specialist- generalists

SPECIALISTS IN A GENERALISTS WORLD

In general, a specialist can find employment in a niche of expertise and in general he will always know very little else.  Specialization is a brokered commodity whereas it is hard to find many instances of a generalist being employed for that skill set.  When a behavior is rewarded, you get more of ( except in marriage when you are punished for any behavior, but I shant be distracted with that subject today ).  So, in general, most of us educate in one marketable skill subset and congratulate ourselves on our marvelous intelligence ( because, hey, we got a paycheck to prove it ) and think that anything we touch after that is tarnished by the same level of capability.  So, for instance, every 99 out of a hundred “preppers” or “survivalists” think they are the true blue hot crap super stud one eyed kings in the valley of the blind and will rise to the top after an apocalypse like sweet cream to rule all they survey- all after reading how freeze dried foods and semi-automatics ( and let us not forget a genset! ) make them prepared for any disaster brewing.  I was one of them ( albeit at a slightly lower income/equipment scale ).  I look back at my level of ignorance when first preparing to survive and thank all the gods they postponed judgment day for my sake.  Luckily, my writing from back then mostly holds up as my bailiwick was more economic and political.  But my personal preps were a mess. 

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How I thought I could feed and defend the family on 400 pounds of wheat and two hundred or so rounds of pistol ammo ( all I had time to buy before The Evil Wife thrust her impossibly large bosom into my face and hypnotized me for a few years, then rudely withdrew them and shocked me awake into a nightmare of lesser bosoms until now here I am wishing for any bosoms ) was laughable.  I got the wheat part right, and then turned right around and screwed it up by pissing away $500 on a single firearm.  Why?  Because that was what serious survivalists owned.  That was a real gun.  For the same money I could have bought two war surplus rifles, an old revolver, hundreds of rounds of surplus ammo and, literally, a ton of wheat ( this was the late eighties.  $50 rifles, $79 revolvers, $8 per hundred pounds of wheat with plastic buckets begging for homes for free ).  Why didn’t I?  Simply because I didn’t know any better, and because I thought I didn’t need more than what I had.  I was following conventional advice, which never took into account several different generalized studies needed for system wide operations and failures understanding.  Survivalism was taught by self stylized experts in the 70’s from knowledge decades old at the time.  And the lessons from that decade never were incorporated.  We are still being taught immediate post World War Two levels of understanding in attempting to evaluate and respond to life threatening dangers.  Most survivalists are still following a specialist, and relying on him/her for the facts, understandably as no one has time to learn everything on their own.  I did it because I had nothing but time and it related to writing- my ego inflator and stress reliever.  And it was a slow process.  I can hardly expect every aspiring survivor to emulate it- and not that they would anyway, as it goes against their built in prejudice towards specialization.  But it is a shame.  It was/is a very interesting trip indeed. 

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