At the beginning of Tom Jones, one of the first and most enduringly popular novels in the English language, Henry Fielding tried to give the reader a succinct and accurate description of what was coming in the novel, analogous to the bill of fare that a prospective customer might see on the door of a restaurant.
As a reader of blogs I can sometimes get annoyed with vague or misleading titles. They are used, presumably, by writers who want to harvest the greatest number of eyeballs, regardless of whether the reader's time is being wasted.
It seemed long overdue to refine the subtitle on this blog so that readers can immediately decide whether they are barking up the wrong tree or not. So I've added "television-free" to the subtitle. Why is this important? A person can eat junk fast food on a frequent basis and not blimp out or develop health problems for a while, but it will catch up with you eventually. So too can you fill your eyeballs and brain with mental and cultural junk food from the television, while still maintaining a certain amount of personal sovereignty and independence. But the odds are against it, and if you keep it up you'll eventually succumb.
Declaring independence from television was the first decision I made as a young adult. I was quite passionate about it, but it was so long ago that I neglected to mention it in the blog's subtitle on the first iteration. Without independence from the dominant mind-fucks of television, advertising, the educational system, the mainstream media, and the government, I don't see how anyone can presume to write.
A non-independent thinker could be replaced by a computer program. Take the limiting case of stereotypical blog writing: travel blogs. Couldn't somebody develop an iPad "app" that writes daily travel posts? There might well be a market for such an app. Just think of all the gasoline it would save.
A non-independent thinker could be replaced by a computer program. Take the limiting case of stereotypical blog writing: travel blogs. Couldn't somebody develop an iPad "app" that writes daily travel posts? There might well be a market for such an app. Just think of all the gasoline it would save.
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The second revision is replacing "RV travel" with "dispersed RV camping." The old phrase might mislead a new reader into thinking that this was one more "me too", mainstream, RV travelogue.
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| "Boondocking" used to mean what I'm doing right now. "Dispersed (Area) Camping" is the term I'll use from now on. Gee, do you think it's OK to dump grey water here? Maybe the neighbors will complain. |
Comments
And dang, you stole my thunder. I was already preparing (in my head) a post about how "boondocking" no longer means what it used to mean and that henceforth I'd be using "dispersed camping" or some better term if I found one.
Hm, "Dispersed Area Camping"...DAC..."Dac(k)ing"? ;)
Dispersed Area Camping IS a bit of a mouthful, but it is the official term used by the BLM and the Forest Service.
I agree that the expression "boondocking" has become overused and abused. Somebody paying $25 per night in a Colorado state park probably says that he is "boondocking" just because he lacks full hookups.
You need a new term - maybe bush camping or rough camping or something similar.
In the common parlance that seems to be in current use, boondocking is camping without hookups. What you like to do is camp in the wild places - a subset of boondocking. I like that too but it isn't always what I am able to do. Being able to camp anywhere, self-contained is what makes me happy for now. I prefer the walmarts with a nice grassy verge for the dog. ;-) Getting an open area to let the dog off leash is really nice but not that easy to find east of the Rockies where I have been traversing until I can get rid of my house.
I fear you are "specializing" your lifestyle into a lonely corner with all the "titles" and nomenclature and defining and, yes, EXCLUSION. Of course, it is your prerogative; like Tesage said... it's your blog. But if you continue to over sift and over screen and over scrutinize and exclude... what is left but a lonely camp with three bars of sterile communication? I fear that with every down-the-nose look at the way other people choose to live... RV... TV watch... camp... etc., etc... one might be distancing fellowship with just as fine UN-likeminded people. There is a reason for diversity... from the gene pool, to relationships... diversity of opinion and style and chromosomes builds strength. We learn from diversity... even opposing lifestyles can teach us something, starting with "tolerance."
I wonder if you might be undermining the very thing you want to build... a roving band of "boon docker" hiker/bikers. Do we not let them "in" if they have "TV's?" Do we search potential members for matching ideologies?
Does my Dish TV make me "one of them?" just because I enjoy football games, news, travelogues, and (oh God help me) American Idol?
Keep refining your criteria, titles, definitions, and so on... just don't exclude everyone that's different from you or else you might do exactly that.
I still love you, tho... because you are different :))
So Different!
Box Canyon Mark
Tesaje, hope you get your house sold so your REAL RV camping can get going full blast.
All, this post isn't about what term is ideologically or aesthetically-correct. It's about accuracy in communication. The last thing I would do is introduce a neologism for boondocking.
The kind of camping I do is done on forest service and BLM-managed land, and they put out brochures explaining the rules for "dispersed camping."
As Ted says over on his blog, words and language are about being understood, not about being "correct" in some other way.
So shoot the messenger, right?
I hope you reconsider identifying yourself as anti-TV so any potential readers do not bark up the wrong tree.
I don't even RV. I don't give a hoot if you boondock or live in a park or whatever. These things are all quite incidental. What is the point of adding them up and casting such entrenched judgments about them?
I guess that's what was behind my coment the other day about it mattering less about where you live and more about what you make out of it.
I like your blog because you think out of the box. But that doesn't happen because you don't watch TV or you boondock in whatever way you define it. You are that kind of person no matter where you live or how you live.
George, It's not that 1% of TV isn't OK, it's the HABIT of watching TV, and how you gradually reach equilibrium with the average programming which is garbage.
Dispersed camping and TV-free living are probably just two manifestations of a personality that insists on thinking for itself.
Besides surfing on the web, reading blogs, writing blogs is all the same thing, your feeding your mind & others with JUNK !!!!! While pretending your a pure nature outdoor dog loving, mountain biking kinda guy ??
You chose to be selective in what you watch & then claim your not watching tv , get a grip if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck , then it's a duck !!