Prepared?

Today is Tuesday, October 12th, 2010 according to the accepted "western" calendar. This day does not hold any real significance to me or anyone close to me that I am aware of at the moment. That is to say, that today might be exactly the kind of day where the unexpected happens and all of us are caught unprepared. What do I mean?

Well, some friends of mine have been casually talking about preparing ourselves for "the unexpected". We are looking to wean ourselves from the creature comforts and common luxuries of the suburban lifestyle that is nearly ubiquitous in America. We are interested in learning how to grow our own fruits and vegetables. We are learning how to raise and butcher farm animals for food. We are learning how to fish and hunt. We are learning how to can food, chop wood for fires, read a natural landscape, cook sensibly and provide healthy food for our kids. We are looking backward and trying to glean from our past the skills that helped our forefathers survive and succeed.

Why? Because each one of us feels like something is coming. Our sense of ambiguous alarm might just be based on a knee-jerk reaction to cultural changes or it could be a real spiritual stirring. Whatever the true nature is, the net effect is that me and several other God-fearing men are taking steps to be better prepared to live and help others if and when the civilization we are accustomed to fails to meet our basic needs.

Today, I have been thinking about what fundamental skills a man should posses in order to take care of his family and help his friends when our technological infrastructure is not functioning... and things like clean water, healthy food, and shelter are no longer guaranteed. I am making a list of tools I will need, and skills I must learn. These must be taught and passed on to my boys so they can do the same.

Modern society is a historical anomaly. Mankind has existed for 6,000 years (give or take a few) and in all that time only 300 years have we enjoyed any kind of industrial technology at all. The Internet was born on January 1, 1983 when TCP/IP replaced an older technology and connected various government networks...but it wasn't until 1988 that the backbone of routers were built by an initiative of the National Science Foundation linking several Universities around the United States and, eventually, the World. When I was in college in 1995, the Internet and email were just becoming commonplace. It is difficult to imagine life without computers, or cell phones, or credit/debit cards, or electricity. But give it a try.

A good friend of mine sent me a quote this morning via email and I thought I would post it here. It's not overly profound, but it does speak to that special something that sets man apart from the rest of creation.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper,
plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet,
balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders,
give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch
manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, and gallantly.
Specialization is for insects."

Prepare yourself for action. Life is a verb.