There’s a moment before you become a prepper where not everybody gets this moment. It’s a awareness of your vulnerability. I think this is why a lot of people have a defense mechanism for preparedness because they have to think it’s stupid and that it’s just paranoia. Because if they didn’t then they’d have to acknowledge how ill-prepared they actually were, which would be terrifying. Those people are the worst because when the panic starts that realization comes in imminence when there’s an acute crisis. That’s not the time you want to have that epiphany. Everybody’s going to have that realization at some point or another.

It’s just that most people are going to have it while shit is hitting the fan. It’s important to know that I’ve not always been a rural prepper. If you’re very new to the channel you might think to yourself, wow this guy is like an off-grid guy I can’t relate to anything that he is experiencing right now. But you would be wrong because I of course started off prepping in shared accommodation in an urban environment which is you know probably one of the worst places to start. So I can relate to having to navigate that sort of situation.

You have to adapt your preparedness to your space. At that time getting a tractor was the farthest thing from my mind. I was stockpiling preps in a closet literally and so I think I started off with just all the basics. It’s incredible how much actual calories you can put in a closet and then of course the bug out bag was the central focus at that point in time and then you gradually evolve. But it took a long time to get to this point. That’s why I always say you know just start where you’re at and enjoy the process.

It will be a long journey. Hopefully you have the time and the resources and the level of commitment required to eventually work your way up to where myself and other off-griders are. There’s way more frugal ways to get there than I ever took. If you make really prudent decisions about long-term financial decisions you can get yourself in a pretty nice situation. It just takes a lot of planning and looking for deals, looking for bargains and budgeting for the macro stuff because ultimately that’s where people are trying to get to. But for a lot of people just having a cabin or some off-grid property there doesn’t even have to be a building on it.

Just plot a land, get a trailer, drive it up there if need be. It’s a dual-purpose recreational spot. Land is relatively cheap when it’s way out in the sticks. I was not a person who came from that life you know. I think it was just an underlying cynicism about human beings ability to remedy many of the crises that were mounting. I don’t think it was one particular event. It was an awareness that there’s a lot of really brainwashed people who will be herded off the cliff like lemmings when the time comes, as they always have throughout history.

And there was just numerous indicators between 2008 and 2012 that kind of planted the seeds of my foray into preparedness. The same kind of stuff that was happening now. I mean there was a financial crisis. There were wars going on. The price of oil was really high during that time. There was the climate stuff. The same thing is now only now it’s amplified a lot more. It was like an epiphany. It was like I realized suddenly how hopelessly dependent I was on the system. And it probably had something to do with getting out of university, getting my degree and then being thrust into a world where there was no curriculum and having to just you know be in the real world without a job.

There’s a moment before you become a prepper where not everybody gets this moment. It’s a awareness of your vulnerability. It’s like the moment you realize that you are the one who is solely responsible for your and your family’s well-being. Not the government, not anybody else. I mean all the doctors and the nurses in the hospital they’ll smile and do the niceties. But at the end of the day if you die or your family dies they don’t care. I guess it was a bit of an existential crisis that maybe triggered the survivalism. Well I’ve always been a contrarian so I’ve never really let them impact my thinking.

I’ve never been that impressionable in that sense. Some people have an aha moment. Some people have like the moment of realization where something that was right there in front of them for their entire lives and they never put it together and then it comes together in a few words in their brain and they’re like holy shit how come I never looked at it like that before. That’s sort of what it was and I don’t know if every I don’t think everybody will have that. You have to have a a will to survive. You have to be I want to say rebellious but you have to be somewhat independently minded which a lot of artists are.

The problem is a lot of artists are hypnotized into thinking that self-responsibility is a bad thing. It’s like the the artist realizes that they have no trade. They realize that oh shit I need to learn how to actually do things to survive. Maybe that’s what it was because I had worked a lot of jobs but I never had any you know real practical skills. I think this is why a lot of people have a defense mechanism for preparedness because they have to think it’s stupid and that it’s just paranoia because if they didn’t then they’d have to acknowledge how ill-prepared they actually were which would be terrifying.

So they have to poke fun at it and say ha ha you know you guys are all crazy because that’s the only way that they can sleep well at night. Those people are the worst because when the panic starts they’re the most ill-prepared. That realization comes in imminence when there’s an acute crisis that’s not the time you want to have that epiphany. Everybody’s going to have that realization at some point or another it’s just that most people are going to have it while shit is hitting the fan. Whereas some people have it beforehand like me.

When most people envision survivalists they envision a right-wing guy in BDUs in the forest with a gun worried about the government. That’s what comes to mind for most people I think. That stigma is starting to diminish a lot. I don’t even think there is really a political affiliation with it so much anymore. In Papa Meade’s video that he did recently while there was some references to like the Christian far right there wasn’t a lot you know as much as there would have been maybe 10 years ago. So I think that COVID and channels like mine were more ecumenical and who they’re applying to across the board politically.

We’re changing the culture of prepping to be more inclusive. So we’re the DEI preppers. Not woke but not un-woke either. Just prepping for prepping’s sake. I think there is a much broader appreciation for some of the fundamentals. The media is fine if you’re prepping as long as you’re not political and prepping. They don’t want people who are not even political but they don’t want activists who are prepping because that’s a dangerous combination. So they don’t want people who are kind of aware of what’s going on because they’re okay with conspiracy theorists just talking amongst themselves and speaking purely hypothetically armchair warriors.

But they don’t want people actually having the material means to take themselves off grid and off the dependence from the system. It’s one thing to sit there and be like type on Facebook, ah the government this, the government that. They’re fine with that. They’re perfectly fine with you doing that. I think that’s where they want you. Yeah. And you have an outlet for it that really is inconsequential. Yeah but they don’t want you to have the actual means to you take care of yourself. They don’t want an awareness of what is going on and that’s a better way of looking at it.

They don’t want a informed self responsible person. You can be informed but not self responsible and you can be self responsible and not informed but they don’t want those two things coming together because that’s a dangerous combination right. They don’t want a thinking person who is saying ah no I don’t identify as right wing. I don’t identify as left wing per se maybe on certain issues depending on what year it is depending on you know the season but they don’t want a thinking person who’s also a prepper because then you’re completely unpredictable right.

For the sake of not feeding into political stigmas let’s say you’re a registered republican who lives in a high rise building in New York City. You are the most predictable person in the world. Now let’s say you’re a registered republican but you live outside the city and you live in a rural environment and you know you’re doing things that don’t require as much government oversight. You’re still predictable right but you’re not as predictable. Now what if you’re unregistered and you’re also self-reliant. That is the most terrifying thing for any government. There’s like a spectrum of predictability and I think we as our channel falls on that one spectrum where they’re not really sure it’s kind of a gray area it’s really the essence of gray man is not knowing is that guy black or is he white right.

Not physically but then and maybe physically too yeah and they don’t like that because then they can’t put you in a box and everybody will try to put you in a box. Some people can only relate because they’re not thinking people they can only have a conversation with you if they can put you in some kind of box oh this guy’s a this he’s a that he’s a this and then they can kind of proceed from there and either argue with you or agree with you because imagine for instance if everybody said you know what I’m getting tired of this politics thing and I also want to move off grid could you imagine the nightmare because the system as it stands now is hardwired to make rules and more and more rules and more and more laws right now we have the most laws that we’ve ever had at any time in human history and the most regulations we’ve ever had in human history and if everybody starts bucking that if everybody starts doing their own thing then the entire system will cease to exist I mean that’s when you get the pyramid will collapse because it’s all the people who partake the register this guy in condominium 1743 that prop that create the framework for the people who are on top of the pyramid so they need a lot of people just being bricks in the wall as they say so that a smaller and smaller amount of people can get really really rich so the more laws the more regulations the greater the discrepancy in wealth between the rich and poor the best way to support this channel is to support yourself by gearing up at canadianpreparedness.com where you’ll find high quality survival gear at the best prices no junk and no gimmicks use discount code prepping gear for 10 off don’t forget the strong survive but the prepared thrive stay safe
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