dying before the collapse

DYING BEFORE THE COLLAPSE

My best buddy in High School was a Junior Pig ( the Boy Scouts Explorer program ), and got on well with a younger cop on the force. Who was a survivalist, and that introduced me to the field ( call it 1980, most likely ). Not long after that, the poor schmuck died in an accident on the beach ( rip tides being common-it was thought perhaps he went in after the dog who was struggling ). So much for that survivalist plan.

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I thought this was sadly ironic at the time, but never gave dying PRIOR to the apocalypse any thought. After all, that was a freak accident only. And I was young, dumb and full of immortality. Lately though, old age changes ones perspective. Not really as in, oh, I'm going to die, because duh, it is only math. But more in the sense you are able to do dingus AS you get old. “Slowing down” is a gentle euphemism giving you the mistaken notion you'll still be able to perform, just slower. That is like saying “passed away” when really you are a smeared greasy stain on the pavement. It masks reality.

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These last thirty years have been a heck of a ride ( my period of writing, not just prepping ), figuring out this survivalist gig. I started out a flaming idiot, buying all the old stale rules I had no idea no longer applied, and being mostly forced to figure out everything on my own as no one had a real interest in helping a brother out unless he had obscene amounts of money to share with them. I've had to fight “conventional wisdom” about survivalism the entire time, in case any of you dilettantes think I'm inexperienced in dismissing what is thought to be the standard business as usual.

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Thirty years writing, forty years in the field. Most of you were probably right there with me, although ships in the night as it were, and wondered where all the damn time went. Most likely, you kept recovering from moving, and divorces, each time a destroyer of equipment and dreams. We are all good at starting over and doing better. Most of us not beginners are probably only still engaged in the futile gesture even now more from habit than genuinely new fears.

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What the crap is an economic collapse or even a communist take-over of the government compared to seventy thousand thermonuclear weapons plunging us into a radioactive Forever Winter, your green glowing ass the only source of heat or light? These kids today, they have it easy! Orange Man is nothing compared to Red Bear. So, I don't even know how many of you this actually applies to. Prepping to beat old age. Fifty is about the cut-off in ability, no matter how great of shape you are in. You keep working out, keeping pushing your abilities, but that is just to reduce the pain of aging. It doesn't restore your abilities.

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You can still “Get 'Er Done!”, but it takes longer and time is one thing we don't really have. And that sucks, because I've always said if poor, substitute labor for money. That will always be true, but if your labor potential diminishes your expectations are going to have to match that, if you don't have money. By age 52, I couldn't even dig any more giant holes. My stamina had gone to crap. Two years prior to that I was still biking to work ( taking the long way around town prior to work ) and slinging huge amounts of weight for five hours, but it was getting VERY painful. Many nights I was cramping up and dreading the next day.

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Now, it just isn't getting done. It hurts bucketing up just a couple of bags from the feed store. I started out this winter pushing through the breathlessness on my power walks, to graduating to breathing through a scarf to warm up the air I was inhaling ( lung damage from working in the severe cold, and unventilated bathrooms and bleach ), to now not even trying if it is below 32 ( just going downstairs on the exercise bike ). If I do suck in too much freezing air, it actually saps my strength the rest of the day ( lack of oxygen, I imagine ).

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For the first time, lesser sickness is keeping me inactive for the day, hanging limply off the recliner like a sack of wet feces. I used to be able to work, no matter how sick I was. None of this is to say I'm worthless and weak ( although it feels like it ). I can still outperform a lot of folks half my age, the marshmallow man pukes. I just can't achieve 10% of my near recent performance. That means crap just isn't REALLY getting done. I am nearing the end of Labor Instead Of Money. It is a damn good thing I'm pretty much done on preparedness.

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Pale substitutes of yore are still being done, but the overall work load must diminish, as well as the time frame expanding. You can still smile proudly for the camera, Shrub style, and declare Mission Accomplished, but deep down you know it has all turned into a Crap Show. Now it is a statistical guarantee that sooner rather than later you are rolling down stairs and breaking hips, or if more sedentary, sitting around doing nothing and crapping yourself randomly. I think looking forward to the apocalypse is more fun!

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The expectations of youth as far as the apocalypse went was to become a warlord and smite the enemy and gain emotional well being from the lamentations of his women. How much cooler could it have been than to return to being a true warrior, in an age of computer monitoring workers flattening ever widening asses in a cubicle chair? Now, the reality is that it will feel really good to take out a few of the twats with you before you are killed. And yet, I still shrill loudly for you to store five or ten years of food, to stack a pallet of ammo. To what point?

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There is no point! Except, if you weren't doing that, whatever else you undertook would be even MORE pointless. What, you can take it with you? I'm not suggesting that your family, or friends, or complete strangers on the Full Retard scale of humanity deserve to be outfitted with your supplies. They don't. They are far from worthy. But you overstock not only because you lack any other viable plan, but because humanity must endure. It sucks it probably won't be you ( but it could, and if a miracle happens, you are well covered on the survival tool front ), but at least it will be somebody.

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You know I'm convinced we are going to have a 99.9% die-off. And I'm only convinced of that more every day as mans stupidity is put up on display center stage. He is too stupid to pour piss out of a boot, and too stupid to take seven years of plenty to plan for seven years of want. Whatever you don't stock is just wasted by some other moron who dies anyway. Your stockpiling can save someone. You, or someone else. Don't be a dingus and poison the well just because it might not be you. Do good by others even if they are too retarded to even understand that.

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Stockpile as if you think you'll live forever, live each day like you won't, and do so before you are too crippled up.

( .Y. )

( today's related Amazon link click HERE )

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note: Walt, you stud, thanks for the very generous PayPal donation
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note: an interesting map, showing how long wood would last if nothing else was available for heat.  I would suggest that the Texas, OK, KS, etc line should bisect those states at the 100th meridian, and be treated as two separate entities.  The dry west skews the forested east.  Regardless, it points out a potential overlooked vulnerability to the West retreat HERE 
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