The purpose of preparedness is to ready ourselves, physically, mentally, intellectually, and spiritually, for surviving and overcoming disasters of various types and magnitudes. While it has often focused on surviving in some sort of apocalyptic TEOTWAWKI scenario, over the last 25 years, we’ve seen an increasing trend towards focusing on smaller scale, more localized disasters, ranging from terrorist attacks and man-made emergencies to major natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, blizzards, and wildfires. While these are not as all-encompassing as the prepper-porn fantasy favorites like solar flare CME, EMP, and nuclear conflict, they have proven, at least on the local level, to be just as devastating, and with far reaching secondary and tertiary effects. While preparedness, whether under the guise of that label, “survivalism,” or “civil defense,” has been around for a very long time, the renewed interest in it, post-9/11, seems to be as much a matter of the citizenry awakening to the reality that “nobody is coming to save you,” as it does to an increase in the frequency of such disasters. While there is a great deal of legitimacy to the idea that, if you’re prepared for TEOTWAWKI, you’re likely prepared for most lesser threats, we’ve also seen a number of examples of this philosophical approach being proven catastrophically mistaken. An example of this can be seen in the recurring theme in general preparedness circles, dating back at least to the late, great Mel Tappan, of the superiority of having a survival retreat, even in a small, rural farming community, that you can defend and not need to evacuate. While gurus like Tappan and Jim Rawles like to point out that this keeps you from being forced into the role of becoming a refugee, subject to the whim of powerful land-owners and settled folk, it overlooks the reality of occurrences like the recent Hurricane Helene impacts on southern Appalachia, or the currently ongoing wildfires in California, both of which, for large segments of the local population, mandated evacuation to survive, and the risk to stockpiled survival stores, be damned. The point of these introductory paragraphs, of course, is not that “bugging in” or “bugging out” is the universal correct answer. The fact is, it depends. It depends on your training and abilities; it depends on the nature of the looming disaster; it depends in other words, on context. The only way to realistically assess what your situation might require, in any given situation, is introspection, reason, and correct thinking, rather than blindly adhering to the dogmatic proselytizing of your favorite preparedness guru du jour. The most important skill set in preparedness is not, contrary to popular teaching, combat shooting, small unit tactics, or even basic human life skills like fire starting, water procurement, and shelter building. Much like the first letter of the keyword S-U-R-V-I-V-A-L, instead, it is the ability to calmly and rationally, “Size Up The Situation.” It is, much like living a productive life generally, the effective management of two of the most valuable, nonrenewable resources available to us: our time and our energy. Read the rest: https://www.patreon.com/posts/most-...paign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link Continue reading...
