Sunday, May 26, 2019

bah humbug


BAH HUMBUG
As the old joke goes, “How do you know a food is healthy for you?  It tastes like crap!”  Jokes are funny because there are kernels of eternal truth to them ( or, just funny because other people got hurt.  Either way works, and they do say laughter is the best medicine ).  I’m not saying you cannot enjoy and even crave healthy food.  Of course you can.  I do.  It just takes a re-training period for your brain to get off the junk food crack addiction.  You backslide, less and less every year, and Good Food Good is reiterated through pain.
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Just like alcohol.  Your body needs it, after an addictive period, until you go through the pain of getting over the addiction.  Why do you think bankers and CEO’s keep destroying nature, cultures and countries?  They are weak creatures from lack of trial by discomfort and they are addicted to hookers and cocaine.  No act too vile to continue getting their Gerbil To Anal ( GTA ) or snorting their blow, all the time.  Twats.  You can train yourself to be weak, or you can train yourself to be strong.  Reinforcement, good or bad, and your monkey brain meekly follows.
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You can become addicted to healthy food and exercise.  You can be Arnold, pumping iron to such a degree you have a puke bucket nearby ( which was followed later with that same bucket after he was married to Maria Shriver-badump! ).  Most folks see the entry in the dictionary of “moderation” and think it is some foreign Greek word.  They are ‘Murican’s, dammit, and they will not moderate their Yuppie Scum lifestyle until it is pried from their cold dead fingers ( yeah, Spanky, I’m being literal rather than hyperbolic here.  Amusing times ).
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I’m no saint, nor a super stud ninja survivalist.  Most of my good prepper habits come from other less admirable traits.  I’m just a cheap humper, so it was easy to never get addicted to eating out at fast food.  When it used to taste good, it was a seldom indulged treat.  Now that it tastes like rancid swill I can act all high and mighty about not eating any of it.  But I was until recently never very good about not eating the at home variety of crap food.  Only in financial austere times did I clean up my addiction. 
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But you train yourself and move in the right direction.  So, following the food joke theme, let’s make another humorous observation.  “How do you know you are prepping correctly?  Nothing you do is any fun”.  If you are enjoying prepping, you are probably doing it wrong.  Seriously ( kind of ).  At first, doing what needs to be done is going to suck all the mule members you can fit into a giant box.  Only later, after retraining your monkey mind, will you begin to enjoy it.  Surely you can admit, most prepping advice/activity is rather juvenile. 
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Not to disparage the AR-15 too much ( I know it has its place-I’m no longer just hating on it as a religious stance as I used to.  I really need to publish the next Bison Book Batch with the battle rifle title ), but isn’t the whole platform called the “Barbie Rifle” ( so called for its fun accessories ) for a reason?  Isn’t most prepping just shopping, as if every day of the year was Happy Festivus?  Now, I know that isn’t the whole story.  I understand most aspects of the hobby, believe me.
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I’m just asking, how many preppers do the Hard Things?  How many roll the dice financially and move out of the city?  How many try to reduce their dependency on the automobile?  How many don’t have enough food because they insist on only freeze dried ( when you are broke, Fancy Food should be a White People Problem not of your universe.  Obviously, get what you can eat every day, not what your favorite Prepper Guru advises, because, duh, Food First.  Then triple that because none of us can guess actually how bad it will get )?   
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( Just as with guns, you only get what you can have multiples of, not what is best or what is approved.  And yes, I understand the AR is the cheapest to get multiples of.  For now.  As soon as it isn’t, you can bet a jelly filled donut I’ll return to heaping scorn and ridicule ).  My point here is that most of us, most of the time, choose Fun over Hard.  Sometimes in life, sometimes in prepping.  If this does not apply to you, congratulations.  But there is a very good reason why prepping is mostly about guns.  Because they are fun.
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You can have your fun.  But it is called Delayed Gratification.  You earn it, then you get to enjoy it.  You can eat junk food, as long as it is a treat and a reward rather than a menu.  You can do all the fun stuff.  But you also have to ask yourself, every day, was that necessary, or was that just fun?  Saving money is no fun.  Giving up luxuries is no fun.  Living like a bare ass savage is no fun ( at least not at first.  Eventually, after it is no longer painful, it can be fun, or at least enjoyable or rewarding ).
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Do you think daily exercise is fun?  If you do, you are humped in the head.  The feeling AFTER you exercise is enjoyable, as your energy level is elevated and you don’t feel like a turd mixed in molasses on a cold tin roof.  Fun?  No.  I exercise six days a week and then rest on the seventh.  On that seventh day, I feel like crap for not exercising but I know I need to rest the muscles.  Not feeling like I’ll have a heart attack during sex, that is a nice feeling.  But fun?  No. 
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We do un-fun crap because we have to.  Do I enjoy, some days anyway, forcing myself to eat that last platter of wet cardboard whole wheat bread?  Negative.  But I feel WORSE if I don’t, as my blood sugar lowers and I’m feeling actual weakness rather than just hunger.  I have to do it, I enjoy the feeling AFTER I do it, but no one can mistake it for fun.  That should be YOU, and your prepping.  Delayed gratification, and in this case you should feel gratified if you never have to be grateful for prepping.
( .Y. )
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12 comments:

  1. Exactly. I throw the term "Discipline" (u.s.m.c. / military programming helps) at my prepping behavioral quirks that run contrary to the herd. A Minion must put forth a whole lot more (self) discipline to keep the modern sloth, idolatry, and assorted self destructive behaviors / activities at bay. A self isolation from those negative influencers or near religious fervor is nearly required to avoid the strong phsychological AND physical grasps of those items detrimental to their own survivalism and progression. I think it must be a whole or near total lifestyle change to reap the full beneficial aspects. Just buying things and half assed training or doing things on a Saturday off work day won't cut it in the all pro team league of collapse, die off and apocalypse tournament bracket play. "Skin in the game, heavily financially invested, gunned up", are jingo terms that are spewed forth by 'Mericans thinking they are "all in". Ha, not even close.

    Thanxs again Jim for keeping a lazer beam focus on these realities.

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    1. Buying a FLIR does get you "all in"? Dammit! :D

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  2. Saturday's column by SeaGypsy philosopher Ray Jason suits me just fine. Living free, eating healthy from the bounty of the sea and shores. The downside? Hardly any bumblebrats nor mohammedans to whine about, hardly any ghetto trash blasting rap(?) 'music' to fantasize about fanticiding. And a significant reduction in taxation with representation...

    http://theseagypsyphilosopher.blogspot.com/?m=1

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    1. All the Fuki radiation and mercury, nitrogen runoff and petroleum distillates you can use as condiments! Cheers! But seriously, sounds like a good trade-off to me if that is your bag, baby.

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  3. Off topic random things that work for me:
    Scythe helps fight cost of feeding chickens and rabbits, providing compost fodder and mulch for growing beds.
    Handle that fits your body makes big difference in using.

    Joined gym. 20 per month. I use shower and bathroom after work to save on water (body wash also provided) and tp expense. I would definitely have membership if no place to live. Some regular weight training cuts down on work injuries and has made me stronger even being oldish.

    Meadow Creature digging bar: will last forever, is a no moving part rototiller. Quick growing bed prep and sapper tree root removal from beds.

    Looked through many a blacksmith book, wanted a forge to try rendering old files, car springs, etc into useful implements. Built a wood charcoal forge on ground with dirt and regular cast off bricks supporting a v-shaped channel of purchased fire bricks (you might be able to salvage for these). A 1 1/2" metal pipe drilled with a line of air holes sits in the v-channel. I force air through the pipe with an electric air pump (made for blowing up air mattresses. Wal-Mart). Would like a hand-cranked blower like the old Champion and other brands you used to see. Pricey. There is one made in India on web. Anyway, this setup gets plenty hot to do what I do. Lots to learn still, but got me started with little outlay.

    Reading James Howard Kunstler's Too Much Magic. Kind of the follow up to The Long Emergency. Good motivator. Confirms I'm not crazy thinking the current setup has a rapidly approaching expiration date. I'm surrounded by lazy, delusional fat people watching screens.

    Thanks for the daily output James and the reader's who post great comments.

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    1. A bit spooky. I just finished re-reading Too Much Magic about four days ago. Not as impressive as Long Emergency, by far, but I was happy to support the man anyway. It actually was far better when it first published in 2012, but events have beshat it. Long Emergency holds up much better. Great minds think alike.

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  4. Rather than prepping or survivaling I prefer to think of it as "permanent behavior modification". Like you, frugality was thrust upon me with no choice, so I did that thing I heard about in the army, "If you can't get out of it, get into it." But I have my limits. So I don't see a subsistence of wheat slurry in my future, not even supplemented with other stuff. Probably the other way around. I range of common foods, mostly dehydrated, supplemented by grains. Stuff that we mostly already eat every day. The tough part will be losing regular access to fresh produce. We haven't given up on that stuff yet. This morning I had about a cup of red and green grapes, raspberries, and blueberries. Hydrated dehydrated versions ain't the same, and never will be.

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    1. I'll take wheat slurry with my Soylent, please! :D

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  5. I’m just asking, how many preppers do the Hard Things?

    Really Jim?

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    1. Oh, snap! Okay, I seriously didn't even catch that until you put it like that.

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  6. Lol... “GTA”

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  7. I like my mini-14 much more than my AR. But magazines cost three times as much.

    There it is. More money to buy wheat!

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