At the end of the day we must realize where the knowledge we have gained even comes from to begin with. For me this is a complicated question indeed. As I began this journey, I was not at all accomplished in the aspects of social media, didn’t even know what YouTube was, and—as I have learned—there was not much information about bushcraft in that media stream. So, for me, the learning came from two sources: research and practical exercise.
Reading has always been my favorite form of research, and there are mountains of books on every facet of the skills needed for self-reliance if you are willing to search them out. Authors such as Hyatt Verrill, Warren Hastings Miller, Francis Buzzacott, and, of course, George Washington Sears and Horace Kephart have published much on this topic. In the modern day we have many authors who can help us gain knowledge in this area as well, and some of them, like Bradford Angier and Mors Kochanski, are now considered standards. We have access to the Internet, which has opened many doors that were never available thirty years ago. To such great thinkers as Vint Cerf, who enabled us to pass information across the boundaries of the seas in instant fashion, we owe a great deal.