[AnvilIron]

I get concerned that too many people are becoming reliant on equipment, books, videos, food caches and virtual communities to establish and measure their level of preparedness. They may largely embrace academic knowledge rather than experiential knowledge. They may subscribe to plans that they don't have the competency, foresight or true proficiency to carry out. They don't test and become intimately familiar with the tools and equipment they've acquired.

The basis for survival is self-reliance. That takes experience, practice and a mastery of situations and solutions. I think there are those that substitute thing-reliance and plans for self-reliance and doing. From my perspective that's very dangerous. I would encourage everyone to put equal focus on actual experience (not reading a book, watching a video, or buying stuff).

I'd like to hear more about people's experiences… developing on knowledge, honing skills, using their equipment.

Summer is coming. I encourage you to get out and use your gear. Sleep through a rainy night under a tarp or tent (even if just on your patio). Get a fire started and cook a meal. Prepare yourself, not just your BOB or your pantry. I'll be doing the same and sharing what I learn.

AnvilIron

 

[AnvilIron]

I didn’t live through the great depression or the second world war, but as a boy in the 50’s the rural farmers I worked for and who were my role models (including my father) did. They conducted their lives with an awareness of, if not an insistence on, essential values. They understood the nature of bleak realities and subscribed to a critical definition of what was inherently true. They regarded relating secondhand experiences or hearsay information as disingenuous and an indication of poor character. If you hadn’t done something yourself, then you had no business discussing it or implying that you knew anything about it… perhaps a narrow perspective, but one aligned with their reality.

For me, that perspective has colored the terms of my own self assessment and what I consider to be true knowledge and ability. In short, if I haven’t done it, I don’t know it. I understand that not everyone can avail themselves to develop the range of skills that relate to the many facets of emergency preparation. There’s no doubt that secondhand information is much better than no information. My concern is for those people who accept secondhand information on par with firsthand experience and assess their level of preparedness well beyond their reality.

Dreams: It sounds like you do quite a bit to reinforce the instructional information you take in with the experience of doing. I watch my wife selflessly tending to everyone else’s needs and addressing her own last… usually when she’s exhausted. We’ve had numerous discussions about taking care of herself first, but that’s just not the way she’s wired. There are times when instincts trump experience and if any human beings have a deep resource of instinctual behaviors, it’s mothers.

AnvilIron

 

[AnvilIron]

There’s a certain confidence and maybe a little calm that reinforces your efforts and progress when you challenge yourself personally and succeed. It helps us see ourselves as a resource for survival and not just the things we acquire or the plans we make.

Acquisitions and plans can get swept away in heart beat. If we develop and cultivate a sense of ourselves and our own competencies, then we may not be as shaken or suddenly adrift when chaos comes calling. A day of fasting, a less than comfortable night outdoors or a bit of rough terrain navigated lets us sample the more raw side of life, lets us peek over the edge of the abyss and see what stares back.

When our son was in Marine Corps boot camp and we finally got to his graduation, he said, ‘Dad they pushed each one of us 24 hours a day until we threw up. The only way to complete the physical endurance training was to completely lose it’. I said something like, ‘that’s incredibly rough.’ He said it was one of the most valuable things he’d ever experienced because now he knew what he was capable of handling and what his person limit felt like.

I’m not suggesting that anyone take that approach, but there is no greater asset in a SHTF scenario than an accurate sense of your own potential. If we have a feel for what we can expect or handle, then it lessens the intimidation, the fear factor, the mental paralysis, and contributes to clear and logical thought and improves our odds to survive… Just MHO.