consuming doom 1 of 2

CONSUMING DOOM

Let’s ask a rhetorical question.  It might actually turn out to be an important consideration, or it might just be vacant navel gazing.  The only reason I bring it up, besides the glaringly obvious pathetic need to have kind of a new and unique article subject which isn’t shared by the other two hundred and sixteen prepper blogs ( with such earth shattering posts as “how to coupon your way to a concrete bunker and a decades worth of MRE’s” or “how can you claim to be prepared without a semi-automatic pellet carbine with FLIR sites?” or of course the time tested standard “how do you get the Trophy ‘Ho on board?” ), is that if there is something to it besides a passing fancy on my part and it might be worth pondering.  Here goes.  How much of the doom and gloom we are feeling right now is a legitimate Reptilian Brain warning and how much is merely our inability to cope with the changing/dying consumer economy we are all so attached to?  Does that seem like a silly notion?  I’m reading the Druid Dudes last book ( the one on progress as a religion ), which is quite good, and while I try not to allow myself to be swayed by the evil forces of optimism, I also try to stay open to all possibilities so as not to be blinded by my own rhetoric and so his work was kind of bacterial infecting my brain today.

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No matter what we read or write about, acquiring skill sets is never easy and while it is the prepper holy grail ( with sparkly boobs ), it is almost never very feasible.  I’ve written on this before-if it doesn’t make/save you money, usually you don’t make time for it, outside a singular hobby.  No old timey skills make money today ( not real, non-petroleum assisted ones ) outside a very few high priced craftsmen ( and while it sounds good to do stuff like knap rocks and write books on it, all expensive crafts are subject to total non-support during high unemployment and economic calamity.  In other words, they are far from Recession Proof.  Hell, all those high priced advice prepper authors, by chasing the advertising dollars, are far from Depression proof even if they are, kinda, sorta, recession proof up to a degree.  But I’d also wager when the real economy crunch happens, consumers will take the time to research real frugal methods and shun the Yuppie Scum sites ).  Humans, almost all of us no matter how much we delude ourselves into thinking we are Einstein level IQ holders, learn by repetition.  Nothing wrong with that-that is the only way I learn anything new, by reading nearly everything on one subject.  The same facts, presented differently by separate books, over and over again.  Very few of us have the time to repeat each new needed skill over and over and over, unless it is our livelihood.

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So that pretty well leaves consumption as our answer to the problem of prepping for a non-petroleum neo-medieval future.  It isn’t the best answer, I grant you.  It is in a lot of aspects the worst possible answer.  But it is a short cut for those of us with too busy lives ( granted, we could all prioritize better and force ourselves to train religiously for this future.  Which, okay, sounds great.  But who amongst us wants to live that way?  “All work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy”.  Do you think I work at this blog, writing and researching, more hours than my paying job, because I’m greedy for the two books a week it will get me?  No, it is because I enjoy the hell out of it.  Without the passion, there wouldn’t be the devotion and discipline.  And that kind of passion does not translate into learning low tech skills.  So, being honest with myself, I’m not going to make the effort past buying a few reference books on the subject ). 

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Rather than learning gardening or composting, we buy years and years worth of the bulk of our daily calories ( nothing wrong with gardening and if your climate allows it we all should do it.  I‘m actually talking about substituting stockpiling for farming, which isn‘t the same as gardening.  Gardening is vitamin pill growing, not calories growing ).  It is much cheaper and quicker and takes minimal learning.  Rather than learn marksmanship or fire discipline we substitute volley fire from semi‘s, trading training with consumption of magazines and ammunition.  Or, for that matter, we buy prep supplies rather than move out to the country and learn to rough it.  All of us, one way or another in one guise or another to one degree or another consume rather than learn.  So, wouldn’t it kind of make sense that when our regular ability to consume is in danger, we pretty much blow a fuse?

More Tomorrow.

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