A big part of what has always motivated me to get into primitive skills was the fact that I was raised with the "apocalyptic" mindset, that being that there would be an end time. where there would be destruction, famine, and a basic total collapse of the system. While this was view came from a religion standpoint that I no longer adhere to I still see the potential of a systemic collapse and so I'm still motivated from that place. It sucks to be motivated from a place of fear but that has evolved over time to integrating appreciation for past peoples and the skills they had, so it's not all bad.
There are numerous tenuous strands that hold the system in place, I can see many vectors from which a collapse might come from, such as the dependency on petro fuels, biological threats such as bird flu, and problems with the environment and mans interference with nature such as the terminator gene of Monsanto, and even the old nuclear threats. Im sure others can point to other similar threats.
In thinking about all the possible scenarios and trying to be prepared for them while also trying to work with the system in place I have adapted a strategy for living in the here and now that tries to be ready for whatever may come. That being said I don�t think I�ll ever really be prepared for any certain possible scenario but I recognize that I am more prepared than most. I have a large amount of dried food supplies and enough knowledge to keep myself and my children ok for some time. Part of my problem is that there are many people who know I do these things and I have been often told if the fecal matter hits the fan that I would be where people would come. This is somewhat disturbing in that I can�t see myself sending people away, nor do I want to starve my family to support those who I see as knowing of the potentials and doing nothing about it, as in learning some simple skills such as gardening or knowing some edible plants etc. Yet, I am also torn in the idea of rejecting people who might come as I know it takes a tribe which I and my wife and my children do not make.
My weapons are light and being pretty much limited to a tricked out .22 I can carry a whole lot of ammo at very limited weight cost. Another advantage of such a weapon is its relative quite shot and its deadlyness.
I believe that tribes won�t happen until people are hungry enough to be forced into such a situation because of need. This idea presents a number of problems such as unrelated folks coming together and the various agenda's that may or may not be so pure along with different values. This would include people who already have some affinities such as church groups and cults, already functioning criminal gangs, and "end timers" who already are prepared for such systemic collapse which Montana has plenty of. Some of these people stock automatic weapons and are paramilitary in nature. It is actually the last group that has me least worried in that they tend to think in terms of wanting to keep the lifestyle they have and have therefore stocked up on what they already know how to use such as canned and frozen foods as well as dependency on generators and such. These groups do not tend to be healthy and could'nt go far in a full on wilderness trek. In my thinking, mobility will be key to avoiding such groups.
I know this all smacks of Mad Max scenarios and even Kevin Costners �The Mailman� and �Waterworld�. What is up with Costner anyway? The point is that there are many possible outcomes to such ideas and being prepared for them is somewhat of a conundrum.
So I think of what it really would take to make a successful, mobile group in such circumstances. The pressures would be enormous given the probability of having both older and younger people involved. I look at history and try to find answers there but I realize that many people don�t remember the way things were done even 100 years ago not to mention 1,000 years ago. In contemplating all this what I�ve come to is that it seems that a successful group would need a key person to act as Dr., farmer, General (understanding the dynamics of basic militaristic ideas) leader. That is a tall order. Ideally there would be a person to fill each one of these slots and others I'm not listing but there would more than likely be one person how had knowledge in all these things that would be able to bring these things together to make good decisions for the group. It is also apparent to me that the only way this person could do what they do is that they come to the position naturally, by the work they do for others and not through rhetoric. The rest of the tribe would see the intrinsic value of such a person and he/she would naturally rise through the desire of the tribe.
There is so much that goes into all of this thinking and I recognize I may just be wasting brain energy but I really do think that if this does not happen in my lifetime that it will possibly happen in my children's lifetime or even their children's. This has been a motivating factor as well for me, the need to teach these skills to my children. Even though they think dads kind of a freak they have learned more than what they realize. Just seeing me do these things has given them the memories that combined with some effort should help to carry them through.
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