Politics, I’ve deemed, is too left-brained for me, but the years I’ve spent obsessing over it has left a permanent imprint on my psyche, though I now pay little practical attention to it. The inherent collapse of the monetary debt system is something that is as life altering to your view of the world as any discovery of the function of DNA, the illusory nature of time and space, the law of octaves, cymatics, etc.
I said goodbye to politics when I wrote my first (and, so far, only) book, so if you’re interested in learning the background of what I’m talking about here, feel free to dive into it. It’s free, and only 160 pages or so.
In a nutshell, particularly after studying economics for two years, I’ve come to the inescapable and irreversible conclusion that the economy will collapse, and that they are doing it on purpose – which of course cements the deal as far as inevitability is concerned. There is no reason for me to believe this outcome can be altered through the same avenues we’ve slowly creeped towards this calamity in the first place, and so, knowing this, the inevitable question that arises is, how can I transcend?
The most important first step in the process of transcendence is to take stock of the necessities of life, determine how you procure these necessities, and then determine of the means of procurement will be available to you in the event of an economic collapse. For myself, I’ve determined these, in somewhat of an order of importance, to be: water, food, arms, shelter, and power.
Few people ever ponder where it is the items they need to survive actually come from. Water comes from the tap. Food comes from the grocery store. Power comes from your electrical outlets. These are dangerously shallow and simplistic outlooks on life. They are also lazy.
Naturally I determined, as should be obvious to anyone seriously inquiring, that none of these necessities would be available to me in the event of an economic collapse (or widespread natural disaster, nuclear attack, etc). The realization of my complete and utter lack of control over my own life was a bit startling and disconcerting to me. Fortunately I felt like I had at least two to three years to reverse this situation. Here is what I did.
Water, water, everywhere, goes the Rhyme, nor any drop to drink. Water is in abundance in America, with a few exceptions. The problem is finding water suitable to drink. Even in the pre-collapse period, the water from your tap is undrinkable. Two-thirds of municipal water supplies are poisoned – yes, poisoned – with sodium fluoride. Just about all water is poisoned with chlorine. Chlorine serves a practical purpose – to kill pathogens. What we rarely stop to ponder is, if it kills pathogens, what does it do to us, particularly the bacteria in our body we have a symbiotic relationship with?
Now, consider a post-collapse survival scenario. The water no longer runs from the tap. The rivers, lakes and streams are full of pathogens that would make you deathly ill. Where do you get water from? I researched several water filters and found that the best was the Berkey. It claims it will filter 6,000 gallons of water, including pathogens from stagnant pond water, though I am insufficiently motivated to test this supposition. I now live a few hundred yards from a creek, so if the water turns off I can run it through the Berkey.
This was the short-term solution, however. The long-term solution involves rainwater collection. I currently have little (zero) experience with these, due to shortage of capital to invest, to tell you about.
Food in a survival situation can come from three sources. The most practical, yet most short-term, is storable foods. Some of the cheapest, calorie-dense foods are also ones with the longest shelf-lives – rice, beans, pasta, etc. Canned foods are also ideal, if you don’t mind bispenol-A contamination. Personally I can live without it. What I found best was looking into companies who specialize in survival food storage. I settled on e-Foods Direct, which features great tasting freeze dried food, although I’m not enthusiastic about the autolyzed yeast extract (MSG-lite) found in their foods. I compromised due to the extreme short-term practicality storable food has. Once you eat all of it, then what…?
The second source of food is food you grow. Long-term survival gardening requires, most importantly, an initial investment in seeds, tools, soil, garden beds, etc, and knowledge and experience, particularly in seed saving. Once the grid collapses, there will be few, if any, to buy seeds off of.
You can buy a survival seed kit from several sources, but speaking from experience I don’t recommend them. The last thing you want to do is buy a seed kit and put it in your garage or whatever to wait for the apocalypse, breaking them out thinking you’ll become an instant expert on farming and can grow all the food you’ll need for yourself and your family right then and there. You’ll want to start yesterday, if you haven’t already. Aside from the essential experience you’ll gain, you’ll hedge yourself against the ever-rising food costs that will compound as the collapse takes shape. You’ve already seen the beginning stages of this. Seed kits are not recommended because you’ll find you’ll be stuck with a ton of seeds you won’t want to grow, especially if you begin gardening in the years prior to total collapse. By the time you really need the seeds, they are several years old and have lost a great deal of viability.
Start gardening now and begin with seeds for foods you enjoy. Personally the foods I enjoy are not the most calorie-dense, but are the most nutritious, making 75% of the seeds in my survival seed kit almost useless (it features literally dozens of species of corn and beans, more novelty than practicality). Grow the foods you enjoy, and learn to harvest their seeds, giving you perpetually sustainable source of food all year, every year. Plant fruit-bearing trees and bushes that will provide you with nutritious foods year after year. In my yard, in addition to 200 square feet of raised garden beds, I have two pomegranate trees, a lemon tree, fig tree, three blueberry bushes, and more wild dewberries and muscadine grapes than I can eat.
If you have the resources, particularly the land, you can make livestock part of your food source. I’ve recently bought a home on several acres and have made a dream of mine for the last several years a reality: owning chickens. You need a really large flock of chickens if you plan on eating them, but 4-6 egg-laying chickens will provide more than enough eggs for an average-sized family. Mine are a little more than a month old (as of May 2012) and I’ve converted a dog kennel into a chicken run, which was grueling and challenging but fun. Another 6-8 weeks and I’ll be harvesting eggs. Very exciting.
Another cost effective source of animal protein is rabbits. Just a few does and one buck can produce nearly 100 rabbits a year. This is an option I am strongly considering, particularly since I have two dog kennels, one awaiting a function now that the other is occupied by the chickens. The catch is, you have to kill and clean them yourself, but I feel this nurtures more respect for the food on your table. It should ever be kept in mind that the more humane you treat your animals, the more healthy, more delicious their products will be. If you lack the commitment, respect, and empathy to properly raise such animals, don’t bother.
The third source of food is that which is foraged or hunted for. A crash course in local plant ecology is in order, as well as honing hunting skills, if you wish to continue to make meat a part of your diet and you don’t have livestock. This is also essential for the simple fact that the land requirement for growing 100% of the food one person will eat in a year is 700 square feet. Just for one person.
If you want to hunt, obviously you’ll need firearms. But firearms are necessary not only for hunting food, but for protection in the inevitable “zombie” apocalypse. One of the most horrifying reasons this collapse will be worse than any we’ve seen before is the average person’s suicidal lack of preparedness. As hard as the Great Depression was for those who experienced it, a far more frightening scenario was averted due to the simple fact that preparedness wasn’t the domain of kooks, quacks, conspiracy theorists and the like. It was part of their way of life, not only having ample emergency essentials stored in anticipation of disaster but also being self-sufficient. They didn’t just throw their torn or worn clothes away, they mended them. And a large percentage of them grew at least some of their own food.
Fast forward to today, and you are going to witness a barbaric post-collapse event, with tens of millions of people unable to find food anywhere, except perhaps growing in your yard, or stored in your pantry. Think that’s unreasonable? Just look at what people did to each other over Black Friday “steals” at Target. All they were after was useless Chinese crap to bribe friends and family into thinking they actually care about them. What will they do once they’re starving? I have an abundance of empathy but I reserve none for those who feel obliged to take through violence what I may have offered them had they only asked. So with all that said, buy yourself a gun of your choice and make sure you have plenty of ammo.
I have shelter down on my list of necessities, not because it’s relatively unimportant, but because it is in abundance, especially if you know how to build one. There are literally endless plans and ideas out there for how to build shelters out of almost anything. Many you can build with a simple survival hatchet or machete-type knife but if you have the time and the capital to invest in simple tools, do so. I am currently interested in procuring a collection of hand tools that don’t require power, power being the most difficult obstacle to overcome. I currently have a house, but, well, let’s just say I may build something somewhere else in case “bugging-in” is not feasible.
In the event of grid failure, power from the grid will obviously cease, unless you have renewable sources of energy. Right now the most readily available, unless you are a physicist or something, is solar and wind power. Currently I have neither, and I don’t expect I ever will, although if time allows before the collapse has reached full-blown crisis mode I will certainly give it hell. The greatest challenge to solar or wind power is not the cells or the turbines themselves but the battery storage. These are not only costly, but currently have relatively short lifespans, especially in a collapse situation where replacements cannot be readily found and the ensuing depression continues indefinitely. In either case you must prepare for life without refrigeration or air conditioning in the summer months, as well other items such as a water pump for your well, if you have one. Most of these, in the grand scheme of things, are more luxuries than necessities, which is why I list power last on my list.
If you don’t believe collapse can or will happen, take a moment to consider the practical value of becoming self-sufficient. You know where your water comes from, and that it is pure. You know where your food comes from, what it was grown in, what it was fed, what chemicals were (or were not!) used, that they are not genetically modified in any way. Your food, your water, and your power are free, minus the initial investment, which eventually pays for itself, and the “cost” of your own sweat. You have made a meaningful contribution not only to your local environment, but to the environment as a whole, lessening the impact of factory farming, pollution, not to mention government/lobbyist corruption and malfeasance. You are in control. And if you look around at your present situation and think it’s not possible, if I – a city boy from New Jersey – can do it, anyone can.
The question is simple: do you want to live? Namaste.
It would probably be puzzled by the fact that human beings are filled with a restlessness, which makes us feel uneasy when we’re not occupied, and makes it impossible for us just to ‘be.’ They would be puzzled that we spend so much time oppressed by anxieties, worries and other negative emotions, and by our drive to accumulate more and more wealth, status and success, even though these don’t bring any contentment. And looking back over human history, they would be amazed at the endless catalogue of warfare and conflict, together with the incredible inequality and oppression of most human societies.