Survivalists have a 100% failure rate.
As such, the term itself, ‘survivalist’, is completely misleading.
The very best that they could claim to be are prolongists. Their goal is to be among the last humans standing after whatever calamity they’ve imagined…and they imagine lots of them. If they live one more day, one more month, one more year than most, they will have won in their mind’s eye. Then they die too. Some strategy.
In the meanwhile, pre-calamity, they live in constant wariness, in perpetual preparation for newly developing threats, focused into a fictional future and overlooking whatever goodness is surrounding them today. Like a said, some strategy.
When I pointed this out to a friend who was considering adopting an ‘end of days’ attitude towards the current situation in the world, I was given the hairy eye ball. Apparently, I am unaware of the headlong plunge we have taken into the abyss. There are an estimated 3.7 million “preppers” in the US today (an alternate top 1% to the economic elite). They hold their own rallies and conventions. They are deadly serious.
They put their money where their fear is. The food, guns/ammunition, clothing and sheltering expenses that are needed to support this ‘life’ style choice run into the billions of dollars collectively. It’s a thriving segment of the economy with many enterprising individuals and large corporations catering to every whim and nuance.
Perhaps I am missing something.
Perhaps.
But I don’t seriously believe that.
There have been people predicting the ‘end of the world’ for as long as there’s been a language and a world to deal with. Yet, the world is still here.
What I do believe is that we are continually plunging into the unknown and the unknowable. This is an element of our human condition. This has been true for every person and civilization that has come before us. There are no crystal balls, no way of knowing for certain…but listening to the voices that are spouting fear does have a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more we look at the world through fear colored glasses, the more fear we see.
Every single day and every single situation involves and creates something we have never encountered before, specifically, this moment. And while certain situations or persons may seem similar to something or someone from the past, no two situations or persons will be identical…not even the same two people in the same situation will have the same conversation…moods change, perspectives shift, behaviors modify. It is a fact of life.
We are forging a new national character in response to our changing conditions. The immediacy of the information available to us through our current technologies is no longer allowing us to pretend, to hide or to delay facing these conditions. We are being bombarded and shocked regularly into reevaluating our attitudes and responses towards one another.
This isn’t about blaming someone else or ‘the system’.
This is about taking responsibility and choosing how we will participate in changing those things that we now see have been broken for so long.
If we rise to this challenge, we will thrive.
If we retreat from it, what good would it do to survive a tad longer?
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