Homemade Groceries & Supplies, page 2

Originally posted by HunkaHunka

Originally posted by DevilJin
S&F - I think we all need to learn some survival skills and how to be self-reliance to the extreme if the gov. screws us anymore.

We shouldn't need the threat of gov to become self-reliant... it should be the highest moral taught to our children.

True but I think convenience has led us astray from our most basic need - to survive with simply food, water and shelter. I notice it myself when I visited my mother last Spring and the electricity went out (country living) - I, as others, panicked because I did not have my computer. The family got extremely bored because of no television. My sister was angry because her cellphone wouldn't work. Each person stayed in their rooms alone. My mother slept it off. I laid in my own bed anxiously waiting for the electricity. My sister went in and out of rooms to get a signal. It was a very depressing time. Now that I look back on it, I cringe at the dependence we - well, I have as I will speak for myself and not others - I have toward technology. I thought to myself - I am not free if I am dependent on anything I can't control, and now I do read survival books, and use my computer a lot less. I've always been a reader, but if I wasn't in college, then work, then reading, I would go and hang out online. And it is so convenient! We have become sedentary enough that some of us rarely do go outside because the world - a non-judgmental world - is here, online. How come we can't stop and enjoy the nothingness. How come we must find a distraction to numb our minds from developing ourselves through whatever we find most necessary to our survival when, in truth, it is not?

Another story was the time a friend of mine and I went fishing and he was disturbed by the silence, although there were frogs, grasshoppers, and the highway of passing cars all there for music. He was so used to vehicles sounding, the chattering of people, the blaring television, the ringing of his phone, the clicking of the mouse and the clickety-clacking as he internet surf aimlessly. He had been brought down to something so simple - fishing - and so majestically rare - peace - that he could not handle it. He tried to make conversations but I was mesmerized by the silence and refused to speak. It was so comforting. He went to the car nearby and got his Ipod out to listen as we fished.

My point is that what if the complexities of our world were torn down and we had the most basic things and we would have to survive without those little conveniences we have, when does it ever become apparent to some that this is what they are missing? Simplicity. I don't mind if the threat of the government is what people need to learn survival skills. Being a nature-lover, I had long before desired to do this but never did put in the effort. That is a failing on my part, but it is better late than never.