>>1171055No, you can't learn anything by yourself. That's now how humans work. It isn't safe. When you have someone teach you a wilderness skill, the act of being taught affects how you perceive and store the information. This is mostly because the person is standing right there as you try doing it yourself and can guide you directly so that you don't make any mistakes. Learning the skills by yourself means you will mess up either knowingly or unknowingly. The latter is the worst. You just "figure it out" on your own, but don't know you are doing something wrong. It works to a point, but either sets you up for disaster, due to lack of safety, breaks tools, ends up starving you to death, ends up killing you through dysentery, or many other bad things.
Example: You want to learn how to whittle. You know it involves wood and a knife. That's all you know. So, you start whittling. However, you select the wrong wood and you use the knife improperly. Improper use of the knife could break it or because you don't know proper wood carving grips, you end up cutting yourself pretty badly. You don't even have anyone to tell you to take a break and you end up working until you can barely hold the knife. Once the work piece is completed, it starts to dry out then splits and checks badly, because you chose the wrong wood. Your wound gets infected and you end up going to the hospital a week later when it gets bad. you are so fed up with the experience that you go do something else next time you are bored in the woods.
Had you someone, to teach you how to carve wood with a knife properly, you'd have selected a different species of tree for the wood, one that works well when carved green and wet. You'd know the proper grips & directions used for wood carving and you'd learn proper intervals for taking a break, as well as learning self-monitoring to know you are starting to get tired. You'd end up with a fairly good work piece and good skills that you can pass on to your children.
