when did you realize you weren't a sheep?

Two years ago I took the red pill (so to speak). It was while going through a divorce that I learned the true value of some gold and silver coins my father had given me. I had to sell them to get by at that time. Spent the last two years getting them back. Watched the market daily and started wondering about why things were looking so bad. (sometimes you wish you were still sheep)

I have since started educating myself. I have a compulsive personality, so I have thrown myself into this fully.

I do have to wonder if all that I am reading will ever come to fruition?

I hope we are all wrong about where this country will end, but I think Not.

My biggest hope is we can pull together and stand against the tide and change
this country's path before we are right. (If we are, God help our children)

 

"Welcome to the Real World"


And welcome to the Monkey!

 

i guess it has to do with the religon i was raised up in. The "END TIMES" were nailled in to my head from a young age. i remember growing up wonering when woud the persicution begin and if we'd have to run and hide in the mountains like the Waldensis(sp.) or in safe houses like Ann Frank. it use to scare the cr@p out of me. it really hit me when i watched the Branch dividean compound burn and i knew there were fellow former church members who died for what they believed in (right or wrong, not for me to judge)... as far as survival that grew form my time in my churches youth group Pathfinders, like boyscouts or girlscouts but ran by the church. i learned how to march, tie knots, camp/backpack, read maps, make fires, what to do if i get lost in the woods... then Pride in America and what i belive the founding fathers had in mind was formed in my highschool Gov. and Hist. classes (also ran by our church, take note that these were the only two classes i liked hence why i can't spell very well or do math once i run out of fingers) it wasn't intill i got out into the world, when i enlisted did i realize how much my religon had affacted me while i don't attend church much now what i have learned growing up has stuck with me. oh and my time in the navy has just made me tough so now i have beliefs, pride, and a back bone...

 

When I read this post I first thought that there's not much point in posting to this myself. You could not have been more accurate if you were telling about me. Just something I've always known, even the time frame works. I don't believe it was ever possible for me to be a sheep. It always seemed to me that if everybody was doing it then there must be something wrong or at least self destructive about it. Spent my life learning to recognize the many and varied tricks that people will employ to persuade you to their will. That's not to say that that's always a bad thing because it's not. The will of some (not many) actually do have your best interest at heart. Anyway several years ago I wrote a poem about sheeple/people and maybe this is an appropriate place for it.

The Buffalo
Some people call us sheeple
Waiting for the slaughter
But people overlook some things
That I don't think they oughta
I think we're more like buffalo
That roam and think they're free
It's fine to get my neighbor
Just please don't come for me
But one day when they look about
To see the herd diminished
Will they be satisfied at that
And stop before we're finished
But it won't matter much to us
Just like the buffalo
They stopped in time to save a few
They're on a ranch you know
We'll watch our brothers falling
And hope that we'll be spared
We tell ourselves it's thier fault
Because the truth they dared
But deep inside we know it
That's the way we'll go
We just stand 'round a grazin'
Just like the buffalo

 

I was forced NOT to be a sheep, although I am sure that wasn't her intention. My stepmom was a SEVERELY liberal individual in the Greenpeace (she was an activist in the mid to late 80s) organization and told me that guns were bad, and the military was bad, etc. etc. etc. My mother was in the military at the time, and I was stuck in a bunch of turmoil so I didn't really fit in and I spent all my time in the woods. We moved around a lot, but I always found myself a "special" place to seek refuge. I would make huts and stuff, and I always wanted to be a Boy Scout. I had the Boy Scout manual (my mother bought it for me) but my stepmom was even against the Boy Scouts. Well, I may never have been a Scout but between that one manual and the WWII field manual that belonged to my grandfather I learned quite a bit on my own. During the summers I spent time with my uncle who would take me shooting, etc. and so I was pretty well rounded despite being completely sheltered. When I turned 14 I got out of there with a quickness and moved in with my mom, and went through a period of time where I tried to fit in with the "cool" crowd, although I never really fit in there in the true sense of the word, although I've always been able to kinda blend in with any group.

I no longer seek definition in the societal sense of things, and I feel at home with myself knowing that I am who I am no matter who I am around or where I happen to be. I feel that I am able to blend in to almost any surrounding. Anyway, I've always felt uneasy about things, although I have to admit I am growing weary of it, or maybe the feeling is worse I can't tell which. I hope it's not the latter.

 

Growing up I'm not sure if me or my brothers were given the oportunity to be sheeple. From about the age of 5, my parents were always struggling with keeping a place to live and finding more dope. We were homeless alot and moved from friends houses to camp grounds to the bushes. I learned not to trust people. I also always seemed to have a natural ability to take inventory of the situation be it terrain, people or otherwise. Naturally this made me a loner. It never occured to me how valuable that experience was until I got laid off 6 months ago.

Not working afforded me the opportunity to waste my days surffing the net and I stumbled aupon a video about the end of civilization. That was the start of the rabbit hole for me. I also stumbled across a saying that stuck with me "Inform yourself".

My time in the military taught me that there is always a way to get what you need and it usually is not the way everyone else is doing it. It taght me when and when not to be seen. It also taugh me how to shoot a rifle, basic leadership and some minor tactics. Best eight years of my life so far.

I find that if I am in a place with alot of people I start to watch them. I sometimes hear thier conversations about petty things like shitty bosses and new cars. They are good little consumers.
Every once in a while I run across like minded folks. They have a different look than the rest. We give one another a nod and go on about our day.

I woke up about 6 months ago but I keep finding more bullshit to wake up to. This is the best and most worthwhile forum that I have ever been on. If it is to be people like us to inherit the earth then I think the human race has a chance.

 

After the movie The day After showed on tv like 1983. I was 13 and thought wow I better prepare for that.

Friends couldn't wait for their car and driver, hot rod, 4x4 magazines, I couldn't wait for my American Survival Guide.

 

1. When did you realize you weren't a sheep? that is when you realized that you weren't going to go with the flow nor be taken advantage of no matter what?

I'm not sure the exact moment but for as long as I can remember I've hated following others and tried to think for myself and my family. Guess I was raised that way...



2. When was it you really thought of yourself as a "survivalist"? '

I never have actually thought of myself as one... I'm still learning! lol I don't know if I will ever be a true 'survivalist' but I know I will always be prepared, even if it is only with knowledge (can't always take your stuff with you )

 

9th grade "civics class" read as sheep training 101 the commie they had teaching it demanded we agreed with her drivel , my folks always told me to think for and be myself I did not play the popularity game then and do not play it now . say no to and never

 

I learned a lot by the time I turned 14, and on that day, I left home.
Guess I was forged from a different mold as a lot of others in my generation.
I learned fast and hard sometimes.
Life is a real experience, and I have become a "watcher".
3 kinds of people in the world, or so they say:
1) those that make things happen....!
2) those that watch things happen....!
3) those that wonder, what just happened...!?
Or if you prefer:
1) the pessimist, sees the glass half empty...
2) the optimist, sees the glass half full...
3) me...I know I'm gonna get stuck washing those glasses, when the other 2 idiots
get done fooling around!
LOL!!!
Ain't it the truth!???
( I will NOT lead, so do NOT follow me....
I will NOT follow, so don't try to lead me....
I will walk along at your side, as your equal.)
Whatever that means!
Bill

 

I realized pretty early on while having an argument with an elementary school teacher over Neil Armstrong's quote during the moon landing. I argued that Man and Mankind meant the same thing and that the quote didn't make sense. She said I "just didn't understand" I knew then that I would never take someone else's beliefs at face value. As for realizing I was a survivalist: when I was a child I was told that due to a hole in the ozone layer the ice caps were going to melt. I went home and took some of my parents jars and glued candles to the inside of the lids then put books of matches in the bottoms and screwed the lids on tight so that when the world was flooded I would have light. I didn't realize until years later that was the day I became a survivalist.

 

never was a sheep....but I sure felt creepy that day that I walked through a herd of them and they all started saying DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD.

 

BBBaaaaaa - nothing to see here. I'm a sheep just like you - go burn someone else s place down....

As for 2. When was it you really thought of yourself as a "survivalist"? '
I can actually give you a date - the week of Oct 17, 1962. I was a kid then, not even old enough to join the Boy Scouts.

(Edit) This was the Cuban Missile thing, a Democrat Presidential f'up of the first stripe. We were living a couple of miles from a major SAC base and had Titian Missiles surrounding the city. In other words, I was living inside of a big fat nuclear first-strike bullseye... Needless to say, those that could afford to lose work hours/pay had already hauled ass to the White mountains, way north of town. The rest of us peons had been warned "to be ready to evacuate"... Where to, what to take etc seemed to be missing completely. The FedGov, an organization caught perennially with its figurative pants around its ample ankles... (end edit)

My dad had just put a footlocker in the back of our old Mercury wagon - with some minimal camping stuff.. Boxes of Mac & Cheese, some canned goods. A couple of blankets. No water, tent or anything else. This for a family of 5. When I asked what he planned to do...he screamed at me. I was just a punk kid, but I could see a scared shitlless adult when I saw one.
It only took a bit of thinking to see why he was so scared. He didn't have a plan, a clue or even any minimum gear if we did have to haul ass. To be fair, he wasn't alone.....

That's when schooling myself in Post Atomic Attack Survival 101 became a priority. I've always thought of myself as someone who, with luck, could muddle thru even the worst of things. I'm still kicking - so must have done something right.....

 

I've always known I wasn't an Aries when I discovered I was in fact, a Capricorn. Now I'm a superannuated Capricorn.

 

Me, I was always different. I loved hunting and being in the woods from the time I was 6 yrs old. I was alone much of the time, got myself ready for school from 1st grade on and came home to an empty house. Loved fishing and camping. We used to go up into the woods in the summer to fish and camp. When I was young I had been hungry to many times in my life and we lived in our car from time to time and felt great to be in a 2 room very tiny mobile home.
I had several step dads and vowed my children wouldn't be raised like I was. Oh yeah, hubby said he married me because I was different lol. He came to visit me once when we were dating and I doing archery practice behind my 2 room rented cabin.
The second part came easy as my mom and dad were children of the great depression of the 1930's and mom was a farm girl and I learned to cook from scratch, butcher, and that farm animals were grown for food. Canning, preserving just kept going after I married. It also didn't hurt that I became LDS and took to it like a fish to water.

 

Never fit in with the crowd. Not the team kid or any of that. Accepted that I had been labeled a wolf or sheep dog in about 2007

 

Question 1) When I was still in High School back in 1979.
I just decided not to follow "pop culture" or "trends" like every other idiot on the planet, and do my own thing.
Boot cuts vs. ankle chokers, Holley Carb t-shirts vs. Izod, boots vs. sockless penny loafers, truck vs. car, hunting/fishing vs. games, etc....

Question 2) About 1981 when I decided that my future might be determined by the ability to THRIVE in any location or any situation, and my out of class education turned to SURVIVALISM.
And the "graduation" was when my best friend and I took off into the woods and set up a long term camp, then spent Nov 1982 until Feb 1983 living there without difficulty.

 

Interesting question! Well my parents were 'possums' trying to be cool, so for some reasons I wasn't sent to kindengarten... I think my social conditionning as a sheeple was forever sabotaged because I wasn't exposed to system of the man bullshits young enough and my parents weren't a prime example of the values pushed by the system.

As well I have never tried to fit in and never did really in any group. Not by trying to be special but by a complete lack of interest in compromising my own beliefs.

I realized I wasn't like most when some social worker told me once that the other kids asked for money but were really asking for affection while I asked for freedom and couldn't give a fuck about the social workers as long as I was left to my own device.
I have done things my own way ever since, put myself throught university (abject waste of time and money in retrospective), lived abroad etc.

I started prepping seriously 3 yrs ago after I was fired from a job but the self-reliance attitude was always here. It just got stronger to a point it's the lense through all my decisions are analyzed.