I Am Not a Prepper . . .

I am not a prepper/survivalist. That being said, my focus on self-sufficiency and some personal friendships have put me in contact with those who are. I even attended Zombie Survival Camp in 2014. As for prepping, I maintain that the greatest prep anyone can have is having served some time in prison. Or lived in a third world country. Served in the military in an active war zone, perhaps. Being used to adversity, degradation and knowing how brutal humans can be is in many ways a far more important skill than knowing how to light a fire with a fire drill for most survival situations. It is nice to think that you’d walk off and live in the wilderness. In reality, few of us live far enough away from civilization to have that luxury. Personally, I’m not concerned with the big stuff. Major events are so stochastic that I am not bothered with planning. With that being said, while it is fun to see the people doing the prepping/survival/zombie thing — and even to participate on occasion — only two types of survival concern me: 1.) The small stuff. Two winters ago our power was out for a good chunk of the day. In Toronto some people were out for a week or more. The other night we had some pretty strong straight-line winds. Nothing happened — but it could have. There are all these little short-term and localized “disasters” that happen. Mostly they aren’t fatal or even that much of an inconvenience. Whether you spend that time in discomfort having to make do or just chugging along as normal, depends on how well you are prepared. Simple things like keeping some stores in the pantry, keeping a container of fresh gasoline on hand or having a small emergency bag in the car are pretty small by prepper standards but well worth it for those times when you hit the little bumps in the road. 2.) Being able to live cheap, but well, in the here and now. Hence why we do some things that border on homesteading (gardening, chickens, hunting, water collection etc.) I’m big on the DIY philosophy. It has been said that a penny saved is a penny earned — but it is far greater than that and unless you have a heck of a lot of pennies, you still have to put up with everyone telling you that you are a worthless piece of shit all the time anyhow. Or you can do it yourself and learn some skills at the same time. Doesn't extend to everything of course, but it is a decent philosophy to live by.

Dave is a modern-day renaissance man. From breeding reptiles and arachnids to raising chickens and veggies, this guys is like Doc Brown from Back to the Future - an eccentric mad scientist that`s always inventing and crafting weird contraptions, all in an effort to make his day-to-day easier. Now that he`s a full blown homesteader, he found way too much time on his hands and started a blog: "Opting Out" . There he shares his unique ideas and thoughts about the world. Inspirational and amusing, it could just change the way you live your basic life.