It can be tempting, when you have an obsessive hobby, to become somewhat picky and critical. The more you know about something, the more irritating it can be when you perceive things not to be quite right. It’s happened to me many times. As an obsessive Dr Who fan in the 70s and 80s, I would grind my teeth when people referred to his ‘Tardist‘. As a teenager, developing my next (and enduring) obsession with The Beatles, I was regularly irritated when people sang the wrong words to one of the Fab Four’s big hits, or spelled it Beetles!
But the problem with being critical as an adult is that you are inevitably (and sometimes rightfully) faced with the comment, ‘Well I’d like to see you do better!‘ This isn’t always a fair statement to make though. Consumers aren’t required to be expert producers; customers are not artisans; voters are not politcians; patients are not surgeons. It’s fine to be critical of, say, an Event organiser if you’ve had a bad experience, without having to prove that you could have made a better job of it. If you are served a bad meal in a restaurant you shouldn’t have to prove that you could have cooked a superior one yourself. That’s not the deal; that’s not how the transaction works.
However, just adopting a negative and critical stance without substance lays you open to criticism. It can say more about your attitudes to life than demonstrate that you have a valid point to make. It can often come down to something just not being to your taste rather than it being inherently bad or wrong. Don’t like reggae? Probably best not go to a reggae gig then. Don’t like pies? Don’t order one. Or just keep your mouth shut and be inexplicably cross on the inside.
And so it is with caching. A hobby as broad and as rich as geocaching is bound to appeal in different ways to different people. If you’re an introvert you’re likely to enjoy Events in a very different way to many people, or maybe not at all. Scared of heights? Climbing trees probably isn’t on the top of your to-do list, but hopefully you can still acknowledge that others really enjoy that sort of thing. I’ve often nailed my colours to the mast by saying that I liked breadth in depth; a bit of everything, and that the variety was the very thing that I liked the most. While this is still true, there are inevitably aspects of the game that I enjoy more than others, such as gadget caches over Ad Lab pools, or Virtuals rather than T5 caches. But that doesn’t mean that they’re crap, or even that I’m right while everyone else has got it wrong!
A while ago, I started to compile a piece for PinPoint on what different cachers perceived to be ‘Proper Caching’. It was a phrase I’d heard from time to time, mainly by those who had a total aversion to micro caches in the woods, but also to Jigidi puzzles or, once again, Ad Lab pools. I abandoned the article when it just seemed to be morphing into a a list of suff that some people liked that others hated and vice-versa. It felt critical, and not in the academic sense.
As I started to plan out the content for our recent autumn and winter issues of PinPoint, I looked back on some undeveloped ideas and came across this ‘proper caching’ idea. Mulling the topic over once again, I began to turn my attention to the things that the majority of cachers might agree on, and to identify the good that comes out of the game rather than focussing on the negative, or on things I didn’t agree with.
Last year, during the 25th Anniversary of geocaching, we were presented with an opportunity denied to us in 2020, to celebrate all that is good in the game; the positives, the things that we can all (mostly) agree on. I always return to the idea of breadth and depth; that we can play a game which includes such diverse componants as social events, cryptic puzzle solving, exercise, adventure, technical know-how, collectables and engineering. We don’t all have to like every bit of it. We might just like one particular aspect. I know of cachers who only attend Events, other who exclusively find Church Micro caches, or who really like solving puzzles. None of these are mutually exclusive and I can happliy enjoy writing a Wherigo cartridge without that ever spoiling someone else’s enjoyment of a 15-stage multi! The amazing thing is that we all recognise that what we are doing is geocaching in one form or another.
So what are those common elements, the things that bind us all together? Location-based activity, perhaps, which certainly distinguishes it from other web-based games. The use of GPS technology; even Letterbox Hybrid caches are required to involve the use of satellite tracking. Getting out into the real world, not just creating virtual puzzles and imagined worlds.
Beyond that it’s hard to say, although I’d love to hear your views!
Tentmantent – Aug 25 – Jan 26
[Apologies for the lag between posts. I hope to make up for this in June when I intend to blog my way around Europe for a month!]
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