Re-entering society after hunting

Particularly when hunting elk and mule deer in the high country, several times my wife has commented how happy it look and act. It's a thing. There's something about that type of hunting that makes my brain shift in to bliss.

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I can barely focus preseason and then when I come back I am haunted by all the stupid moves I made during the season so I lose about a month on either side of seasons mental processing power.
 
I call it wilderness withdrawal syndrome. It’s the best drug there is and it’s addictive and it really sucks when your supply is cut off.

We are a Hunter/Gatherer species. I think the thing that feels most natural for us is chasing game, or fish. Then we have to go back to civilization and get our heads wrapped around a lot of unnatural things, like being polite to morons, and being told what to do.

That being said I do appreciate a hot shower, a warm bed, and a bacon cheese burger when I get to town.
 
I find it takes 5 days at least just to slow down to nature's pace.

After 2 weeks solo in NZ I drove to the nearest town had dinner and I remember thinking to myself when I saw the person behind the counter- 'You have no idea but you're the first human I've seen in 2 weeks'

The over stimulation of modern life slaps you in the face as soon as you hit civilization.
 
It always hits me really hard especially on remote wilderness hunts that I do. Also especially because most of the trips my wife is with me hunting, so I really don't have anything to rush home too.
It usually takes me about 2 weeks to get out of my funk being home.
 
Yeah, it’s real. After a week in the high country, the first stoplight feels like an assault. Your brain’s tuned to wind and silence city noise hits like static. It fades after a day or two, but damn, that this is how it should be feeling lingers.
 
Spending time alone in nature, especially hunting, we slowly open up - turning up the sensitivity on all of our senses, trying to draw in every sound and smell, to detect every movement with our eyes. The longer you do it the more alive you feel , the more you feel like a human being in it’s natural habitat, doing what a human is supposed to be doing.

Returning to society with all your sensors still set to their most sensitive settings, you get immediately assaulted with the sheer volume of stimulus- sensory overload. Over a few days you can readjust the sensors and deal with the noise, learn to fit in again, but it never feels like it did in the woods. The hardest part to overcome is not the overstimulation through. It’s the feeling that you’re now in the wrong habitat for a human being and that you have to do artificial things in this artificial environment for awhile before you can escape, get back to the solace of the woods and feel like a human again.
 
Just spent 18 days in a remote wilderness hunting trip, 8 of it was solo.
Made me realize several things as these journeys always make me reflect and think.
About a month ago, I finally drew that line in the sand and came up with a date for retirement. This trip verified that.
And yes, "coming back in" sucks.

Randy
 
Sucks.

The older I get, the more I notice this. After 4-5 days in the mountains, coming back to civilization is getting harder and harder. I find my senses completely change when I'm out hunting and there's this sense of "this is how I was supposed to live" feeling that takes over while I am out and then we re-enter society and everything is so loud, stinky, bright, and pointless feeling.

Anyway - it's a dreary day full of meetings and appointments that fund my hunting adventures. Just wondered if anyone else feels this when coming off a hunting high?
Mountain man in a former life, perhaps?
 
The longer the trip, the harder it is to reacclimatize, for me. A couple years ago was my longest trip, so far. Twenty-one days in the mountains with a string of horses, living free, doing what I wanted when I wanted, travelling, hunting (sheep), seeing new country, etc. It was all very hard work, but fun. It took months for me to come back to earth after that trip.
 
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