Non-Fiction Writing Contest Submission by BGNoyce
Looking at various survival blogs and forums I’ve seen the question many times similar to, “my wife is resistant to the ideas of preparation and survivalism. How can I get her on board?” The advice usually consists of, “leave her, she’s stupid. I hope she gets eaten by zombies!”
Chances are, if your asking this question though, it is you who are coming to a new perspective, and it’s probably not fair to expect your significant other to completely change over night or to even do anything more than to eventually accept and respect that this is something important to you.
Here is some advice on how to, if not bring your significant other on board, at least allow them to not be threatened by your new perspective.
1. Don’t be a crazy person. Yes, it is very clear to you that the latest news report about cute zoo panda’s failure to copulate is a sign of the coming end times, but your significant other may think it’s just a cute story.
Seriously though, don’t put everything you read and see into the context of the end of times, even if it really is ominous signs. Your preparing for an uncertain future, the second you start to claim foreknowledge your family starts to worry, especially with all those guns.
2. Don’t be a gun nut. Or at least don’t appear to be a gun nut. Personally, I can’t imagine not having a fully loaded AK in the closet, but if you and your spouse have never had a gun in the house, and suddenly you come home with an assault rifle 3 pistols and 10,000 rounds of ammunition, it might make them a bit uncomfortable.
If your wife is concerned about having a firearm in the house, its important for her to understand this isn’t a knee jerk reaction. Take some NRA classes before you even buy a gun, many basic gun courses provide the firearms, and some ranges rent firearms for use on the range. Do this even if you have previous experience with guns.
Show her you’re going to be responsible, and that you understand the real risks involved. When you get the gun, don’t spend the extra money on a laser and custom grips and high performance special forces trigger job, spend some money on some good safety gear, such as a lockbox for your pistol.
As a husband I feel my family’s safety is my moral responsibility. I feel it is not just my right to own a gun but my responsibility. But you should understand, that, you didn’t have one before, so she is going to be a little unsure of why you feel you need one now.
The media tells her constantly that guns are the reason bad things happen. Eventually you may need to just bring a gun home, but do everything first to help her understand that you are going to be a responsible gun owner, and that the gun has nothing to do with your ego.
3. Start small. Most people can see the logic of a couple of cases of water in the closet. An evacuation bag in case of an emergency is also a pretty easy sell. The truth is, not having an emergency kit in the car actually borders on neurotic behavior.
How many people die in their cars just barely outside of civilization because they don’t have a simple survival kit in the car, or even some water in the trunk? AAA wont do you any good if your cell phone is down or you forgot it.
4. Use your stuff sometimes. A lot of survival doctrine states never to use your supplies until your rotating them out, there is good logic to this, but I would encourage you to sometimes allow an early rotation of an item if your significant other needs it.
When they need something and you say, oh, hold on I have one in the evacuation bag, it may help change their attitude about preparations on an all most subconscious level. Also, using your stuff helps you realize where flaws might be.
5. Don’t be a bummer. Try and laugh at yourself. If your significant other is teasing you about your survivalism, they may be starting to feel comfortable with it as an aspect of you. If you respond by slamming your fist on the table and yelling, “you wont be laughing when the big one comes!” it may be counter productive.
6. Don’t spend all the money. If money is tight, especially, be frugal with your preps. Try to find inexpensive solutions, find ways to re-purpose things you already have, look for used items at yard sales and whatnot. Don’t say, “I didn’t pay the cable bill because I found a great deal of freeze-dried chocolate bars.
You should be reading survival manuals instead of watching tv anyway.” Don’t get too worked up thinking that it’s happening tomorrow. We all feel like that sometimes, and while it’s true, that it might all come crashing down tomorrow, it probably wont. Keep working on your preps, as your resources allow, steadily working survivalism into your life.
7. Look for survival related hobbies. Let’s face it, sitting around thinking about how you can eek out a horrible existence in a post apocalyptic world may not sound as fun to your wife as it does to you. The good news is, many of the aspects of survivalism may be interesting to your significant other if removed from the context of preparing for a dark and depressing future.
Activities like camping, and hiking are very appealing to many people, and you don’t have to turn it into a simulated melt-down to get some good training out of it. A big family camp-out can be great for testing out gear, organizing, figuring out how much water you use, what camping food and recipes family members enjoy, and extra items that should be included for family members in emergency bags.
It is also a great opportunity to justify some extra survival gear, because it will be camping gear. Even if your family doesn’t ever begin to accept the possibility of a major collapse, if it does happen, your family will be more equipped psychologically for roughing it if you’ve spent a lot of time camping.
If you always keep your camping equipment ready to go you have the basis of a survival kit. Even a day hike helps you learn to organize bags, and answers some questions about how much family members are comfortable carrying, how far and fast are they comfortable walking and whatnot.
If you can get your wife into a hobby with you like gardening, shooting, or gold hoarding, they may begin to become interested in your particular survivalist slant on the subject.
With regards to getting your significant others and families involved in survivalism many people may suggest that you should just lay down the law, like Noah did, “we’re building an ark and that’s final. Now bake me up some flat bread or whatever”.
Sometimes you may need to put your foot down, but over all most of us will probably not have much luck running our families old testament style. Respect your loved ones concerns and they will most likely learn to respect your preps.
Have other suggestions – please share in the comments below.
According to The Sierra Club Garbage disposals seem like the ultimate convenience–drop your banana peels, pizza crusts, and other leftovers down the drain, turn on the tap, flip a switch, and away they go. Problem is, when it comes to waste, whether it’s food or anything else, there is no away. Any “waste” that can’t be put back to use–either through reuse, recycling, or composting–becomes pollution that’s expensive to deal with and takes its toll on the environment.
Garbage disposals do keep food scraps out of landfills. That’s important because when materials like food, paper, or plant waste decompose in landfills, they produce methane, a greenhouse gas that is 23 times more potent than CO2. But garbage disposals don’t really solve the waste problem; they shift it to wastewater treatment systems instead. Food waste in wastewater increases levels of nutrients like nitrogen, which are great when added to the soil but harmful in our waterways. To deal with excess nutrients, municipal water utilities have to add expensive systems to their treatment plants.
Moreover, it takes resources for your disposal to send your food scraps on that unnecessary journey. It doesn’t require much energy, but in a year’s time you’ll be sending more than 900 gallons of water down the drain. “Waste,” as green architect William McDonough likes to say, “is basically stupid.” The greenest way to deal with food scraps is to compost them and nourish plants with the nutrient-rich results.
It is harder to find literature that supports my determination to live without a dish washer. I believe I am faster, more efficient, less wasteful than a dishwasher. I love washing my Fiesta dishes and I would miss this daily ritual. Once again if the power grid went down, the dishwasher wouldn't operate anyway and I think I can best use the space it would occupy for a cupboard of preps.
The third appliance I will be doing without at least for a little while is a vacuum cleaner. I requested no carpeting in my new home. She installed these beautiful wood floors that will be very easy to maintain. I am happy to be sweeping and mopping my space and not having to store and cart around this appliance that also is dependent on the power grid.
If I were to do without a 4th appliance it would be a clothes dryer. I am planning on putting up a clothes line and using it most of the time. The dryer will be used mostly in the winter and emergency occasions. As long as I am drumming semi professionally I will need to be able to put together my performance duds...sometimes on short notice. I am lucky to be able to be part of this decision making process. Thanks Nesley for asking me and letting me choose.
God: Francis, you know all about gardens and nature; what in the world is going on down there in the U.S.? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistles and the stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought, and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honeybees, and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of color by now. All I see are patches of green.
God: Grass? But it is so boring, it's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, bees or birds, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want grass growing there?
St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it has grown a little, they cut it....sometimes two times a week.
God: They cut it? Do they bale it like hay?
St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.
God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?
St. Francis: No sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.
God: Now let me get this straight...they fertilize it to make it grow and when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?
St. Francis: Yes, sir.
God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.
St. Francis: You aren't going to believe this Lord, but when the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.
God: What nonsense! At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep the moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves become compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.
St. Francis: You'd better sit down, Lord. As soon as the leaves fall, the Suburbanites rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.
God: No way! What do they do to protect the shrubs and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?
St Francis: After throwing the leaves away, they go out and buy something called mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.
God: And where do they get this mulch?
St. Francis: They cut down the trees and grind them up to make mulch.
God: Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. Saint Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?
St. Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber," Lord. It's a really stupid movie about....
God: Never mind--I think I just heard the whole story from Saint Francis!
Here's a bit of fun thinking about combining protest, games, and open source movements into a potent coercive tool for non-violent protest (in a post-Gandhi world). It's just some ideas that may or may not be of interest.
Traditional non-violent protest is dead as a means of reversing bad organizational behavior. It's easily ignored/overlooked in a media saturated environment and the methods of controlling and marginalizing it have become widely practiced/tolerated (from "free speech zones" to non-lethal weapons to crowdsourced identification of protesters). Further, shame doesn't work anymore as a means of dissuasion. Given these impediments, the revival of protest means rethinking how it is used as a coercive tool. It means going beyond attrition (boycotts, physical damage, etc.) and moral suasion (signage, marches, etc.) and into the realm of systemic disruption. Here's one approach.
In most large traditional organizations, whether they be corporations or bureaucracies, decision making is dominated by a small number of very powerful people protected by a phalanx of senior specialists. They are not democracies. Yet, in modern western societies, this elite group and their specialists are able to dissociate themselves from jobs when it comes to their private lives. They live unencumbered within our impersonal society. This window of vulnerability creates a yawning opportunity for innovative forms of disruptive non-violent protest. One that pierces the organizational and societal veil of anonymity for these individuals by turning them into systempunkts (vulnerable nodes within the targeted organization's network that would cause the most damage if disrupted). Essentially, if you can successfully deter/coerce individual decision makers in this decision making group, you will win (and quickly).
Early work on this type of protest can be seen in the work of 4Chan's Anonymous and China's human flesh search engine. Both of these open source movements have shown to be surprisingly powerful at targeting single individuals (and poor at disrupting organizations). By using thousands of contributers, they are able to gather intelligence information on an individual (and their family). In short, learn everything about the target down to bank account numbers. This then enables the movement to target the individual and their family with:
In short, any online group of sufficient size could launch an effort like this. However, to really zoom the effort and turn it into a coercive tool, one modification should be made. It should operate as an online game. Here's a potential template:
Think in terms of this game running as a darknet (not visible to anyone but invited players and only those that have deeply enmeshed themselves in the game).
My friend Lori found this site called field furniture.com. A really nice website dedicated to photography of stuff in and around fields. Here is a photo I took this spring that would go well on the site.
I will be drumming at the Ohio State Fair on Saturday August 7th at the Showplace Pavilion. 10:30 AM and again in the afternoon at 1:30 PM. The State Fair has it's roots in agriculture. See my link below for the history of The Ohio State Fair and come see us drum.
Blogroll Me!One of my favorite Birthday Gifts this year is this camouflaged duct tape wallet to compliment my 5 1/2 year old black leather wallet that I got for Christmas from my partner. I get really attached to things. Rather than discard my old wallet, I will keep some money and loyalty cards in and the black one as a decoy with only a token amount of money inside. I will keep the bulk of my money hidden safely in my new camo wallet in an undisclosed location. FerFal (Surviving Argentina) describes having a decoy safe in your house with a second safe that has the important papers and the real loot.
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