Wednesday, April 22, 2020

On prepping vs just being prepared...

Sailing Anarchy's "Apparent COVID Direction Finder" might come in useful, a rather sagacious observation, and in the "A mind-boggling clusterfuck on steroids" department...

OK, I'll be honest and admit that I've taken issue with the whole idea of prepping and preppers. Not, I should add, that I have problems with folks being prepared, but I do find that most preppers are really not all about being prepared but just indulging their consumerist addiction.

I mention this as all of a sudden my email spam content is surging with offers of silly expensive survival foods, advice on weaponry to fetishize, and too good to be true tech that will allow me to keep living in a high tech wonderland while my neighbors, apparently, are reduced to living in the stone age. Oh yeah, there are also all those horrible people trying to sell me twenty-five cent dust masks for ten bucks a pop...

So, like I said, I'm not a real fan of the prepper/prepping dynamic.

That said, it's pretty obvious that our powers that be don't exactly have our needs or best interests at heart in general and that, when push comes to shove, they're pretty incompetent so not exactly anyone you can actually count on. Or, to rephrase it we're all pretty much on our own.

The current COVID-19 situation will be around for the foreseeable future and making plans otherwise, given the current situational awareness, is not a smart move.

Lucky for us boat folks on a budget we already have a mindset that gives us the tools to prepare for shit like world pandemics and suchlike. We know how to provision, we understand how to do long passages and deal with being in out-of-the-way-back-of-beyond places. Better yet, most of us actually enjoy being self-sufficient and taking care of needful business when required.

Just avoid too-good-to-be-true politician speak, think common sense cruising mode, and prepare accordingly.

Hunker down and we'll get through this shit.

Listening to an album's worth of John Hiatt coverage

So it goes...