13 December 2012, 15:51
Before I start I’d just like to say these are my views and my views alone.
Please feel free to have a ramble in your answer as I think we can learn a lot from listening to others views on the same subject.
I find it amazing that as prepper’s, even being on the same page so to say, how different our views of even the simple things in prepping are.
I think where a lot of prepper’s start to go wrong is it goes from sensible prepping, i.e. food stores, spare clothes, wood stocks if you have a wood burning stove, or keeping your car ready for the winter weather and serviced, making sure you have a spare tyre etc… so that you and yours can survive come what may, like our grand parents and their parents did on a daily basis, to it becoming like some sort of prepping addiction with no end in sight, if that's the right way to say it, something that takes over your life and becomes the be all and end all of your very living to the detriment of all else.
Like having to have all the latest kit, having to have the best bergan, or boots etc… believing that this kit will save them come what may.
Not by the way that there’s anything wrong with having the latest kit, why struggle with leaky old boots if you can afford a good pair.
What’s wrong I feel, is putting your faith in that kit to save your life and not having that faith in yourself and your knowledge.
What happens if you loose that kit, or those fancy boots?
Can you do what you do in a pair of cheap trainers or your shoes for
example or barefoot till you find some other footware?
Can you improvise some shoes from things lying about like sheets or towels?
I’ve mentioned it a few times previously on other posts about what happens if you have no kit.
How are we to know for example that tptb wont confiscate all our stores and gear?
Maybe it’ll be ransacked, maybe all your hidden caches will have been raided, then what will you do?
All I ask is that you look at what you’d do if you for whatever reason were left with no kit.
Does your plan include this scenario?
From what I’ve seen, most preppers won’t even consider that scenario as likely.
Maybe it’s not, but what if it happens and you’ve not even considered it?
At least think about the possibility.
If nothing else imagine how foolish you’d look to your family and friends, you banging on for years about being a prepper but not having considered that.
I.M.H.O. kit should be a secondary concern, you should aim to minimise your need for kit.
I’m not saying dump all your kit and run about naked in the woods lighting fires, that’s sure to get you into trouble.
When your out and about practicing your skills, say at your b.o.l. location or indeed anywhere, have a look about and see if you can find alternatives to your kit.
Is there an alternative to the hexamine stove your using? could you collect wood and make a fire pit?
Is there an old can lying about you could utilise instead of your mess tins?
No knife? what about a shard of glass with a cloth wrapping?
You don’t actually have to replace your gear, or use that tin can right now, it just helps to get your mind into the “alternatives†or prepping state of mind, whereby you can see things lying about and think of other uses for them.
Try it when your at home as well, look at an everyday object and make a list of “alternative“ uses for it.
In an ideal prepping world, you could be naked and be able to survive, like our ancestors did.
BUT who among us has the skills necessary?
Not many, if any I would say, we’ve lost them all, that’s why prepping is so good, it helps us to rediscover those ancient skills that we’ve lost maybe that’s why it calls to so many of us.
How fantastic did you feel when you started your first fire?
How fantastic did you feel when you built your first shelter?
How fantastic do you feel when you learn something, new, even if you can’t practice that skill there and then physically, the knowledge is there in your head waiting for its time to shine.
Don't forget not to lose yourself in the prepping process though, as the famous saying goes, "Prep to live not live to prep"
You have to have a normality in your life as well, otherwise you'll burn out waiting for the event that may after all never come.
Not that prepping is ever wasted but don’t worry yourself into an early grave over what ifs and maybe’s.
Once you reach your comfort level in prepping you can get bored with prepping, don't worry that's natural, it’s like a custom car that your redoing from the floor upwards, once it’s done it’s done.
All you can do from there is polish, and that's what you should aim for in prepping, get you and your preps to the level that your comfortable with, keep your skills up to date and practice (polish) them when you get time.
I.E. lighting fires with a few different methods or at least try in different weathers such as rain or snow instead of on a sunny day all the time as this gives you the experience of lighting fires in circumstances other than the ideal.
You don’t have to be out there for hours, although that’s sometimes good to experience cold weather say, when you know for a fact you can get warm afterwards.
Don’t put yourself in danger but nip into the garden or the local park when it’s snowing say or freezing cold and wander round without gloves on, make snowballs with snow with no gloves on, then try to open a box of matches or light a lighter or tie a knot in a piece of string or some such fiddly task, it’s an experience and you can class it as training also.
If nothing else read and re read those books about plants and shelter building and snare making etc…
Get that knowledge in your head.
Keep up with current events in various forms and from different sources, so that you can get a fairly broad spectrum of intel.
Evaluate the intel youself, store it in your mind or dispose of it as you see fit.
Only you can say if what you read or see in the news is relevant or not to you and your situation and preps.
Only you know when you reach that level that your happy with in your preps.
Don’t let anyone beat you down with your preps you prep for you they prep for them.
How somebody else preps may not be right for you.
At the end of the day you and you alone know what’s right for you and your situation.
There’s a lot of advice available here on this forum and elsewhere on the net if you take the time to read it and look for it.
Theres also a lot of rubbish
As with all information have a look at it and if it sounds right and it’s something you can try, try it now when it’s not urgent or life threatening, then if it doesn’t work you’ve not lost anything.
In a s.h.t.f. situation that could be the difference between life and death.
Prepping is one area that seems to attract wanna be’s and authoritarian types, the “do as I say not as I do typeâ€Â.
Not that I’m pointing the finger at anybody on this forum by the way, just saying they’re out there so be careful.
They give you advice that will make you fail, whilst they themselves would do the opposite.
Some videos and advice gives out dangerous advice that can kill you.
Prepping can be a dangerous activity, especially on the weapons and security side.
Get proper training with any weaponry you may have, if its firearms join a club which I presume is a necessary anyway nowadays, but be careful to get training in your chosen weapon from a recognised professional, not Barry who does skeet shooting who thinks he knows everything.
Same with bows, crossbows and catapults, be very careful and only practice in safe areas where there’s no passers by, with a safe backstop and nothing like a road or houses in the background, so if there’s any fly away’s you wont take a car out or a biddy eating her dinner in the kitchen.
This happens every week in a local archery club near near me, they dutifully set up there safe back stops but with no regard to the motorway that runs at the rear…
Accident waiting to happen if you ask me…
“PREP TO LIVE NOT LIVE TO PREPâ€Â
Please feel free to have a ramble in your answer as I think we can learn a lot from listening to others views on the same subject.
I find it amazing that as prepper’s, even being on the same page so to say, how different our views of even the simple things in prepping are.
I think where a lot of prepper’s start to go wrong is it goes from sensible prepping, i.e. food stores, spare clothes, wood stocks if you have a wood burning stove, or keeping your car ready for the winter weather and serviced, making sure you have a spare tyre etc… so that you and yours can survive come what may, like our grand parents and their parents did on a daily basis, to it becoming like some sort of prepping addiction with no end in sight, if that's the right way to say it, something that takes over your life and becomes the be all and end all of your very living to the detriment of all else.
Like having to have all the latest kit, having to have the best bergan, or boots etc… believing that this kit will save them come what may.
Not by the way that there’s anything wrong with having the latest kit, why struggle with leaky old boots if you can afford a good pair.
What’s wrong I feel, is putting your faith in that kit to save your life and not having that faith in yourself and your knowledge.
What happens if you loose that kit, or those fancy boots?
Can you do what you do in a pair of cheap trainers or your shoes for
example or barefoot till you find some other footware?
Can you improvise some shoes from things lying about like sheets or towels?
I’ve mentioned it a few times previously on other posts about what happens if you have no kit.
How are we to know for example that tptb wont confiscate all our stores and gear?
Maybe it’ll be ransacked, maybe all your hidden caches will have been raided, then what will you do?
All I ask is that you look at what you’d do if you for whatever reason were left with no kit.
Does your plan include this scenario?
From what I’ve seen, most preppers won’t even consider that scenario as likely.
Maybe it’s not, but what if it happens and you’ve not even considered it?
At least think about the possibility.
If nothing else imagine how foolish you’d look to your family and friends, you banging on for years about being a prepper but not having considered that.
I.M.H.O. kit should be a secondary concern, you should aim to minimise your need for kit.
I’m not saying dump all your kit and run about naked in the woods lighting fires, that’s sure to get you into trouble.
When your out and about practicing your skills, say at your b.o.l. location or indeed anywhere, have a look about and see if you can find alternatives to your kit.
Is there an alternative to the hexamine stove your using? could you collect wood and make a fire pit?
Is there an old can lying about you could utilise instead of your mess tins?
No knife? what about a shard of glass with a cloth wrapping?
You don’t actually have to replace your gear, or use that tin can right now, it just helps to get your mind into the “alternatives†or prepping state of mind, whereby you can see things lying about and think of other uses for them.
Try it when your at home as well, look at an everyday object and make a list of “alternative“ uses for it.
In an ideal prepping world, you could be naked and be able to survive, like our ancestors did.
BUT who among us has the skills necessary?
Not many, if any I would say, we’ve lost them all, that’s why prepping is so good, it helps us to rediscover those ancient skills that we’ve lost maybe that’s why it calls to so many of us.
How fantastic did you feel when you started your first fire?
How fantastic did you feel when you built your first shelter?
How fantastic do you feel when you learn something, new, even if you can’t practice that skill there and then physically, the knowledge is there in your head waiting for its time to shine.
Don't forget not to lose yourself in the prepping process though, as the famous saying goes, "Prep to live not live to prep"
You have to have a normality in your life as well, otherwise you'll burn out waiting for the event that may after all never come.
Not that prepping is ever wasted but don’t worry yourself into an early grave over what ifs and maybe’s.
Once you reach your comfort level in prepping you can get bored with prepping, don't worry that's natural, it’s like a custom car that your redoing from the floor upwards, once it’s done it’s done.
All you can do from there is polish, and that's what you should aim for in prepping, get you and your preps to the level that your comfortable with, keep your skills up to date and practice (polish) them when you get time.
I.E. lighting fires with a few different methods or at least try in different weathers such as rain or snow instead of on a sunny day all the time as this gives you the experience of lighting fires in circumstances other than the ideal.
You don’t have to be out there for hours, although that’s sometimes good to experience cold weather say, when you know for a fact you can get warm afterwards.
Don’t put yourself in danger but nip into the garden or the local park when it’s snowing say or freezing cold and wander round without gloves on, make snowballs with snow with no gloves on, then try to open a box of matches or light a lighter or tie a knot in a piece of string or some such fiddly task, it’s an experience and you can class it as training also.
If nothing else read and re read those books about plants and shelter building and snare making etc…
Get that knowledge in your head.
Keep up with current events in various forms and from different sources, so that you can get a fairly broad spectrum of intel.
Evaluate the intel youself, store it in your mind or dispose of it as you see fit.
Only you can say if what you read or see in the news is relevant or not to you and your situation and preps.
Only you know when you reach that level that your happy with in your preps.
Don’t let anyone beat you down with your preps you prep for you they prep for them.
How somebody else preps may not be right for you.
At the end of the day you and you alone know what’s right for you and your situation.
There’s a lot of advice available here on this forum and elsewhere on the net if you take the time to read it and look for it.
Theres also a lot of rubbish
As with all information have a look at it and if it sounds right and it’s something you can try, try it now when it’s not urgent or life threatening, then if it doesn’t work you’ve not lost anything.
In a s.h.t.f. situation that could be the difference between life and death.
Prepping is one area that seems to attract wanna be’s and authoritarian types, the “do as I say not as I do typeâ€Â.
Not that I’m pointing the finger at anybody on this forum by the way, just saying they’re out there so be careful.
They give you advice that will make you fail, whilst they themselves would do the opposite.
Some videos and advice gives out dangerous advice that can kill you.
Prepping can be a dangerous activity, especially on the weapons and security side.
Get proper training with any weaponry you may have, if its firearms join a club which I presume is a necessary anyway nowadays, but be careful to get training in your chosen weapon from a recognised professional, not Barry who does skeet shooting who thinks he knows everything.
Same with bows, crossbows and catapults, be very careful and only practice in safe areas where there’s no passers by, with a safe backstop and nothing like a road or houses in the background, so if there’s any fly away’s you wont take a car out or a biddy eating her dinner in the kitchen.
This happens every week in a local archery club near near me, they dutifully set up there safe back stops but with no regard to the motorway that runs at the rear…
Accident waiting to happen if you ask me…
“PREP TO LIVE NOT LIVE TO PREPâ€Â
