“Maybe stalking the woods is as vital to the human condition as playing music or putting words to paper. Maybe hunting has as much of a claim on our civilized selves as anything else. After all, the earliest forms of representational art reflect hunters and prey. While the arts were making us spiritually viable, hunting did the heavy lifting of not only keeping us alive, but inspiring us. To abhor hunting is to hate the place from which you came, which is akin to hating yourself in some distant, abstract way.”
― Steven Rinella
For years now, I have wanted to give hunting a try. This surprised most of my friends and family when I brought it up, and for good reason. They knew me pretty well, a kind dude with a heart of gold that would never harm a soul.
Well, they are right, for the most part. There has been something stirring in me for years.
I want to kill my dinner. I want to get lost in the woods, place the deer in my sites, pull the trigger, field dress it, haul it out, and enjoy the meat for months to come.
I want to share that meat with my family and friends. I want to sit around the dinner table with those close to me and tell them where their dinner came from. I want to know that I earned my meal.
This is something I would have never thought I’d say pretty much my whole life up until just a couple years ago when hunting struck my interest while listening to Joe Rogan talk about just giving it a shot. Literally.
He basically argued that if you are going to eat meat, you should at some point in your life, kill the very animal you plan on eating.
That Joe Rogan podcast episode along with hearing about the Urban Hunters, Seek One, I am stoked to get into hunting. Seek One will actually get permission from landowners and hunt urban areas. Something else I would like to try.
No more strolling through Whole Foods asking the butcher to slice up that perfect Ribeye cut while you scroll through the rest of your grocery list of eggs, yogurt, kale, and kombucha.
Nope, this time you go out and bring an animal’s life to an end with your own hands. See how it makes you feel. And move on. Or come back for more.
So that was it, that is all it took to convince me that if I was going to eat meat I needed to kill it myself at least one time to see how it made me feel.
There are a ton of reasons why I support hunters even more now than I ever have, and I will get into that at a later date. Along with the upcoming podcast, a friend and I are putting together, but for now, I am going to leave you with this.
If you are going to eat meat, I too suggest you kill it yourself just once. See how it makes you feel. I have no idea how I will react, but that has me just as excited as eating my first kill.
