Preparedness

I hate the terms "survivalist" and "survival". They bring to mind images of Grizzly Adams living in a log cabin, or worse, militia nuts playing war games in the woods.

Terms like this do nothing to help you and me through times of trouble and woe. "Preparedness" is a lot closer to being an accurate description. You have to be prepared for catastrophe.

I recently discussed this topic with an ordinary guy who told me he'd "just take (his) chances". I told him I used to think like that. I figured that if big trouble came, it would be in the form of a Russian missile with a nuclear warhead. You could decide to either die slowly of radiation poisoning or walk outside, face the blast, and hope for a quick and relatively painless death.

Experience has taught me otherwise. Hurricane Katrina was an eye-opener for many people. It's much more likely that any crisis we will face won't be of the life-and-death variety, but of the cold-wet-and-hungry variety. A little preparation will go a long way.

In the coming days, I'll have a few more posts on this topic.