For me, it started as a young child with Inattentive parents, an excentric grandfather who believed anything was possible and an old pamphlet given to me by a USAF pilot at an airshow in the early sixties that frightened the s**t out of me and nurtured my distrust of authority and mankind in general.
Vietnam-Nam, cold war threats, unusually contagious illnesses, the liberal society, mass migration, WMD, Near Earth asteroids, Global warming only reinforced the thoughts I already had.
For me, it's not a case of "if" it's a case of "when"
I was always into things like this and it continued until I got married when it didn't go away but was overtaken by other priorities.
I've been prepping since I was 14.
I've always been trusting, still am, but life has made me aware that some others are not to be trusted and that helps a lot as well.
When I realised during research that so many others were feeling what I felt, which was that some thing just wasn't right with the world, that our Government were liars and I couldn't believe a word that the MSM said, I'd never heard of the word prepper till I found the original forum I met NR on almost 2 years ago
Mine was a slow awakening.
I have been into survival skills since I was a kid. But I never got the opportunity to practice any of them until I was 21 and lived on a desert island for 5 weeks. I used to want to be in the SAS, so I have studied loads of survival books, military manuals and things like that. I have a small militia style library at home (in Warrington) I was that obsessed. Also, the martial arts, ninja, samurai, and things like that all harboured a need for personal defense and weapons handling.
But it wasn't until the film "The Day After Tomorrow" that I thought, 'WOW, what if that happens?' So I started to prep my snowboarding/skiing equipment much more. Used to make sure I could sleep in an avalanche if it didn't crush me. But then that slowly faded away into useless equipment that I never used (thankfully).
Then after reading a friends book (Neil Strauss' Emergency) it got me thinking about a few things some of my parents spoke about. I've had a pampered upbringing, never wanting for anything, everything was provided, exotic holidays, the lot. I never really used the survival skills or went camping much, or anything like that. So when my parents rich friends started talking about personal safety, and what everyone calls "The Snap" the breaking of the social contract, that is when I really started listening.
I did lots of research into the most intelligent people and things like that. I looked into what they were doing outside of work. What they were preparing for. What they expected to happen. More research than was probably healthy. It seemed obvious to me, if the richest smartest people on earth were preparing or a massive catastrophy.......it's probably time some of the smartest.....lech people (that's us lot) started doing the same. So boom.....staright online. After a few failed forums, American nutters, or British secret inner circle society people, I finally found the correct forum, and here I am, still in it now.
i came to prepping late in life, i was too young to be bothered by the Vietnam war or the Cold war and had a very ordinary if somewhat boring adult life, married 3 times & divorced twice
it wasnt until i saw 9/11-those planes crashing into the towers! and then 7/7- the picture of the bus did it for me! that i realised that there were people out there that wanted to do us harm! thats when i started prepping in a small way-a wooden box stocked with an emergency stash of tinned food, that could be thrown in the back of the car as we make our escape! just over 2 years ago we moved home to devon and 18 months ago we got our first and only computer and typed in the word survivalist and eventually joined the original UK site where i met NR and it snowballed from there.
When I was a boy a robot from the future travelled back in time and told me that I was going to lead a team of survivors in a war against the machines, he called it judgement day and ever since then I have been training my body and mind to cope with the Silent Storm that is approaching.
(10 February 2012, 17:05)Reality Jones Wrote: [ -> ]When I was a boy a robot from the future travelled back in time and told me that I was going to lead a team of survivors in a war against the machines, he called it judgement day and ever since then I have been training my body and mind to cope with the Silent Storm that is approaching.
your real name is John Connor is it??
(10 February 2012, 17:29)bigpaul Wrote: [ -> ] (10 February 2012, 17:05)Reality Jones Wrote: [ -> ]When I was a boy a robot from the future travelled back in time and told me that I was going to lead a team of survivors in a war against the machines, he called it judgement day and ever since then I have been training my body and mind to cope with the Silent Storm that is approaching.
your real name is John Connor is it??
Ah, so you've heard of me already then eh?
When I was a boy, a rabbit from the future told me to eat my carrots, so I could lead a team of survivors ..... in the dark ....
(10 February 2012, 18:13)Preacher Wrote: [ -> ]When I was a boy, a rabbit from the future told me to eat my carrots, so I could lead a team of survivors ..... in the dark ....
I think BP ate that rabbit. He said it tasted "futuristic". I always thought it seemed like an odd flavour, but it makes sense now.