Outside Podcast: Try This at Home

Naked and Afraid's Max Djenohan on Survivalism - Outside Podcast
Image credit: Outside Online

 Outside magazine's podcast features a wide range of entertaining topics from conversations with and profiles on high level athletes, examinations of science behind outdoor adventure, and my favorite, dramatic survival stories. The stories go roughly like this: They were out of food and water, trapped in a tree by a jaguar, and he was bleeding heavily from his broken arm. And that's when things took a turn for the worse.

A recent episode entitled Being Hunted by Lions with Max Djenohan featured the survivalist/reality tv star discussing his experiences on a number of shows, Naked and Afraid in particular. I'm not entirely clear on the desire to participate in these manufactured survival scenarios, but they are fun to watch. It's difficult to see an actual connection between this "survivalism with a safety net" and real-life survival scenarios. From a psychological standpoint, there is a Grand Canyon-sized gap between being forced into a situation where your boat crashes onto an island and survival depends 100% on your own skills for an undetermined amount of time; and being in a manufactured scenario you readily agreed to for a specific amount of time with a tv crew to oversee you and step in if things got out of hand. Just the mindset in each scenario alone is entirely different, the manufactured scenarios cannot possibly put one into the same mental state. 

Certainly the tv situations have an element of real-life danger and do require a high degree of stamina, skill, and athleticism. And regardless, it is fun to watch. Let's see how I would do on Naked and Afraid, based on the scenario in this podcast episode.  

Phase 1: Being naked outdoors.

Have done this one, so got that handled! Not exactly for days, weeks, or months, but seems possible to adjust. Verdict: I'm alive.

Phase 2: Being stalked by a pride of lions while naked.

Well, the only lions I've seen are at a zoo, and I've never taken the kind of drugs that result in one ending up naked in a zoo. Although I did live in Florida for a year, if I'd extended that stay it seems like anything was possible. Verdict: Mostly confused, lost track of my own premise at this point. Probably eaten by lions? Or they find my pants and get distracted?

Phase 3: Eating what I catch to survive.

Involves eating mostly catfish and crawfish, with the occasional alligator and water moccasin to mix things up. Damn! Used my Florida joke too soon, was a perfect fit here. I acknowledge this is merging scenarios by combining lions and alligators, but so did the podcast, so I'm rolling with it. Verdict: Fishing for fun? Sure. For survival? I'm dead.  Or since it is tv, asking the producer to order me a pizza to eat off-screen. Naked and Eating Pizza - now I'm on board!

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