As I get older, I find that I have everything I NEED... (though I still do need a PBW Rapidfire.)
Stewart Edward White said it best in "The Forest"... It's a little long, but worth the read, I think, to quote it in its entirety. The meat and potatoes is in the "three piles", but here you go:
You can no more be told how to go light than
you can be told how to hit a ball with a bat.
It is something that must be lived through, and
all advice on the subject has just about the value
of an answer to a bashful young man who begged
from one of our woman's periodicals help in overcoming
the diffidence felt on entering a crowded
room. The reply read :
"Cultivate an easy, graceful manner."
In like case I might hypothecate,
"To go light, discard all but the really necessary
articles."
The sticking point, were you to press me close,
would be the definition of the word "
necessary," for the terms of such definition would
have to be those
solely and simply of a man's experience. Comforts,
even most desirable comforts, are not necessities. A
dozen times a day trifling emergencies will seem
precisely to call for some little handy contrivance
that would be just the thing, were it in the pack
rather than at home. A disgorger does the business
better than a pocket-knife ; a pair of oilskin trousers
turns the wet better than does kersey ; a camp-stove
will burn merrily in a rain lively enough to drown
an open fire. Yet neither disgorger, nor oilskins,
nor camp-stove can be considered in the light of
necessities, for the simple reason that the conditions
of their use occur too infrequently to compensate for
the pains of their carriage. Or, to put it the other
way, a few moments* work with a knife, wet knees
occasionally, or an infrequent soggy meal are not too
great a price to pay for unburdened shoulders.
Nor on the other hand must you conclude that
because a thing is a mere luxury in town, it is nothing
but that in the woods. Most woodsmen own
some little ridiculous item of outfit without which
they could not be happy. And when a man cannot
be happy lacking a thing, that thing, becomes
a necessity. I knew one who never stirred without
borated talcum powder; another who must have his
mouth-organ; a third who was miserable without a
small bottle of salad dressing; I confess to a pair of
light buckskin gloves. Each man must decide for
himself, remembering always the endurance limit
of human shoulders.
A necessity is that which, by your own experience
you have found you cannot do without. As a bit
of practical advice, however, the following system
of elimination may be recommended. When you
return from a trip, turn your duffel bag upside down
on the floor. Of the contents make three piles,
three piles conscientiously selected in the light of
what has happened rather than what ought to have
happened, or what might have happened. It is difficult
to do this, Preconceived notions, habits of civilization,
theory for future, imagination, all stand in
the eye of your honesty. Pile number one should
comprise those articles you have used every day;
pile number two, those you have used occasionally;
pile number three, those you have not used at all.
If you are resolute and single-minded, you will at
once discard the latter two.
Throughout the following winter you will be attacked
by misgivings. To be sure, you wore the
mosquito hat but once or twice, and the fourth pair
of socks not at all ; but then the mosquitoes might be
thicker^next time, and a series of rainy days and cold
nights might make it desirable to have a dry pair of
socks to put on at night. The past has been #, but
the future might be y. One by one the discarded
creep back into the list. And by the opening of
next season you have made toward perfection by
only the little space of a mackintosh coat and a ten gauge
gun.
But in the years to come you learn better and
better the simple woods lesson of substitution or
doing without You find that discomfort is as soon
forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be endured
if it is but for the time being; that absolute
physical comfort is worth but a very small price in
avoirdupois. Your pack shrinks.
In fact, it really never ceases shrinking.