What can you do right now to help both yourself and others survive these times? If people just bemoan
the fact that times aren't as good as they once were, we will just see more and more of them slip away just like the mother who killed herself and shot her kids because she couldn't get food stamps. What can you do to help make sure no other mother feels she has no choice but to shoot herself and her kids? I know the times are hard and different than anything in any of our lifetimes including mine. However, if people don't adapt, often they die.
This is something I learned when taking survival training in the early 1980s. A group of men came to a conference I was attending in Idaho in the early 1980s and gave us basic training for surviving a plane crash. (Though this can apply just to times like these right now as well). They said that the single most important thing that decided whether a person survived or not was "taking an interest in one's survival". They said that there were only two kinds of people who usually didn't survive. The first kind of person who wasn't going to survive was someone who was too injured to survive. And they said that the injury didn't have to be that severe to throw a person into shock and eventual death if no hospital or medicine was available. And the second person who wasn't going to survive did something like say over and over again, "Why did this happen?" However, the person or persons that had a chance of survival no matter the conditions was the person who said instead, "What if I do this? If I do this will I survive? Maybe I can do that. Maybe I can help this person stay alive. Maybe I can find some food. Maybe I can find some wood and build a fire. Maybe I can get some water that is drinkable somewhere. Maybe the sun will come out tomorrow and it will warm us. This was the person who survived and often who helps others survive during ANY kind of calamity whether it be a long one or a short one here on earth. Maybe you can find a way and maybe you can survive almost anything. You really won't know until you try day by day and moment by moment.
Let me give you an example of when it was 1980 and I was 32 years old. I had just remarried in a little country town in northern California called Mt. Shasta. There were no jobs and my work had ended and my wife got laid off her job as a hostess at a restaurant but she wouldn't leave to move to the city where we might get work. A friend of mine said that I shouldn't move away because my wife was pretty and that others in the town would try to move in on her should I go away to find work somewhere else hundreds or thousands of miles away. So, my friend and I and eventually my wife and I decided to buy land and to stop paying rent and just build a small home there way out in the forest for my wife and kids and I and to home school our kids there. So, we took our savings and bought the land and then sold one of our vehicles to buy enough material(wood was much cheaper then than now). However, some people then as well as now use Alaskan Mills to mill their own wood from their lands to build their homes. However, in most places you have to have it inspected by a local county or city building inspector before you build with wood like that. (An Alaskan mill is a huge 6 foot blade and gas chainsaw motor with rollers and a guide for cutting straight pieces of wood directly out of a fallen tree). A friend of mine demonstrated his for me on a fallen tree on my land back then. However, I decided I could just sell one of my vehicles and save a lot of work so this is what I did. If you don't have enough money this is one way to go.
My daughter who is now 22 has talked to me about buying a yurt with her boyfriend and I told her about friends of mine who lived in Teepees or Yurts in the forest during the 1970s and 1980s in Northern California. I told her that in California you had to have (depending upon the county) already a home or mobile home already on land with either a sewer system or septic tank before you could have a yurt in most California counties legally. A yurt or tent is considered a temporary structure that can be used and so there are different rules for a temporary tent or yurt than for a home or barn or other permanent structure.
I asked her if she wanted me to buy her some land but she isn't ready to make a commitment in any one place yet. Also, she is now in Northern Oregon which is the "Yurt Capital" of the U.S. right now. She also told me that Yurts aren't covered with canvas like they used to be. Now the exterior is vinyl which is fairly impervious to the sun and weather. Canvas over time might mold or wear out in the wind. So, by changing the exteriors of yurts to vinyl they last much longer now and could be moved several times if the owners wish and still be okay.
Before my wife and I sold her 1971 VW Westfalia Camper Van in the early 1980s so we could buy wood to build our house we drove it to Cottage Grove, Oregon to pick up a Teepee from Nomadic Tent Makers there. They were students at the Time of Chakdud Tulku who was a Tibetan Lama and Tibetan Doctor at that time in Oregon from Tibet. So, my friend and I did this to help another friend who was buying the teepee to move into on someone's land that we knew at that time. I believe at that time this company also made Yurts but I could be mistaken. However, this was now 30 years ago.
The early 1980s was a time remarkably similar to now where unemployment was above 10% nationwide. Though unemployment nationwide is only 8.6%, in many places in the U.S. it is 15% or more in some cities or counties and if one is realistic the actual amount of "underemployed or unemployed people" is around 20 to 25% in many many places in the U.S. So, thinking like a survivor will be necessary for a whole lot of people if they want to physically survive these times.
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