Naked and Afraid

No, this is NOT a personal blog bout being naked or afraid...instead:

At the suggestion of our son, Andrew, we have been watching the tv multi-serial, “Naked and Afraid”. And before you respond with rage, let me assure you, the naked part is NOTHING. You see more on the beach than in the show.

We started watching because we were interested in the survival aspect—seriously. They have two types of survival, 21-day and 40-day. It turns out that for 21-day survival, once you find a water source, you can sit around until the time is up. Nothing to see here.

The 40-day survivals are more interesting because you really can’t go 40 days with NO food. Except of course, Elijah did it in 1 Kings 19, and Jesus did it in the wilderness. The 40-day trips then mean that the survivors generally must harvest something big enough to feed them a little while.

Mostly, and this is not pure hubris, they are NOT very good at harvesting much of anything. Now there are a few folks who can harvest meat: Matt W, Jeff, Matt G, and a few others, but this is not the norm. In fact, and it is unknown how much the show producers control this, mostly the survivalists lay around and criticize each other. Inf act, and this may be realistic, getting along with others seems the key quality to enjoy/survive the situation.

So far the settings have included Republic of South Africa 3x, Columbia, and the Philippines. They are constantly talking about the dangers to the contestants, but this seems over-stated.

So clearly, viewers MUST keep in mind that, whatever is dramatic, whatever makes for “good tv” is what “survival” is really about. But the most important point is that “getting along” is a KEY survival ability.