Timber Punks (or Industrialism vs. wildness)

This is merely an aside, a divigation into slightly different territory than that directly concerning yurts, but one I think that has definite application to the world of alternative structures and their construction.

When Ken and I were talking the other day, I was wearing a shirt that said "Timber!" on it, and we got talking about the intersection, or rather the juxtaposition, of society vs. wilderness, or really I should say of industrialism vs. wildness. During our talk, Ken mentioned the term "timber punks" and it really stuck with me (therefore the credit goes all to him). When I do a Google search of this term, nothing comes up, which is fantastic. Herein I anti-copywrite the term Timber Punks, to be used freely by all.

Anyway, perhaps you've heard the term "lumbersexual", for which there's now a blurb on Wikipedia. To quote an article from Time magazine (Time magazine!),

the lumbersexual has been the subject of much Internet musing in the last several weeks. The term is a new one on me but it is not a new phenomenon. In 2010 Urban Dictionary defined the lumbersexual as, “A metro-sexual who has the need to hold on to some outdoor based ruggedness, thus opting to keep a finely trimmed beard.”

 Ok, so this is decidedly NOT what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about urban man's attempt to regain some of his masculinity by wearing plaid shirts and sporting "a finely trimmed beard". I'm talking more about the back-to-the-land movement, the homesteading movement, catalyzed by Scott and Helen Nearing and described in their book The Good Life, particularly the people that undertake this lifestyle. So in fact it's diametrically opposed to the lumbersexual, being one who embraces urbanity and industrial culture. Here I'm talking about Wildness, about that innate, instinctual desire inside all of us (some closer to the surface than others) to shred off the last vestiges of our modern paradigm and retreat to something wholly other, something quite literally Wild. To gnaw and to claw, to work the earth, to eke a living from the planet. And when I say "a living", I don't mean "to make money", I'm not talking about trading our precious time and efforts in a slave-bargain for capitalism. I mean literally to live, to live Wild, as we were meant to.

But I digress. I envision a whole community of people living close to the earth, people who appreciate the wild, uncontrollable nature of....nature, people who maybe don't fit into the accepted norms of society. It's not about your music, it's about your lifestyle.Timber Punks!