Would you like to be a prepper, too?

I’m a geek

I’m a geek. I know it. You know it. Everybody who knows me knows that I’m a geek. I work in front of a computer 8-12 hours/day. I have a phone on my hip that runs a flavor of Linux. I watch TV over the internet. I make phone calls and send text messages over the internet. I am a geek.

This is great for the status quo. As long as everything remains the same, as long as I have a job, as long as the internet is running and electricity is flowing, everything is peachy.

I don’t know how to do a lot of stuff

I don’t know how to change the oil in my car (not my new car anyway). I don’t know how to take an impeller pump out of a dishwasher. I don’t know how to get a stick of deodorant out of the toilet. Why? because I can “call a guy” to come fix it for me. As long as everything around me keeps running smoothly, that’s okay. But that’s an awfully big “if”.

A System of Controls

You see, I don’t have control over what goes on around me. I can’t control the economy. I can’t control legislation. I can’t control whether or not I have the same job tomorrow. I can’t even control if I will have electricity or fresh water tomorrow. That’s a problem. If you don’t know that it’s a problem just wait for an emergency to make a believer out of you.

This reminds me of a scene from one of the Matrix movies: Neo is talking with one of the Elders about the eminent war with the machines. The Elder points out a large apparatus in the distance and asks if Neo knows what it is. “I have no idea what it is, or what it does, but it has something to do with our water supply. So long as it’s working nobody cares about it, but as soon as it breaks down we see how reliant we are on it, and the systems it supports.”

Ah, and there is the message of that series of movies. The more reliant we become on systems the less free we are, and by extension, those who control the systems control us.

So it makes sense that to achieve true freedom one must overcome their reliance on outside systems, right?

In today’s day and age I don’t think this is a realistic goal for any but the most extreme to be able to accomplish. If you have, I congratulate you!

However, today (right now!) we can start reducing our reliance on systems, once step at a time. Every day whittling away at the seemingly transparent control that others hold over us.

How can you do this? Simple: learn how to do things for yourself, then start doing them for yourself.

What do I know how to do?

I know how to raise rabbits (for meat) and chickens for eggs (and potentially meat).

I know how to plant a garden and harvest my own food.

I know how to dehydrate food for intermediate-length storage of the food that I’ve grown.

I know how to build basic structures out of wood.

I know how to build a tower for a wind turbine or antenna.

I know how to make a wind turbine out of a DC motor, some PVC pipe, and some miscellaneous parts.

I know how to start a fire with wet wood and no paper.

I know how to sharpen and care for a knife.

I know how to camp in the woods.

I know how to cook food over an open fire.

I know how to split wood using an axe, or sledge and wedges.

I know how to fall a 100’+ tree.

I know basic first aid. More importantly, I know how to keep calm when in a first-aid scenario.

Of course I could go on. Suffice it to say, I’m learning more of these traditional skills every day. And I plan to keep learning more.

Why? Because the more I know how to do, the less I have to rely on someone else to do it for me. The more distance I can set between my family and those controls… the more free we truly are.

What are you waiting for? Go learn a traditional skill today, then practice it tomorrow.

Let me know what you just learned… 🙂