Repost of a post made by a very wise man nearly 5 years ago, predating Coronapocalypse and the term “Boogaloo.”
*****
I know people have problems. I know no one's life is perfect. Maybe you're unemployed. Maybe you're having a tough time making ends meet. Maybe you can't afford health insurance under our wonderful "Affordable Care Act." Maybe you can't pay your mortgage, or make rent, and you're sick and tired of just squeaking by all the time.
Welcome to reality. Suck it up, because you're not alone.
If you believe, even for a nanosecond, that SHTF is a preferable alternative to our imperfect, broken reality of today -- one of two things has happened to you. First, you haven't really thought it through. SHTF / WROL is a semi-romantic notion where you get to rewrite your own miserable reality, or your miserable perception of reality. You think things are at a "tipping point" and the only way to make it all better again is to have a 1776-style reset where all the traitors in government and the weak among our population are weeded out and, once again, the strong (we included, of course) can rebuild a society based upon "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What a wonderful, almost ennobling thought.
Dream on, Buckwheat. It ain't going down that way.
Take the 100 absolute-worst-ever days you've experienced in your lifetime. Now, multiply that by an exponent you choose and compress it all into a single, unbearable day -- and that's your average day post-SHTFWROLTEOTWAWKI. Every. Single. Day.
NO power. NO stores. NO hospitals. NO restaurants. NO Internet. NO TV. NO where to run or hide. NO one to trust. Friends, family, neighbors all being killed or dying of starvation. It's a time when an abscessed tooth can kill you, or debilitate you to nothing more than a burden on others.
"That's all OK by me!" you say?
THAT is what makes you a sociopath... or psychopath... take your pick. It's OK with you that millions, especially young children and the elderly, will suffer and die during SHTF, because, after all, they were "unprepared" for what you saw coming miles away. It was "their own bad choices" that brought the horror down upon their own heads. If they'd just listened before it was too late! The thought that they would just work their jobs, live their lives, and watch TV like nothing would ever happen somehow makes them complicit and deserving of the fate they've chosen for themselves.
Or...
We can take stock of everything that is good in our lives today -- or at least not completely broken, like it will be if the S ever HTF. Chances are, if you're able to read this, you have Internet access, which means you likely have a warm roof over your head, clean clothes on your body, food in your stomach, and a job or some form of income to pay for it all. If you're cold you can turn up the heat. If you're thirsty you can get a glass of whatever choice of 10,000 different beverages on the market (or water). If you're hungry you have a selection of about 500 different restaurant and grocery stores within a 20-mile radius from your immediate location. If you need to get somewhere, you get in your car and go. If you want to be entertained, you turn on the TV, or the Internet, or go to a show or a movie, or just about anything under the sun. If you get sick you go see a doctor -- even if you have no insurance! If you get hurt badly enough an ambulance will take you to the Emergency Room.
So, you're warm, clothed, fed, comfortable, entertained, living in relative health during the most (statistically) SAFE, secure, and prosperous time in our nation's history -- but it's not good enough. SHTF is what we need to "make things right again." We'd rather focus on black gangs, bad politicians, ISIS, illegal immigration, and a handful of wingnuts holed up in a building in some far-off corner of the country than rather on what matters. Because all these are clear signs the system is about to collapse all around us.
Yeah, pontiffs gonna pontificate.
Lastly, there's nothing at all wrong with preparing for the worst, in fact it's prudent. If it comes, then it will come (my Jack Handy Deep Thought of the day). Don't hope for it. Don't wish for it. Be willing to suffer through some intolerable crap to avoid it. SHTF is not some self-proclaimed 3%-er glorious revolution that ends well for anyone. It's when we revert to our lowest common character denominator. Our worst, basest animal instincts of self-preservation. It's not something to be romanticized or pined for. If you think it is, you're either sadly misinformed, or you're just a plain, ol' sociopath.
FLAME ON!
*****
I know people have problems. I know no one's life is perfect. Maybe you're unemployed. Maybe you're having a tough time making ends meet. Maybe you can't afford health insurance under our wonderful "Affordable Care Act." Maybe you can't pay your mortgage, or make rent, and you're sick and tired of just squeaking by all the time.
Welcome to reality. Suck it up, because you're not alone.
If you believe, even for a nanosecond, that SHTF is a preferable alternative to our imperfect, broken reality of today -- one of two things has happened to you. First, you haven't really thought it through. SHTF / WROL is a semi-romantic notion where you get to rewrite your own miserable reality, or your miserable perception of reality. You think things are at a "tipping point" and the only way to make it all better again is to have a 1776-style reset where all the traitors in government and the weak among our population are weeded out and, once again, the strong (we included, of course) can rebuild a society based upon "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." What a wonderful, almost ennobling thought.
Dream on, Buckwheat. It ain't going down that way.
Take the 100 absolute-worst-ever days you've experienced in your lifetime. Now, multiply that by an exponent you choose and compress it all into a single, unbearable day -- and that's your average day post-SHTFWROLTEOTWAWKI. Every. Single. Day.
NO power. NO stores. NO hospitals. NO restaurants. NO Internet. NO TV. NO where to run or hide. NO one to trust. Friends, family, neighbors all being killed or dying of starvation. It's a time when an abscessed tooth can kill you, or debilitate you to nothing more than a burden on others.
"That's all OK by me!" you say?
THAT is what makes you a sociopath... or psychopath... take your pick. It's OK with you that millions, especially young children and the elderly, will suffer and die during SHTF, because, after all, they were "unprepared" for what you saw coming miles away. It was "their own bad choices" that brought the horror down upon their own heads. If they'd just listened before it was too late! The thought that they would just work their jobs, live their lives, and watch TV like nothing would ever happen somehow makes them complicit and deserving of the fate they've chosen for themselves.
Or...
We can take stock of everything that is good in our lives today -- or at least not completely broken, like it will be if the S ever HTF. Chances are, if you're able to read this, you have Internet access, which means you likely have a warm roof over your head, clean clothes on your body, food in your stomach, and a job or some form of income to pay for it all. If you're cold you can turn up the heat. If you're thirsty you can get a glass of whatever choice of 10,000 different beverages on the market (or water). If you're hungry you have a selection of about 500 different restaurant and grocery stores within a 20-mile radius from your immediate location. If you need to get somewhere, you get in your car and go. If you want to be entertained, you turn on the TV, or the Internet, or go to a show or a movie, or just about anything under the sun. If you get sick you go see a doctor -- even if you have no insurance! If you get hurt badly enough an ambulance will take you to the Emergency Room.
So, you're warm, clothed, fed, comfortable, entertained, living in relative health during the most (statistically) SAFE, secure, and prosperous time in our nation's history -- but it's not good enough. SHTF is what we need to "make things right again." We'd rather focus on black gangs, bad politicians, ISIS, illegal immigration, and a handful of wingnuts holed up in a building in some far-off corner of the country than rather on what matters. Because all these are clear signs the system is about to collapse all around us.
Yeah, pontiffs gonna pontificate.
Lastly, there's nothing at all wrong with preparing for the worst, in fact it's prudent. If it comes, then it will come (my Jack Handy Deep Thought of the day). Don't hope for it. Don't wish for it. Be willing to suffer through some intolerable crap to avoid it. SHTF is not some self-proclaimed 3%-er glorious revolution that ends well for anyone. It's when we revert to our lowest common character denominator. Our worst, basest animal instincts of self-preservation. It's not something to be romanticized or pined for. If you think it is, you're either sadly misinformed, or you're just a plain, ol' sociopath.
FLAME ON!