- You want to be better prepped for emergencies.
- You want to take survival into your own hands.
- Your family is better off with a plan.
- You no longer want to rely 100% on social services to keep you safe.
You’re not alone and you’re not nuts.
I’m not going to tell you why or even if you should prep. Nor will I dictate if you should even call it “prepping” based on the social stigma that has come to be represented by that word. What I want to firmly nail into your brain is that you are not alone. By far, not alone. The strangest part of the entire view of the industry (yes, it has very much become an industry) is the fact that the whole concept of being prepared for disaster is being ridiculed because of a few “overzealous” individuals from a cable-channel television show, “Doomsday Preppers”. They are presented in an overtly dramatized and produced-promoted way, encouraging the individuals to really play up the reasons that they “prep” (I have firsthand knowledge of this).
Regardless of our reasons, why do “we-who-are-ready” have to feel outcast and finger-pointed? Aren’t we, those who are ready for disaster, the first ones that loved-ones, friends and neighbors run to in the face of oncoming misfortune? Yes, we are.
Non-Liberalist Attitude
Let us not be blinded by the social view created by our “somewhat” left-leaning media. Not that you have to be a conservative or Republican to prep, it’s just a matter of numbers and the majority of peppers fall within the right-sway of things. It’s not a club. Not a secret society. All are welcome and encouraged to participate. Unfortunately those facts are muddled in the waters of misdirection where you are forced to believe that to be a prepper is to be anti-establishment, anti-social, anti-government (see below) and anti-conformist. Personally, I don’t care anymore if that is how I will be portrayed by the nay-sayers, when the truth is that I have never been more social, more pro-community, more patriotic and more willing to change with the times than ever before in my life. We fear what our friends and relatives say, how our careers will be affected and how we will be viewed by society as a whole, but there are SO many of us now—it’s almost in fashion (but don’t quote me on that).
Small-Town, Rural
It’s also a common misconception that preppers are all from small, backwater towns and villages that haven’t yet discovered electricity and still manually churn butter (not a bad skill to have though…hmmm). In fact, there are those who prep all around us in big city life as well. From bug-out bags to terrace micro-farms, how can you not call it prepping when that is in and of itself the essence of the entire way of life. Sure, its on a much smaller scale and they tend to keep things on the Q-T, but they are out there. I know a few of them—honest. The vast majority are just you and me, regular people doing their part in the name of self reliance. No big homesteads, no bunkers, no vast underground networks of tunnels and hiding places. Just a place to live with a yard, shed and some things necessary to keep it that way. (Tell me it wouldn’t be cool to have an underground bunker though?)
Anti-Government
We would be led to believe that, as preppers, our main fear (and some would say, goal) is to go toe to toe with governmental forces of oppression and even military. While there are always going to be a tiny percentage of separatist goals out there amongst the populace, grouping all peppers into this small division is probably the most mitigating factor in the negative view on preppers, labeling us as rebellious offshoots from a deviant mutation of civilized society. Of course, it’s all untrue and you knew that. Preppers are not “anti-government” but do have a distinct mistrust of the modern support machine that runs continuously, belching smoke and soot, blinding and deafening us into a soft, warm complacence that effectively forces us to rely on social services rather than ourselves for protection and safety. As clearly demonstrated by events of the recent past in disasters both natural and human—that doesn’t always work. Not even close.
So why do we sometimes feel this compelling need to hide who and what we are? How is it that a compulsion to be ready for a crisis earns us ridicule and late-night talk show ribbing? There’s no real reason because you’re not crazy—you’re justified. You’re simply a cut above the rest and no one has any right to think less of you for it…and besides, it’s your door that they’ll be knocking on when all other doors are shut to them. After all, isn’t that really why WE got into prepping in the first place? Few things in life are scarier than being in need with nowhere to turn, watching your loved ones looking to you for answers and solutions, when all it would have taken was a little forethought and some advanced preparation to be ready.
To whatever extent, we all need to be ready. I am.
