Thread: preparedness

Hi guys I wanted to say how much I appreciate ya'lls conversatin' with me on this topic. I will check the book store to see if Rawles' survival book is there and scan through it Shooter; I probably won't read the novel though.

I wanted to revisit Mick's view of my fatalist attitude. It's been popping up in my thoughts and perhaps writing it out/ being subject to your peer review may prove helpful.

I am sure military training is very helpful in many aspects of one's life. Remaining cool under fire is a "good" thing to know about yourself should things really go to hell. However, I believe it will not be quite the same. One may have a great sense of comfort knowing the whole rest of the army has your back. You have communications, air support, supply lines, and I think, sometimes R&R. Not the same as you and your grand daughter plinking thugs while your son-in-law applies pressure to your daughters wounds; or however it plays out 24/7/365.

If you really tried to think of every possible scenario, after awhile wouldn't you just take up wingsuit base jumping, rocket sled racing... who'd wanna try to live through all that misery of a worst case scenario?

My experience in construction, working with professionally trained architects and engineers, skilled sub-contractors and detailed schedules has proven to me that Plans are not worth the paper they are drawn on. Near nothing happens according to plan, most cause and effect is beyond one's control. Should things go well you may believe you have made your own luck, but what happened last time or next time. Things happen because they happen to happen when lots of different people and mother nature are involved. All we can do effectively is establish a broad base from which to react.

Maybe that is the same thing as envisioning every possible scenario. But the way I see it, creating a mental movie of some event and arranging a specific reaction is very limiting. While maintaining a grab bag of generalized skills, knowledge, a strong foundation of The Basics gives you the fluidity to handle the things you couldn't have imagined when the time comes.

Placing myself into the natural flow of the universe; its Divine purpose if you will, is proving to be a great benefit to me. We all have our individual beliefs, and I hope yours will serve you well. Part of what I try to practice(i'm not perfect or enlightened yet) is acceptance and surrender. To some these words may sound passive, and fatalistic. Truly they are not.
It is simply a way to deal first with what is primary-your internal condition. Whatever situation arises, I choose not to label it as good or bad- it just is. So I may think; "It's hot out here" rather than "This sucks". Acceptance is not resignation. "oh here I am in the scorching sun, I'll probably have a stroke" No, I do what I know to prevent hyperthermia.

Surrender is much the same. (I'm not sure how to separate the two at the moment.) It is the same as non-resistance. Just as martial artists are taught not to resist their opponents force; one should not create internal conflict by resisting any situation, such as wishing you were somewhere else or that things were different as examples.

Doing(practicing) these things can(will) give you a sense of space and peace without all the internal noise that comes with labeling everything as good/bad/like/dislike. It brings you into the present moment. You are not acting from fears and limitations collected in the past, nor projecting yourself into a fantasy future where everything is "all better".

Being in this state will allow the unseen, nonexistent force to operate through you. I believe Mick meant this in a way to say: not real. I can agree with that. To be real, to exist in the material world you have to be a thing. "God" is "no thing", as I understand.

Scientist can observe electrical impulses in the brain and identify them as thoughts, but they cannot observe the thinker- where is he?

So that all this remains on topic let me say then, the best first step toward preparedness is to have your mind in the right place.

Well, if you think about it, most big situations are not caused by a single event. They occur after multiple, small interrelated events finally reach critical mass. That's how people get caught in avalanches and lost in the woods.

They either ignore or are oblivious to the warning signs. Hmm, sounds like modern society

That there was an excellent insight into your mind and the way you think(on this topic at least), and I can say I now understand what you are saying so much better. I will also say our way of thinking is not so different. Maybe not that fatalistic afterall. I don't agree 100%...Maybe just 99% and only because the Australian military experience is vastly different to the American experience. There is a larger proportion of self reliance and making do wih the basics taught in the Australian military solely because of a certain lack of resources available to those of you in the U.S. Things will have changed in the years that I have been away from the scene. However I don't think it has changed much, as a mate who joined up at the same time I did and made it his career, was recently (lawfully) discharged, having served in the more recent conflicts, and from what he's told me, I gathered that back-up, air-support and supplies were still dismal. Comforts were usually 'acquired' (A nice way of saying begged, borrowed or stolen) from the Americans.


Mick

That's pretty good. If I were to re-read all that maybe I'd only agree with myself 99%.

I hope all who read the thread will take some measures for self reliance in case of emergency, if you haven't already. You may not feel the need to hole up in a mine field. In case of tornado, earthquake, blizzard it would be way cool to have the means to provide for family and neighbors for a few days.

Ever since I saw the movie Quest for Fire (yes it is an odd sense of humor of mine to reference all these movies after saying I dont watch TV) I thought it'd be neat to start a fire with a hand drill. At least now I know a 5/16 dowel is not the way to go. I got it to smoke a little but couldn't get an ember. I'll try a larger diameter before graduating to a natural shoot.

I'm coming a little late to the party, but you mentioned Discovery Channel's Dual Survival. One of my new favorite shows, along with a fair amount of stuff on OLN, TLC, History & Military Channels.

The hippie dude is Cody Lundin. The other meat eater (after all, vegetarian is a native american word for bad hunter) is Dave Canterbury. Both run their own survival schools.

Cody has two books out right now. I just finished the first one, '98.6: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive!' last weekend. Close to half of the book discusses his choices in a survival kit, which is way more in-depth than anything I've seen yet. The book is geared toward surviving about 3 days, preferrably with an active search & rescue going on. It provides a lot of insight, but there's no discussion of food or foraging at all. Practice is important -- Lundin offers up that the time to read the book on swimming & practice is long before you're on a ship that's sinking.

There ain't nothing wrong with being prepared. Katrina taught some lessons. Hurrican Alex and the completely FUBAR attempts to evacuate Houston taught us more. Learning from other people's mistakes is fairly painless compared to the alternative.

Originally Posted by sensei_kyle

... '98.6: The Art of Keeping Your Ass Alive!'...

If you have a live "Ass" why wouldn't you just sit on it and ride the fuzzy thing out of there??? Fancy naming your backside after a funny looking donkey type critter...


Mick

Hiya Kyle, I have both books. Read 98.6 and have just began wading into the urban version.

From the first few chapters I can say he follows the same kind of spiritual mumbo-jumbo that I enjoy and found the quotation from Dune. There's lots of good stuff in there on how to deal with fear and wipe your bottom with your hand.

Have you read any of Tom Brown's stuff? To me, the wilderness survival one is far better than the urban one. I have a couple more of his books in the queue to read, but they were bumped back after reading 98.6 -- Lundin's second book 'When All Hell Breaks Loose' got moved to the front of the line.

no, For a second i thought maybe Tom Brown is "the left Behind" author/ googled.

sounds interesting

There's another resource that is frequently underutilized -- your local public library. I was able to preview several books before dropping the money to add them to my collection. There were a couple that didn't make the cut, and that's money well spent in my book.

Originally Posted by kevint

Sounds good. What do you get, make, and grow, and how much do you rely on those today?

I get: fish, in season game (deer and wild hog mostly), wild mushrooms, whatever I can find. I really like learning about plants and especially which ones I can use for food.

I make everything I can (bread, beer, flour, etc.) The make part probably is less useful from a preparedness stand point.

I Grow: cucumbers, melons, strawberries, tomatoes, pole beans, squash, zucchini, radishes, carrots, basil, and anything I think will sprout in our soil!

Lots of stuff gets canned. I would say we eat about 50% stuff that we have a hand in providing ourselves directly.

Sorry I didn't see your question until now.

-Rob