Why I'm doing this

I've been growing increasingly more disturbed by the world around me for a long time. I'm 21 now but this has been slowly developing since I was a kid.
I don't like what I see around me here in my little city in California, in my country as a whole and in the world. Whether it's lack of interest in meaningful ideas in our music, movies and television, the state of our economy, the state of this 2008 Presidentail Election, the state of our country's image in the eyes of the rest of the world, or the state of many religions around the world including my own, I feel that there are a lot of things wrong out there and I can't help but feel that things HAVE to change sooner or later.

I just don't see how things can keep getting worse and not result in some rather large consequence. If you understand what's going on in the economy right now then you realize that we're in a horrible place right now.

While contemplating all of this one night, I was struck with a sense of fear and helplessness. For about a week, maybe more, I felt as though the very possible prospect of things getting worse and worse was looming like mountain-sized boulder over me and there was nothing to do to get out of the way or stop it. That analogy however is completely unfitting of how I felt after what happened next.

One night while lying sleeplessly worrying as I had been doing, I was struck with a sense of rebellion. Rebellion against feeling sorry for myself and sorry for the world around me. I decided, no, I told myself that I'm a fighter. I'm a strong-minded and strong-willed person like my mother and I don't just sit and take bullshit as it comes.

I decided that I could handle anything if I wanted to, so I could at least try to handle anything that came my way.

I may be short and scrawny but dammit I'm not somebody who just gives in to anything.

While searching for anything that reflected what I was feeling I came across the concept of survivalism.

It's basically the mentality that if the shit ever hits the fan, you want to be prepared for whatever it is and survive it. It is embraced by some religiouns who believe the end is near, but it's also been taken up by people since the 60's when there was the fear of nuclear attack looming over everyone. What I'm more interested in is the generic sense that while anything could happen, we don't have to take it lying down and there are always steps you can take to be prepared. Come to think of it I like the phrase "preparedness" more than "survivalism." Whether it's natural disaster, social unrest, economic crisis, terrorist attacks, there are always things you can do to be prepared.

I resent the media stereotypes of people with a preparedness mindset as anti-social nut-jobs. I don't think I need to be an antisocial nutjob to store food and grow my own to hedge against rising food costs, or to stay out of debt and save money to guard unforseen personal economic hardships, or to keep emergency supplies handy in case of an eathquake or some other natural disaster, or to know basic skills like how to build a fire, how to build a shelter, how to identify wild medicinal plants.

Here on this blog I'll be posting about things I learn and what I'm up to. Keep in mind I'm a total newb to this stuff so there a lot of people out there that know a hell of a lot more than me so I'm not claiming to be trying to help anyone other than myself but if any other n00bs are out there interested this blog is here.

Also if you want to send me other resources feel free. I'm going to be slowly scouring videos, podcasts, other blogs, books, websites and whatever else I can with what time I have. I do work 40hrs a week and go to a few hours of school per week so between that my free time is pretty minimal but I'm just going to do what I can, when I can.

This gives me something to occupy myself and I hope if anyone cares to read this junk, that you'll find it informative and/or interesting.

Thanks for reading.