Real Life versus Middle Earth/Medievalist Living

[Tirned Tinnu]

This is my first topic! Hurrah. Finally I felt the need to post something that I haven't found in The Search!

I'm putting it here in Novices And Newcomers because I am New. I got the idea for it from the Movies Thread "Bumps and Bruises".

I read with empathy that the actors felt left out in the cold when they had to leave the set of LOTR. Viggo even stayed on for an extra few weeks. Sean Bean was sent home 3 months earlier than the rest of the cast, and commented that he didn't like that.

It has been my experience after doing medievalist camping for extended periods of time (more than a month) that the modern world loses its flavor. We spend so much time in front of our computers and tv sets that we forget that making fast friends and living closer to each other is important for our mental health. After learning social skills again in a "primitive" atmosphere, I really didn't miss my tv at all.

I felt the same as the actors in LOTR; I didn't want to go back to the "real world". I wanted to be with the people who I'd worked with, played with, gotten drunk with and had to bear cold wet muddy days with!

My medievalist clothing became much more comfortable to wear after being road stained and hand washed. Living in the outdoors gave one a look of sturdy ruggedness, and no one ever complained that you smelled of campfire.

I liked that tremendously. People would say to me, "You wouldn't like it if you lived that way all the time, people knowing your business, and never getting further than your town border." But I don't feel that way. Perhaps it's that I like slow living. Am i weird?

I think that Tolkien affords us a community in our hearts that we can all share. I just wish that I could live there more often. Sometimes I wonder if I was born into the wrong era.
Have you felt this too?

[ September 15, 2002: Message edited by: Tirned Tinnu ]