The Trouble With Prepping (Part 1)

(LEXXiNE in Photobucket)

...is that once you start thinking about it, I mean, REALLY thinking about WHY you SHOULD do it - you quickly encounter that slippery slope down Alice's proverbial rabbit hole - a mental black hole of 'what ifs' and 'what thens'... 

  
There's no turning back. You find there is no half-way doable. There's no 'done' and be done with it.

Because you are either prepared or you’re not. Because the alternative to unpreparedness is mere hope and avoidance. And both are a road to surrender. Surrender is never survival. Surrender ultimately results in death. You may hope for the best, but you must prepare for the worst. 

My problem began when I joined the Boy Scouts. Back in the day when Scouts earned merit badges for outdoor survival skills. Our proud motto was, "Be Repaired". Of course, we didn't think of it that way at the time. After all, we lived in neat, comfortable communities, protected by moms and dads, with bikes to ride to school on, and thoughts of the opposite sex. Learning how to make a campfire out of flint and steel, pitching a tent, tying knots to lash it down, and basic cooking of meals was fun. An adventure - like 'camping out' in the backyard. We were a far cry from the Boy Scouts of yore - those who learned to skin a deer, treat snakebite with medicinal herbs, or hike for days out of the wilderness using only the sun and the stars. In that era in which I became a Boy Scout, we had compasses. We bought with us a first aid kit. And if we got lost, our Scout Master sent out a rescue party. Kumbaya! 

But as I grew older, things got progressively worse. Those skills of my childhood were forgotten or dulled by cars, parties, marriage, raising kids; jobs in the cities, computers and cell phones. How quickly we became accustomed and addicted to the conveniences we enjoy now accepted as, “modern living.”

Then at some point, I started looking around. I stopped and thought about all these 'things' we depend upon in our everyday life. What IF THEY were all gone? 

That first 'what if' is all it takes. 

Going to war is a revelation. War will make you see what 'all gone' is all about. 

So you look into the abyss and the abyss looks back at you. 

You consider the possibilities: 

* Lights out - No electricity. No power. No Internet or cell phones to call for help. No functioning ATM machines to get your cash out, no bitcoins to buy, trade or barter. No refrigerator, no stove, no microwave; no heat or air conditioning; no rock & roll on the radio. No more fake news. No more good news at all. Complete and total silence, except for the animals out in the wild. Enveloping darkness when the sun goes down. What then?

* Food, Water and Shelter - Where do you live? Are you in a city? What happens in an emergency at grocery and convenience stores when a hurricane, flood, or blackout happens? What will people do when they can't get what they want? Chaos. Rioting. Fights and killing. Human nature inevitably reverts to its base animalistic behavior. Do you live in the suburbs? How far do you drive (if your car still runs) to get to provisions once they run out? Will there be anything left to scavenge once you get there? Do you live in a rural area? Is there drinkable water nearby? Can you hunt and grow the food you need for the duration of any supply disruption? With no trains, planes, or trucks to deliver goods and consumables to stores, how long are you prepared to keep a meal on the table? How long will it take for civilization to recover? Can you survive until then? What if it takes forever...

* Physical and Mental Health - What will you do if you or a loved one is hurt or injured? Can you treat fevers, broken bones, cuts and bruises? What about radiation burns, snakebites, gunshot wounds, or existing conditions requiring daily medications? How would you handle depression? The loss of a will to live?

* Defense - What are you prepared to do to defend the lives and survivability of yourself, your family, your loved ones, or your neighbors? Where do you draw the line? What do you have to protect yourselves with? 

So much for the short list.   

The mind reels clinging to a last vestige of sanity. Surely it can't get THAT bad? What would it take to bring a once robust society to the point where one would need prepare oneself for this? What are the probabilities? 

Let us count the ways... (I think to myself… least-to-most likely?) 

1. Alien invasion from outer space - Great Hollywood movie material. Not very likely. But being prepared means never saying 'never' to anything, no matter how far-fetched. Crazy? (Sure, until it happens.)

2. Meteor, asteroid, comet or falling space junk impact - Possible but somewhat possible in our lifetime. Archeology has uncovered instances of deep space impacts creating craters on earth like those pockmarking our moon. What made the Gulf of Mexico? Was there an Atlantis before instant global life extinction? Yet some life DID survive, despite instantaneous ice-age freezing, tumultuous clouds blocking the sun for decades, oceans flooding over major landmasses, or magnetic polar shifts with chaotic electrical torments. Our world is still Nature's work-in-progress. Which brings us to possibility #3.

3. A so-called "Carrington Event"? A massive solar eruption ejecting an electro-magnetic flare in the direction of planet earth - A distinct possibility. It HAS happened before in recent recorded history at a time when civilization was nowhere near as dependent on electrical energy and communications as we are today.   

4. A man-made EMP (electromagnetic pulse) - Akin to #3. A story on Fox News appeared on Friday the 12th describing a historical precedence and warning of this: "Electromagnetic pulse attack on Hawaii would devastate the state" This instance was an "accident" of ignorance. Future incidents could be nation states "weapons of choice".

ANY nuclear war on this planet would be "devastating", and likely an "extinction level" event. And yet, if radical politicians and some military planners are to be believed, some believe a "first strike" war of this type could be "winnable". Perhaps for them, living in bunkers deep underground for decades before they could emerge to a devastated planet. "Winable", at least in their own warped unreality...
 

5. Mega-Earthquakes/Super Volcanoes/Super Typhoons and Tsunamis - There's an old Hawaiian saying that warns: "Never turn your back on the sea". Hawaiians, and Pacific islanders in general, live on volcanic islands surrounded by thousands of miles of ocean. All of these threats are part of the lives of millions of people on the Pacific Rim. Millions of others live with tornadoes, floods, sub-freezing winters, and countless other ever-changing weather events.   

6. Cyberterrorism and sabotage on the power grid - Our nation's power grid infrastructure has suffered from a lack of maintenance, protection and upgrades at the same time population growth has demanded its expansion exponentially. Increasingly it depends on complex computer systems and electronic switching to provide the delicate balance of power for our cities, businesses and communities needs. The attacks on this grid are increasing. Headline news of the day reports the world’s worst cyberattack thusly: “Ransomware infections reported worldwide”

Both cyber-hacking and physical attempts to destroy key transformers and control centers to cause their cascading failure is on the increase. This is an ongoing war the media fails to report, thus, the public is largely unaware of. On top of this, many of the electrical power sources in the US and the world are nuclear plants that are years past their structurally designed limits. The power grid is an irreversible accident waiting to happen.
 

Any one of these aforementioned events would bring modern civilization to its knees. Will you wait for “the government” to come and help you? How did that work out for the inhabitants after Hurricane Katrina? How can that happen if your entire city, metropolitan area, state, region or country go dark?   

In following articles I will attempt to discuss topics on this subject. You may think this series is “fear porn” and avoid it. That is your choice. But if you consider what is at stake, especially if you have a family to protect, I hope you will upvote this article, share it with your friends and loved ones, and join me in this topic to help each other with ideas, resources, and methods to prepare ourselves for any eventually we “hope” and pray will never transpire.

  ~ Longshot   
 (aka: www.gab.ai/#VetPatriot – Get off the censored NWO Face and TweetyBird! Join Gab & Steemit today!)