myth number five

MYTH NUMBER FIVE


Our good buddy Rawles over at http://www.survivalblog.com/ had yet another article designed in inflame me and I couldn’t pass up commenting on this one. I can’t prove a thing but it is almost as if he feared me ( or at least my hair ) and thus was provoking me, hoping I would stroke out and die. This would be much more subtle than running me over on my bicycle. Well, as long as he doesn’t call in a black helicopter strike piloted by UN troops controlled by the Trilateral Commission taking their orders from our reptilian overlords. I thought I was pretty good, not throwing a rod on the article on frugal living where our intrepid chief stated that you could make an almost free soup by simmering chicken bones for six hours. As this did not mention a crock pot I can only conclude she gets her gas or electric paid for by Obammy since cooking that long certainly comes with an energy cost. Certainly more than buying a fifty cent can of chicken noodle soup from the Ghetto Mart ( dollar store ).

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Last Saturday there was an article on the four myths of survivalism. Not a bad article, but myth number four kind of hacked me off. The Apocalypse will not be fun. Hmmmm. Now, on the face of it this is true. I can’t argue that torture and starvation are fun, unless it is happening to the ex-wife. But once you introduce myth number five, my own creation by the way, number four is obviously false. Myth number five about survivalism is that we must prep to preserve the American Way Of Life. No, my fine feathered friends, you need to prep to get you to the Normal Way Of Life. Which is as life has been for tens of thousands of years prior to the Industrial Revolution. Which our species has evolved into. Unless you are an Old School Christian and believe the earth was created three hundred and five years before Christ ( or whatever the medieval monks claim was from calculating through the bible [ he must have been using the politically motivated New Testament ] ). The early adherents of evolution had no trouble reconciliation the new theory with religion, as it was obviously set up by God, rather than using it as a substitution for religion. Anyway, except for a token few populations at certain times through history prior to coal and oil ( and to some degree slightly before that using the surpluses of colonialism ) the norm was what we are looking at for after the oil age. Primitive living conditions with starvation and early death being everyday possibilities. Now, if it is normal to live this way, should we imaging man always moping around all bummed out, ready to kill themselves being as life sucked? I really don’t think so.

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Isn’t it all about perspective? If the Oil Age has been a one off abnormality, then we can’t judge it as the yardstick to measure life before and after. It was merely a very nice vacation from that pesky thing called reality. And reality is that life sucked. BUT! There will always be your manic depressives, or whatever term you want to use, who are never happy. The vast majority will take life as it comes and make the best of it and find happiness where it is. Happiness doesn’t have to be a car and central heat and five thousand calories a day ( more on Thanksgiving and Christmas ). It is a spouse that doesn’t hate you, kids that love you, a happy dog that loves to share its fleas with you. I would much rather have a warm body to snuggle up to in a cold house than a large oil heated house that I lived alone in. Now, I’m not ignoring the authors main example, being how surgery will suck in primitive conditions. It certainly will. But, again, it is somewhat a perspective thing. Pain tolerances were certainly much higher, and you can’t ignore that today we are so unaccustomed to discomfort that nothing but narcotic bliss will see us through surgery ( although, opiates are sure to make a comeback after the War On Drugs disappears with D.C. ). And, let’s not forget that all the bogeymen of the Apocalypse never stopped being a reality through the Industrial Age.

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There is plenty of starvation and malnutrition today. Still lots of torture. Plenty of primitive medical treatment. It just doesn’t happen much in a few privileged places. But it isn’t normal to be so sheltered. Yes, it is very nice and trading that away will be a painful adjustment. But after that adjustment life will go back to normal. And normal can be fun, without unrealistic expectations. Plus, let’s be honest with each other, there is the aspect of returning to our warrior roots. Then you get into the short but interesting rather than long but dull. It is natural to smite your fellow man, and isn’t that fun? I don’t presume to speak from experience. But in most of our natural behavior there is two sides to the coin. We are drawn and feel compelled to do certain things, things that intellectually make no sense, and there is both a bright side that is enjoyable ( call it fun ) and bad. A price to pay, if you will. DNA programs us ( no, I certainly don’t think the majority of us have free will in the face of our programming ), and it is better to embrace and enjoy what is natural than fight it. Denying it takes all the fun out of it. And a return to our natural state will be enjoyable as we embrace what is normal. The price is all the negative that goes with it. That is another thing we have forgotten, the price that must be paid. We are so used to our petroleum slaves pampering us we forgot that there is a ying to the yang. Fun comes at a price. We think fun is natural and free. And there is more of it always.

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The Apocalypse will be fun, but we will have to learn to pay the price for it.

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