. We pursue difficult and dangerous activities to strengthen ourselves, so that we can guard that border more effectively.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, overall the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them
Then God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
- Genesis 1:26-28
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