As a disabled, chronically ill person, a lot of that prepping is either too exhausting or just not accessible period. I’m on SSI. I go through a lot on almost a daily basis, I probably won’t survive collapse. Death(as long as it’s swift and mostly painless)is probably the best thing that could happen to me in that scenario, which is pretty sad, but I can barely live well on grid! This whole thing just sucks and knowing we could’ve prevented the worst of it and even still can(to a degree)kills me! And we really could’ve created a much better society in general, but oh well. The best thing I can do is try not fixate on this too much. A great read, though.
Yup, I'm insulin-dependent, live in a tiny apartment with no personal yard, and have been abandoned by "community" (friends, family, society) already because I'm still avoiding COVID, so my focus has been on trying to get people to wake tf up and improve our circumstances. Good luck to us both and everyone else, too, we're going to need it step by step!
Yep, I fully feel the abandonment of community. I just got in the bi-annual argument with my partner where he tells me how unreasonable I am for still masking and expecting him to mask, eugenics be damned. 😮💨
I'm right there with you & appreciate everything you wrote. One minute at a time here, do what I can & yes, great read. I'd be rooting for quick painless death too, not in great enuf shape to survive beyond what I've got now. I wish for some great surprises for us!
I really enjoyed this article! I read most of what you post, and admire your honesty and forthrightness. But until today I didn't know that you were funny as well: "This is how you do it wrong." The woods are full of take-my-advice-do-it-my-way internet experts and wannabes. I really value the fact that you have walked the tak and share your experiences so candidly. Wishing you and your family all the best... with those bike helmets.
Great article & love your writing style. As someone with a near ideal location for prepping or any impending collapse I'll just say two things. 1. I know first-hand what a wildfire can do to the best of plans after seeing my parents lose thier mountain home. Here's a quote. "In less than 24 hours between Oct. 21 and early Oct. 22, the East Troublesome Fire grew from 19,000 acres to over 190,000 acres, destroying 580 structures, most of them homes.". Sometimes the disaster cannot be avoided. 2. I struggle now with this thought. Is it our country that's going to collapse first, so i should look at leaving. Or will the entire world collapse, in which case my prime spot is as good as any to try and survive from?
So true about wildfires. My take: I think staying where you are has a lot of advantages. At this point, I don't know that other places are going to welcome outsiders, and there's a lot of obstacles that come with acclimating to a new culture and political system. Sometimes, it's the devil you know. Feeling like you belong somewhere counts for a lot.
If the USA collapses, so does the rest of the world. Even our enemies. We are everywhere, lots of countries, countries and corporations count on us. The dual currency that Russia, Arab counties, china and other countries are developing is a very BIG storm coming.too much is happening too quickly and there is no way to shut or slow it down.
I'm with you, Amy. We're doing some prepping, mostly things like stocking up on nonperishable food and such. I have rain barrels to catch water for my plant tables. Pollinator garden and the plant tables for some fresh veggies. Even a bee motel. (Anyone here want some cucumbers? No one told me that they're relatives of zucchini...) I've also taken home defense actions. My wife is a retired RN.
We live in the suburbs of a city of about 200k in the MO Ozarks. We have some family nearby, which is the only reason we're here. I'm realistic, though. We're seniors (both close to 70) and not getting younger. My projects get smaller, my strength wanes as time goes by. I haven't told my wife this, but if things go to Hell I don't rate the chances of our survival very high for long. Months maybe.
Jessica is far, far ahead of us. I haven't figured out the fresh water supply yet, though I have LifeStraws and LifePitchers. We have a whole house generator that runs on city gas, which came in very handy recently when a storm line knocked out our power for over three days. IMHO, prepping is a never ending thing. There's always the chance that something you didn't expect will happen that makes all your preparations irrelevant. "Man plans. The Fates laugh."
We've done what we can without building a full rain catchment system. I think one main problem with some of these bigger preps is that you have to commit. A rain catchment system has to be used and maintained. Same thing with a compost toilet. You sort of have to jump in with both feet. They can't just sit around. Plus, the grid isn't very friendly to off-grid backups, especially when it comes to water and electricity. It's almost like they want you to be dependent on them. Maybe my next topic...
I'm of the same view. I have some things set aside in case of any freak weather events. I upgraded my house to handle some of it. I can't do the rain barrels but we do stock up on bottled water. I'm still working out the logistics of storage batteries for my solar panels. And, if all else fails, I have bugout kits and an RV to get me out of there as needed. Ultimately, we can only do what we can do with what we have and do our best.
You're story about all of your trials and errors is how we all have lived, although a lot of people don't like to admit it. Everyone makes mistakes due to lack of intel at the time. I know I've made my fair share of mistakes through the years. We learn from them or we die. That's my logic. The day I decide to quit learning is the day I sit down and don't get back up again.
Keep up the research and we will pass on anything we've learned. That will be have to be our community.
Thank you for sharing your learning experiences. I knew a woman who went off grid years ago. It is rough. No way around it unless you had a lot of money it seemed. She raised children in that environment. Her number one piece of advice was to practice being off grid one day a week. Practice a new skill that day as well. Get yourself and everyone else used to it. It is a hard life but her innoculation method made sense. Her kids made out well but none of them stayed prepping they went on to make a lot of money. Still they have skill and a certain kind of fortitude.
Loved reading this - uncannily mirrors a lot of my mental and physical gymnastics as I sank a wary toe into the prepping world. I live near the downtown of a midsize city and my neighbors disdain my compost pile and no-mow May. I’ve hardly ever met anyone who seems remotely collapse aware in my town. The prospect of community seems dim, at least while everyone is still asleep in their red state bed of denial. I laughed when you described imagining building a composting toilet.
Best “life advice” I ever got was so simple: “Give up. Give in. Or give it all you’ve got.” Don’t get hung up on perfection or “doing it right.” Just give it all you’ve got. Learn something valuable every day. Copy and steal every good idea you see other people putting into play in the FEWSSS (food, energy, water, shelter, sanitation, security) arena. Life is a “trial and error” game. Living simply and with an open mind can be very rewarding. That’s really what prepping is all about IMHO. And have fun doing it! Rise to the challenge.
After five years of arguing with my roommates, we finally have a vegetable garden and a pollinator garden. There's no way I'm prepping fast enough to make the collapse easier, or even really trying anything substantial like rain catchment systems. Despite this, I'm thrilled with the gardens and the progress that's been made, and hopefully the pollinator garden will outlive me.
Also to add, I don't think you're spoiling your daughter too much by giving her a playroom or different ice cream flavors. There's no doubt that the future will be difficult for her, like you said, she's still learning the necessary skills and will live with and adapt to the uncertainties. Maybe if she remembers electricity, she'll help create some steam version of it or something in some community, who knows?
True. Plus, there's something to be said for creating a foundation of memories. Possible without electricity, yes, but for us it's probably better to focus on making the memories rather than spending her precious childhood hardcore off grid. We're probably doing enough to get ready for it without moving out to the woods.
Those memories are so important. They will be a touchstone and may help sustain her later on :) Glorious childhood, living in the now. She’ll have plenty of time to not be present in the now when she’s older.
Great article and I agree with every word. Like many here I have no expectations that anyone will be there for me since I’ve lost all my community during the pandemic. There’s a special kind of pain in trying to care for community that proves every time it does not, will not care for you. But I think of Albert Camus and the Myth of Sisyphus, and the idea that the near-certainty of failure should not lead to resignation, but to even more determination. That to end your life contentedly and without regrets, you need to know that you tried, regardless of the outcome. So I choose active hope because I’m all out of the passive kind, and I choose to continue to try and get involved with community, even though no one will ever care for me, because I feel in my bones that it’s right to do that, and at the end I’ll die knowing I did what I could, no matter how futile. And that, at the moment, gets me through each day.
I bought a house in an iffy area in Baltimore. My salary was just about the cost of my house under 40K. Best story is that the third weekend in September we would go to the mountains of West Virginia for a reunion of sorts. We packed the car and about half way there the sky’s opened up and it just wasn’t raining, it was if someone turned on the faucet full force. We got to the camp ground and reunion.about 10pm husband decided to pack it in and drive back home. Which we did. We didn’t unpack our car as it was about 1am, who would be out? We are in bed, more than a little awake, when we hear pounding on the door.then the screaming of “ I am not a whore!” It wasn’t our door she was at but a house across the street and two doors down. Thirty years later we still laugh about it. This is life.
I prep. I do it for the most likely scenerios I can imagine, which are more temporary and imaginable. I don't flatter myself that I'm prepared for what I haven't imagined, or what is too extreme to prepare for. I do my best by, essentially, the 80-20 rule.
This isn’t doing it wrong. This is what it looks like when collapse isn't hypothetical. You prepped with love, debt, bike helmets, and powdered milk. That counts.
Most preppers are rehearsing for a future you were already living through. You didn’t fail. You adapted. Over and over.
Virgin Monk Boy sees your busted drip system and salutes your sacred stubbornness.
Thank you for sharing your extremely well written journey through life. Now I'm waiting for your dark, humorous book. Some of the comments make me realize that the scary and intense fear being forced on and felt by Americans for the past three decades must be taking a severe toll on our well-being, and recently there is terrifying news about people loosing their healthcare and meager finances. I feel especially sad for people with a handicap, who are elderly and alone. I hope that people, including people who are unaffiliated with a religion or politics, are able to offer help to these frightened people. Is there a place online, social media, for people to seek help, or just someone to talk to? I wonder.
We're losing a lot at the same time, and today I'm reading about the "unprecedented" way Congress just basically forfeited its power to fascists over foreign aid and public broadcasting, on top of the big ugly bill.
As a disabled, chronically ill person, a lot of that prepping is either too exhausting or just not accessible period. I’m on SSI. I go through a lot on almost a daily basis, I probably won’t survive collapse. Death(as long as it’s swift and mostly painless)is probably the best thing that could happen to me in that scenario, which is pretty sad, but I can barely live well on grid! This whole thing just sucks and knowing we could’ve prevented the worst of it and even still can(to a degree)kills me! And we really could’ve created a much better society in general, but oh well. The best thing I can do is try not fixate on this too much. A great read, though.
Yup, I'm insulin-dependent, live in a tiny apartment with no personal yard, and have been abandoned by "community" (friends, family, society) already because I'm still avoiding COVID, so my focus has been on trying to get people to wake tf up and improve our circumstances. Good luck to us both and everyone else, too, we're going to need it step by step!
Yep. Ugh, the being abandoned by friends and family is too real…
Yep, I fully feel the abandonment of community. I just got in the bi-annual argument with my partner where he tells me how unreasonable I am for still masking and expecting him to mask, eugenics be damned. 😮💨
I'm right there with you & appreciate everything you wrote. One minute at a time here, do what I can & yes, great read. I'd be rooting for quick painless death too, not in great enuf shape to survive beyond what I've got now. I wish for some great surprises for us!
I really enjoyed this article! I read most of what you post, and admire your honesty and forthrightness. But until today I didn't know that you were funny as well: "This is how you do it wrong." The woods are full of take-my-advice-do-it-my-way internet experts and wannabes. I really value the fact that you have walked the tak and share your experiences so candidly. Wishing you and your family all the best... with those bike helmets.
It was cathartic to write, that's for sure. And yeah, I used to write funny stuff all the time, and this makes me think I should get back into it. :)
P.S. You do the best news roundups.
I’ve done some prepping, especially this year. In truth, the real way I’ve prepped, is to accept my mortality.
Major truth.
Great article & love your writing style. As someone with a near ideal location for prepping or any impending collapse I'll just say two things. 1. I know first-hand what a wildfire can do to the best of plans after seeing my parents lose thier mountain home. Here's a quote. "In less than 24 hours between Oct. 21 and early Oct. 22, the East Troublesome Fire grew from 19,000 acres to over 190,000 acres, destroying 580 structures, most of them homes.". Sometimes the disaster cannot be avoided. 2. I struggle now with this thought. Is it our country that's going to collapse first, so i should look at leaving. Or will the entire world collapse, in which case my prime spot is as good as any to try and survive from?
So true about wildfires. My take: I think staying where you are has a lot of advantages. At this point, I don't know that other places are going to welcome outsiders, and there's a lot of obstacles that come with acclimating to a new culture and political system. Sometimes, it's the devil you know. Feeling like you belong somewhere counts for a lot.
Very true!
If the USA collapses, so does the rest of the world. Even our enemies. We are everywhere, lots of countries, countries and corporations count on us. The dual currency that Russia, Arab counties, china and other countries are developing is a very BIG storm coming.too much is happening too quickly and there is no way to shut or slow it down.
I struggle with that CONSTANTLY!
I'm with you, Amy. We're doing some prepping, mostly things like stocking up on nonperishable food and such. I have rain barrels to catch water for my plant tables. Pollinator garden and the plant tables for some fresh veggies. Even a bee motel. (Anyone here want some cucumbers? No one told me that they're relatives of zucchini...) I've also taken home defense actions. My wife is a retired RN.
We live in the suburbs of a city of about 200k in the MO Ozarks. We have some family nearby, which is the only reason we're here. I'm realistic, though. We're seniors (both close to 70) and not getting younger. My projects get smaller, my strength wanes as time goes by. I haven't told my wife this, but if things go to Hell I don't rate the chances of our survival very high for long. Months maybe.
Jessica is far, far ahead of us. I haven't figured out the fresh water supply yet, though I have LifeStraws and LifePitchers. We have a whole house generator that runs on city gas, which came in very handy recently when a storm line knocked out our power for over three days. IMHO, prepping is a never ending thing. There's always the chance that something you didn't expect will happen that makes all your preparations irrelevant. "Man plans. The Fates laugh."
We've done what we can without building a full rain catchment system. I think one main problem with some of these bigger preps is that you have to commit. A rain catchment system has to be used and maintained. Same thing with a compost toilet. You sort of have to jump in with both feet. They can't just sit around. Plus, the grid isn't very friendly to off-grid backups, especially when it comes to water and electricity. It's almost like they want you to be dependent on them. Maybe my next topic...
It may be dependency, plus the cost of adapting their equipment to use small fluctuating loads from home solar and wind.
I'm of the same view. I have some things set aside in case of any freak weather events. I upgraded my house to handle some of it. I can't do the rain barrels but we do stock up on bottled water. I'm still working out the logistics of storage batteries for my solar panels. And, if all else fails, I have bugout kits and an RV to get me out of there as needed. Ultimately, we can only do what we can do with what we have and do our best.
Robot Bender, I like your style.
Ozarks?
Nice. Sounds nice 🙂
I live in the Mother Lode CA.
Grass Valley/Nevada City area.
Pretty area, but heavily MAGA. The buckle of the so-called Bible Belt. I'm a little sarcastic blue robot in a sea of red.
Same here. Foothills of the Smokies in East Tennessee.
You're story about all of your trials and errors is how we all have lived, although a lot of people don't like to admit it. Everyone makes mistakes due to lack of intel at the time. I know I've made my fair share of mistakes through the years. We learn from them or we die. That's my logic. The day I decide to quit learning is the day I sit down and don't get back up again.
Keep up the research and we will pass on anything we've learned. That will be have to be our community.
Yep, mistakes are sort of inevitable in learning, and collapse won't change that.
Thank you for sharing your learning experiences. I knew a woman who went off grid years ago. It is rough. No way around it unless you had a lot of money it seemed. She raised children in that environment. Her number one piece of advice was to practice being off grid one day a week. Practice a new skill that day as well. Get yourself and everyone else used to it. It is a hard life but her innoculation method made sense. Her kids made out well but none of them stayed prepping they went on to make a lot of money. Still they have skill and a certain kind of fortitude.
That's good advice, to practice one day a week and go from there.
Loved reading this - uncannily mirrors a lot of my mental and physical gymnastics as I sank a wary toe into the prepping world. I live near the downtown of a midsize city and my neighbors disdain my compost pile and no-mow May. I’ve hardly ever met anyone who seems remotely collapse aware in my town. The prospect of community seems dim, at least while everyone is still asleep in their red state bed of denial. I laughed when you described imagining building a composting toilet.
Indeed, a lot of this is pretty funny, and the humor provides a little reprieve.
Best “life advice” I ever got was so simple: “Give up. Give in. Or give it all you’ve got.” Don’t get hung up on perfection or “doing it right.” Just give it all you’ve got. Learn something valuable every day. Copy and steal every good idea you see other people putting into play in the FEWSSS (food, energy, water, shelter, sanitation, security) arena. Life is a “trial and error” game. Living simply and with an open mind can be very rewarding. That’s really what prepping is all about IMHO. And have fun doing it! Rise to the challenge.
After five years of arguing with my roommates, we finally have a vegetable garden and a pollinator garden. There's no way I'm prepping fast enough to make the collapse easier, or even really trying anything substantial like rain catchment systems. Despite this, I'm thrilled with the gardens and the progress that's been made, and hopefully the pollinator garden will outlive me.
Also to add, I don't think you're spoiling your daughter too much by giving her a playroom or different ice cream flavors. There's no doubt that the future will be difficult for her, like you said, she's still learning the necessary skills and will live with and adapt to the uncertainties. Maybe if she remembers electricity, she'll help create some steam version of it or something in some community, who knows?
True. Plus, there's something to be said for creating a foundation of memories. Possible without electricity, yes, but for us it's probably better to focus on making the memories rather than spending her precious childhood hardcore off grid. We're probably doing enough to get ready for it without moving out to the woods.
Those memories are so important. They will be a touchstone and may help sustain her later on :) Glorious childhood, living in the now. She’ll have plenty of time to not be present in the now when she’s older.
Great article and I agree with every word. Like many here I have no expectations that anyone will be there for me since I’ve lost all my community during the pandemic. There’s a special kind of pain in trying to care for community that proves every time it does not, will not care for you. But I think of Albert Camus and the Myth of Sisyphus, and the idea that the near-certainty of failure should not lead to resignation, but to even more determination. That to end your life contentedly and without regrets, you need to know that you tried, regardless of the outcome. So I choose active hope because I’m all out of the passive kind, and I choose to continue to try and get involved with community, even though no one will ever care for me, because I feel in my bones that it’s right to do that, and at the end I’ll die knowing I did what I could, no matter how futile. And that, at the moment, gets me through each day.
That's it for sure--we need to know we tried, regardless of what we think we know will happen.
I bought a house in an iffy area in Baltimore. My salary was just about the cost of my house under 40K. Best story is that the third weekend in September we would go to the mountains of West Virginia for a reunion of sorts. We packed the car and about half way there the sky’s opened up and it just wasn’t raining, it was if someone turned on the faucet full force. We got to the camp ground and reunion.about 10pm husband decided to pack it in and drive back home. Which we did. We didn’t unpack our car as it was about 1am, who would be out? We are in bed, more than a little awake, when we hear pounding on the door.then the screaming of “ I am not a whore!” It wasn’t our door she was at but a house across the street and two doors down. Thirty years later we still laugh about it. This is life.
Well written and so true. Thank you!
I prep. I do it for the most likely scenerios I can imagine, which are more temporary and imaginable. I don't flatter myself that I'm prepared for what I haven't imagined, or what is too extreme to prepare for. I do my best by, essentially, the 80-20 rule.
This isn’t doing it wrong. This is what it looks like when collapse isn't hypothetical. You prepped with love, debt, bike helmets, and powdered milk. That counts.
Most preppers are rehearsing for a future you were already living through. You didn’t fail. You adapted. Over and over.
Virgin Monk Boy sees your busted drip system and salutes your sacred stubbornness.
Thank you for saluting my stubborness. I salute you back.
Thank you for sharing your extremely well written journey through life. Now I'm waiting for your dark, humorous book. Some of the comments make me realize that the scary and intense fear being forced on and felt by Americans for the past three decades must be taking a severe toll on our well-being, and recently there is terrifying news about people loosing their healthcare and meager finances. I feel especially sad for people with a handicap, who are elderly and alone. I hope that people, including people who are unaffiliated with a religion or politics, are able to offer help to these frightened people. Is there a place online, social media, for people to seek help, or just someone to talk to? I wonder.
We're losing a lot at the same time, and today I'm reading about the "unprecedented" way Congress just basically forfeited its power to fascists over foreign aid and public broadcasting, on top of the big ugly bill.