Author of The Dark Secrets of SHTF Survival and the online course SHTF Survival Boot Camp
Did you ever think about how different your day to day life would be after an SHTF event? The little things we take for granted now, like making a meal, staying warm, or having water to drink and bathe in would suddenly become a whole lot more complicated.
Who better to tell us what that is like than Selco? For those who don’t know, Selco spent a year in a city in Bosnia that was blockaded. During that year, he and the other residents lived without our normal amenities like heat, running water, electricity, and supplies that could be purchased at the stores.
I asked him some questions about daily life after the SHTF. I think you’ll agree that his answers are eye-opening.
(Note: Selco’s interviews are lightly edited for clarity, but I want to use his own words. The authenticity of his stories remains intact. For those of you who don’t know of Selco, please note that English is his 4th language. Whiny grammar Nazi comments will be deleted. Comments complaining about my use of the word “Nazi” will be posted, however, so we can publicly mock them, and then the commenter will be banned forever for being a whiner.)
What time did you usually get up? What woke you?
A few weeks after the collapse came, all aspects of our normal life changed based on the new reality around us.
One aspect was “sleep cycle“- the time when we sleep and when we were awake and active.
One of the most basic rules that jumped in was that most of the activities got done during the night.
Some reasons for that were obvious, like danger from snipers. But also the other reason (maybe even more important) was that over time it becomes very important to hide your activities connected to gathering resources.
To explain it more, when you have a lot of people in a small area (city) and you have less resources that are needed for that number of people, the fact that you HAVE something (food, water medicines…) needs to be hidden from people who do not have that.
The system (law, police, etc.) was out, and it was important not to give reasons for people to attack you because you have something interesting.
So, anything connected with gathering resources (wood, food, trade…) was finished mostly during the night.
Of course, violence mostly happened during the night too (violence that included “close fighting.“)
Activities in your home and yard were possible to be done in the daytime. For example, we would spend the day fixing our water gutter that goes from the roof so it can go in a big barrel, but if we needed to climb on the roof and fix holes with tarps or to “funnel“ it to the gutter, that needed to be done in the night time.
There was no “usual“ time to get up, at least not in hardest period. Even if we did not have anything particular to do we would be alert during the night time, simply because night time was full of different activities in the city, and you needed to be ready.
In our case (because we had more than 10 people most of the time in the house) we could do a schedule that meant not all of us needed to be alert all the night.
During 24 hour periods of time, someone was always sleeping, others were doing some job, but as a general rule nights were much more active then days.
Messing up with normal sleep cycle was a problem alone, and it contributed to the stress, feeling tired and stressed because you did not have enough sleep or enough quality sleep was a normal thing.
Sometimes close detonation of shells would wake me up, sometimes my relatives woke me up because it was my guard shift, sometimes we would all be awake the whole night because of close shootings, and possible danger.
Sometimes I would wake up by myself because that day I did not have any particular duty to do, so I would stay home, checking things in the house, maybe trying to fix some things.
What did you eat for breakfast, if you had breakfast?
Traditionally here (in Balkan region) we ate a lot of bread, and we eat it with almost all food.
It is actually strange not to have bread on the table, no matter what kind of food you eat, or what time of day it is (breakfast, dinner…)
It is a Slavic tradition from ancient times to greet dear guests with bread and salt (and right after that comes alcohol).
I am trying to portray the importance of bread here, and then when the collapse came, suddenly it became scarce (just like everything else).
I believe it was the biggest problem when it came to meals, the lack of bread, simply because we used to eat it a lot.
It was kinda a psychological problem for us too, not to have enough bread.
That was first biggest change.
Note: do not underestimate the power that food has not only in calorie terms but also in psychological terms. Having and eating food that you love makes things much easier. Store food in your prepper storage that you LIKE to eat.
Second thing was that the usual “schedule“ of meals was lost.
It was very rare when we could all sit together to have dinner or breakfast, simply because someone was sleeping or someone else was busy with something.
For breakfast, we ate whatever was there in the moment. If the day was good and we managed to find something like an MRE or canned meat it was good breakfast.
On bad days we usually ate “pancakes“. “Pancakes“ were locally picked greens, mixed with water and very small amounts of flour (just to keep greens connected). It looked awful and tasted awful too.
The greens that people picked from nearest hills were supposed to be edible, based on rumors, or older people who had some knowledge about edible plants.
Another favorite at that time was “tea“. It was a big pot that stood on the stove, with water and local herbs inside, we called that tea or soup.
It was something like substituted for one of the traditionally favorite meals in this region – soup. Just like bread, here it is a tradition to have hot soup with your meal.
Just like with sleep cycles, times of meals were messed up. Also, the food that we ate for particular meals was messed up. We ate when we had the chance, and we ate what was available in the moment. For example, in normal times for breakfast here, we ate sandwiches or eggs. It was something to dream about during the collapse.
And yes, sometimes I simply did not have breakfast or dinner, or anything for a whole day or night.
Note: very soon people (when they had all ingredients) started to make bread in small pots right on the stove, it required not too much fuel and time, it was easy to make it (with flipping bread in the pot).
Did you have a job aside from survival? Did people go to work each day like they do now?
No, in my case no jobs because in that hardest period system was out completely. There was nothing like regular jobs in places that you worked prior to the collapse.
You could find a use for your skills if you had any, for example being nurse meant I had some knowledge and skills, and it was pretty valuable actually because I could trade it for food or other usable items.
When the system is out, any knowledge in some particular field is important. For example being able to recognize a broken rib or infection, and being able to help with whatever is available in that moment meant a real value that you could sell.
An important thing to mention is that in some other cities in the region where war was at the same time, some kind of system and government was still there. In those regions, the government imposed something like”obligatory working“.
It worked in a way that, for example, if you were an electrician in a city company, the government could give you an order to work for free for some other company, military unit, or whatever.
In reality, it meant that some armed group or fraction could simply mobilize you and take you from your home.
My biggest skill in that time was my medical knowledge. Even when the whole system was out, even when there was no medication, there was use for my knowledge.
Did children still have school during this time?
No, there were no schools in that hardest period in my place. The system was out completely.
There were some attempts from family members to try to keep up some level of homeschooling, but pretty soon it was clear that we all had much bigger and more serious problems than homeschooling.
Kids simply lost that period when it came to school.
How much of your day was filled with chores like acquiring food, water, and firewood? Can you tell us about that?
A lot.
People do not understand how much hard work is needed to get done things like water, food, heat, security because the system is here for us to take care of those things, so we do not have to.
We were ordinary city folks who did not have a lot of knowledge about stuff like how to go find a tree, take it down, chop it into small pieces, and bring it home somehow. Or how to collect water from rain, or bring enough water from the river when that is impossible.
So we learned that, but it took us time to learn. We were not preppers in any meaning of that word.
If you wanted to go to a hill close to your home and take down a tree for firewood it was all night job for a few people.
The first problem was that we did it in pitch darkness. After that, the next problem was to either to carry it in bigger pieces (and be slow and vulnerable) or to chop it down into small pieces (and spend more time in that place, which also was not desirable), or to leave someone to guard it while others took down pieces, or to go all together and risk that someone else took the rest before we get back.
As a carrying system, people often used homemade carts, very rudimentary setups made from an old baby cart or a wooden box with wheels from a baby cart, or similar. Or we simply would carry it on our back in bigger pieces and chop it later in our yard where it was much safer to be.
It was a heavy job.
Finding firewood was a constant job, so often while we were doing other jobs, we would collect it on our way, things like wooden windows and door frames from destroyed buildings.
Yes, there were days when we were good, we would have enough water, food, and wood. We were good.
But usually, we were always missing something.
When the system is out, way too much time is needed to take care of everyday needs.
If we had enough food, we did not have enough rain for water so we took trips to the river. If we had enough water then someone had a serious case of diarrhea and we were worried about that.
Not to downplay the physical threat, but preppers today usually focus only on the physical threat, on fighting, weapons, and similar, while there is much more to everyday survival.
One good example of the effort needed to get something done is trade.
In order to do trade, first you would look for information about someone who had some goods, then you’d check and recheck that information, then you’d take into consideration the risk of going there, then you’d make a plan how many of us were going and what we are carrying there, and then you’d go and do that trade.
It was a complicated and dangerous process.
Where did you use the bathroom?
Close to our house, between a destroyed apartment building (we used that building sometimes as a guarding outpost or up-front layer of defensive ring of our house) and our house was something like a small park.
It was boxed (hidden) from 4 sides and pretty safe to use as a toilet by simply digging a hole in the ground.
After few months we built something like primitive latrine there. It worked for us during that time.
Toilet paper after some time become unknown, so we used what was available, clean rags and water and similar.
What did you do for personal hygiene?
If you look at it from today’s perspective, we did not do too much.
Personal hygiene was a matter of taking quick sponge baths when we had time and means for that and rare real bucket showers. But those were really rare.
When it came to our home, we did try to keep it as clean as possible. For example, we used one room for sick folks, we did try to clean ourselves in the yard and to take dirty clothes there.
Soap was possible to get in that time through trade, and in some periods things like alcohol pads were traded, but again the biggest problem was not having enough water for all our needs.
When you live for a prolonged period of time in those circumstances you kinda get used to the lack of hygiene. You do not like it but you live with it, and even make fun out of it. Psychologically people tend to get used to the lack of hygiene, especially when everybody around you is in the same state like you.
It was again a matter of having bigger problems on our mind.
For the minor problems, there were things like fungus infections, very common simply because in some periods we did not have enough time to keep ourselves dry and clean. Small cuts were usually solved with alcohol (alcohol for drinking was more or less available).
Real problems were connected with bad food and water treatment.
There were days during the summer when it was almost unbearable because of the stench that was in the city. A lot of bodies were not buried.
How many family members lived in one home?
It depends, but the tendency was that when the collapse came, relatives got together in the better house (between two families of relatives). So, for example, your uncle and aunt would come and live with you if their house was destroyed, or if your home was safer and better, or if you simply agreed that it was better to have more manpower together.
In my case, through that period, not less than 10 people were in our one house.
Usually, prior to the SHTF, living conditions and the number of occupants per house or apartment were the same as in any other European country.
One difference was that traditionally (prior the war) we did bring to our home parents when they got old, or too old to live by themselves.
For example, if you were living with your wife and two kids, and your parents are 85 years old, and one of them dies it was common to bring other parent to live with your family, to arrange room for him and to take care for him untill his death, if you had a house big enough for that.
It was not the rule, but it was common as a part of the tradition. Yes, we did had homes and pension centers for old folks where the state takes care of them, but it was kinda shameful to leave your elders there.
I am pointing out this as an explanation why when the collapse happened, people from the same family tended to quickly go together and form group. Suddenly you were in the same house with your grand uncle.
It was like that because strong blood tradition was present. It is not like that anymore. That tradition has faded away.
As a general thought, at first look more people meant more mouths to feed. But more people also meant more firepower, more working power, more support… It is about the skills, will, and mindset of those people.
How were responsibilities divided up?
Through the socialistic-communist society doctrine (in society before the war) it was strongly pushed that females and males were equal in any field of life, and people had that kind of mentality built.
But when the SHTF, pretty soon a traditional way of life jumped in. Women were staying home, taking care of kids and food, and men were going out more actively.
It was not rule, but it was usual.
Usually, women were the ones who knew how to make food from something that did not look like real food or to make it edible, or to comfort sick or frightened kid.
Women were the pillar of everything.
I would say that we simply did things that each one of us was best in. It was not democraty. The person (not necessary the oldest) who had most organizational skills was in charge, simply because it make sense like that. Duties were divided between other members based on skills, strength, and sense of fairness.
But things had to be done if you wanted to be part of everything.
As I said, we were family, so we were closely connected from before, so we did not have any big surprises. We were not preppers but we had that bond from before.
People of younger age would do the guard job, but a man of 85 years would not do that because we would do it much better then him. He would stay home that day and maybe take care of fixing the tarp that needed to be used for roof hole.
Note: There is a reason why I always advocate building your group way before SHTF, because in that way you get to know folks that your life my depend when SHTF.
What were some tasks that you had to do on a regular basis that we may not have considered?
You could call it scavenging.
When SHTF in a serious way, you were simply always missing something. Of course, you also missed important things, like food, water etc.
But you also missed (especially if you are not prepper) a whole bunch of small things that could make your life easier.
Some of those seem ridiculous. Like shoelaces, not only for shoes but also for oil lamps. But then you need shoelaces of a specific kind because the “bad kind“ kinda melted and turned off the lamp.
You were looking for a simple crowbar because it is a great tool for taking down wooden door frames or similar. You needed small pot with lid on it because you want to take fuel from an abandoned car by making hole in the tank.
You were looking for spare batteries in abandoned houses, candles, wires, ropes, soaps… anything that would make your life easier.
And it is a process because you need to be sure… Is that house empty? Is it safe so it will not collapse on you (roof looked partialy collapsed maybe)? Are you suspicious about booby traps because you do not know?
Simple things like a multitool (Gerber or Leatherman style) would make life so much easier in those days.
Any other stories you’d like to share?
In that time, for a light people usually used homemade lamps. A simple glass with small amount of cooking oil, shoelace, and a tin bottle cap and you have lamp.
It burned with a “dirty“ flame, with a lot of thick black smoke, but the real problem was that it smelled bad. But at the same time, it smelled like doughnuts.
At least it smelled like that to us in that time. We had a lot of hard times sitting in the room, discussing something in very bad light, hungry,v but feeling like doughnuts are almost ready for eating.
Then I was imagining doughnuts because of that smell. Now, whenever I eat doughnuts I always remember those survival lamps.
More from Selco
- Selco: Who Survives and Who Dies When the SHTF?
- Selco: How to Stay Warm During a Long-Term SHTF Situation
- Stories from an SHTF Christmas: An Interview with Selco
About Selco:
Selco survived the Balkan war of the 90s in a city under siege, without electricity, running water, or food distribution. He is currently accepting students for his next physical course here.
In his online works, he gives an inside view of the reality of survival under the harshest conditions. He reviews what works and what doesn’t, tells you the hard lessons he learned, and shares how he prepares today.
He never stopped learning about survival and preparedness since the war. Regardless of what happens, chances are you will never experience extreme situations as Selco did. But you have the chance to learn from him and how he faced death for months.
- Read more of Selco’s articles here.
- Buy his PDF books here.
- Buy his #1 New Release paperback, The Dark Secrets of Survival here.
- Take advantage of a deep and profound insight into his knowledge by signing up for his online course SHTF Survival Boot Camp.
- Learn the inside story of what it was really like when the SHTF with his online course One Year in Hell.
Real survival is not romantic or idealistic. It is brutal, hard and unfair. Let Selco take you into that world.
I wonder if anyone Selco knew, left the country by boat? A lot of people advocate having an escape boat, and since Bosnia is on the Adriatic Sea, I wonder if anyone used that option?
Have to laugh at your ‘grammar nazi’ disclaimer, Daisy! Coming from an old school ethnic family, spending much of my life living and working with immigrants young and old (mostly from the Eastern European area), I personally get Selco. I can even ‘hear’ him speaking as I read your interviews with him! I imagine it is kind of difficult to transcribe the interviews. (I used to do transcription for a doctor from India who was schooled in the UK, THAT was a unique accent!)
That said, I truly value the stories that Selco shares (as well as those of Jose from Venezuela). The information shared should wake some folks out of their normalcy bias, one hopes.
Also, I am wondering if folks outside of the cities fared any better than the city dwellers during this time? Was there any type of exodus into the countryside (the ‘Golden Horde’ a lot of sites refer to)? I don’t recall if you have discussed that with Selco at all?
In most of Europe there isn’t “the 5 acre dreams” that we have here where everyone has a place. Most folks live in a town or gathering and the farmland is pure. There were advantages and disadvantages to both from what I saw when I was there. Numbers always help but can also lead to issues in grouping. The “Horde” was mainly the militias and military and a few gangs from what I saw. The people spent a lot of time concealing resources from them. There wasn’t a mass “golden” exodus unless it was all the way out as there wasn’t anywhere not being effected. All of the Balkan countries combined are not much larger than say Oregon so the land mass is much smaller than what we could see here SHTF.
These are just my observations from my months spent there but I’m sure Selco has a much clearer view from living it.
Thank you for real life experiences to learn from. One of the take aways is concentrating even more on usefull skills. I am wondering how the issue of paying monthly rental fees for a city apartment were dealt with? Can’t imagine the landlord just waiving them despite the dire situation for all…
As a young army wife in our early day it was hard to understand why DH had to leave us for a year to go to some place called Bosnia. Reading all of this I can now understand why and am so glad that we could help in some way.
This also our children to understand & accept why they had to be with out there dad
Thank you again for having voices from places that have experienced a SHTF. Nothing beats good old fashioned insight from folks who have lived it.
And I too, can almost hear his voice while I read.
A follow up… after rereading this and additional entries from Selco that I had overlooked… I have put a small booklet into my bug-out-bag with my favourite 30 Pictures and songs and texts that are uplifting … or just funny…
So they did most of their stuff at night? How? In the dark? Holding a lantern? That makes no sense.
Marylou – flashlights, headlamps, lanterns – various different ways.
You can do a lot by moonlight. I like Selco’s accent. I’ve heard him speaking at his other site in the past.
Here’s a tip: try and spend a few days in the dark around your off electricity and do everything using a flash light or better yet a headlamp. Use candles, etc (careful not to cause fire or burns).
You’ll see how much we can adapt and how much we can do in the dark. It also slows down the passing of time and teaches us to be patient and have focus of what’s in front of us, what we’re doing, because otherwise we screw things up.
That’s what and how Selco and others did and do things during serious SHTF. And it’s good training too, every prepper should try this.
a lot of good sense and knowledge earned the hard way and shared willingly.
I thank you
Can you talk about what place currency had on a day to day basis during this time. Were you able to purchase items with money, or was the only way to acquire the things you needed done through bartering or scavenging, etc.
Selco, I live on the west side of Bitmir. There are still many destroyed homes all around me, and a Morrocan migrant murdered a cafe bar owner 100 meters from my front door last month for just telling the animal he had to close at 11 pm due to the cv19 curfew. I was here during SFOR, and know what it means to be shot at from these endless abondoned buildings. There are many like you still fighting – and winning – to keep Sarajevo recovering, and I thank you for the many SHTF articles of advice and reflection over the years.
Food.
Be amazed how much ones morale improved with a good hot meal, especially if you are cold and or wet.
Thank you for an excellent article.
I think to few “preppers” truly understand what a daily SHTF existence would be like.
To many think that their “preps” will sustain them and make life somewhat “normal”.
This should be a wake up call.
Doing many things at night ( I am sure with out using much light, as it would attract unwanted attention), would be really hard. Especially gathering wood.
I think to many of us rely on our “preps” to get us through the SHTF, but if it runs very long, the “preps” will run out. How will we cope then? That is the big question we must ask ourselves. I think the real long term planning of many preppers is lacking.
Actually most preppers know full well that the preps they have on hand are there to get them through the short term bottle neck of survival and into their long range plans.
As I tell the tacti-cool community, so you have a years supply of MREs. What happens after one year plus one day have passed?
Then what?
Same could be said about everything from toothpaste, to TP.
Same goes for the yahoos who think they are going to just go around killing and pillaging. Sounds great till they have killed all the people who had the knowledge of how to grow gardens, crops, save seeds raise livestock.
IIRC, there might be an instance or two of that happening in history (Stalin, Mao). I recall a whole lot of people starved to death.
So most, but not all, preppers are doing what they can in the here and now to get the most practical experience of how to save seeds. How to garden. How to raise small, medium and even large livestock. It has been noted that more people have re-discovered the art of home cooking from scratch during the lockdowns. The shortages at the grocery stores have not gone un-noticed by most preppers.
Even some non-preppers have woke up to those facts and have started to become preppers (increase in traffic here at TOP).
@1stMarineJarHead,
most people have no idea how dangerous looting and pillaging can be. I’ve seen people shot, clubbed, stampeded, trying to enter (and leave) stores and other people’s houses during near-SHTFs here.
I prep so I don’t have to go out and risk my life in search for stuff precisely when everything is crazy and people are desperate. I know I can’t live forever on stockpiles, maybe not even mid-term. So prepping is just a buffer for me.
@Mic,
I do prepping guidance to beginners here and I’m always advocating for “prepping training”. Basically, it’s getting controlled contact with SHTF: using your gear and preps frequently and developing SHTF skills. It sounds hard but in fact it’s not.
I do that since 2008 by going to the streets and living like a homeless a few days, wandering the streets paying attention to people and places, scavenging, trying to score gigs and meals, sleeping in parks and under bridges, interacting with street people.
Also at home, turning off the power and doing everything in the dark, taking cold showers, sleeping on the floor, using my gear to cook and fix stuff, things like that. It’s a bit like camping which I also love but in a much different environment (the city), because it’s where I live.
I don’t know much but this I can say: by doing that anyone can have a good idea of discomfort and difficulty levels that is surviving without safety and so many conveniences and comforts.
This is the first time I’ve viewed this site: and even though the War has not gone hot in SF where I live, already I can see some of the signs. Half the businesses are gone. Prolonged lockdown (mandatory local government imprisonment) has resulted in the last two days in a disrupted sleep cycle. I am now seriously considering getting a weapon. While the lights are on and the water is running, and food is still available from local stores, the City is all but dead. It is turning into a ghost town. It is as if the City and State are hanging in the wind. We have air purification and water filtration, but things could go south very quickly after the 6th, and SF is not high on the list of Military priorities given that it is effectively a Communist stronghold, and would have to be taken out and put under military supervision for four years to root out the rats. I am sorry to say that this is the first time I have come to terms with this by reading your site. I hope and pray that 45 can spare the Military assets to restore our lost freedoms. God bless
I know SF and feel sad too Stephen. It’s a beautiful place I’ve been there a few times in fact I was in CA a couple yrs ago and it was magnificent everywhere, but I already saw signs of what’s coming with so many homeless and addicts wandering LA and SF. But other than that everything was normal and functioning.
We do have the same here where I live BTW, homeless exploding and all, it’s not yet a ghost town but businesses are closing and places getting empty quickly too. It’s always sad when a vibrant place goes dead indeed.
And yes it gets dangerous. Get ready for spikes in criminality and delinquency, there’ll be a ton of desperate, hopeless people everywhere, turning to drugs, alcohol and crime to keep going. They’ll battle themselves but also strike everyone else. We must be ready for that however we can.
I’m saying that because it was a lot like that in the 80’s where I live (everywhere in fact), and that’s where we’re all headed to IMHO. Big cities will be very decadent and dangerous in the coming yrs there’s no doubt that, also because tax revenue will drop and all services will suffer.
WHAT SELCO went through,will seem like a walk in the park compared to whats coming on america,THEY have done such a good job of screwing themselves, very few will survive the stupity,AMERICANS will never stop kissing LUCIFERS butt,AKA the government agents of Lucifer,him and his minions,the POLICE GANGS AND MILITARY..they protect their bosses and serve their master lucifer,The population will drop to almost zero ,before it stops on its own,,,THE CATTLE cars and fema death camps are coming…
If things continue on their present course in the U. S., we may be facing this sooner rather than later.
This is why I get into it so hard with so many “in the community”. They think they will be “going on patrol” in the superdudyX3000 with all the coolios they’ve put on it or riding ATVs with NODs and striking fear into the hearts of others with tattoos, beards and ammo usage because the magic redoubt retreat ranch will hire them as security and someone else will cook the magically appearing food, do laundry, garden, tend to the critters and work the other 16 hours of the day.
Y’all think you ain’t gonna “scavenge” your nuts. You’ll do stuff that’ll go against every grain of your being to stay alive. I refuse to judge them negatively for it. In fact the opposite I admire them greatly. The truly good ones, like Selco, came outta it and made something of themselves again.
Y’all it sucked there. It sucked so bad that I kicked my preparedness game up about 3 notches when I came home because it scared the S outta me. This ain’t a game, this ain’t to be cool, this ain’t to be a part of something or have stuff to talk about. People died from crazy stuff daily.
@Matt in OK,
Yep.
I see that in the tacti-cool crowd all the time. They will be all kitted up, with their tricked out AR15, standing overwatch while everyone else does the chores, cuz, they are too busy, standing around, providing security. (roll eyes)
Most of them get winded walking from the lazy-boy to the fridge.
I read this article and it causes me to remember the stories told by my parents and Grandparents about living through the Depression. The scavenging, the bartering since no one had any money, trading skills for a bit of food or clothing for the kids. The cobbling together of whatever was available for meals. Picking up coal dropped by trains to sell as fuel to those who needed it. Still, they were not being shot at nor were they living in damaged homes and buildings without much heat in the winter or risking their very lives each time they left the house. Americans have become to soft because of their comforts and the pandemic of normalcy bias thinking nothing really bad will be allowed to happen while trusting in the very ones who will ultimately cause bad things to happen. “I’ll worry about it if it happens” and “They will never let that happen here” are two common responses. SMH
I dunno Whydah.
I agree with you about Americans being soft.
But I am also seeing a lot of people under a lot of stress from all of this.
A lot of small business people are seriously hurting, and a lot of them are pissed off.
They should be pissed off! They are being denied the right to earn a living by little tyrants who don’t have the authority to be doing what they are doing. You know what pisses me off? Watching those small business owners do NOTHING! It pisses me off when I go out and see all those sheeple wearing those worthless rags across their faces that do NOTHING to protect against any virus. Obey, obey, obey! Where the hell is the American independent spirit? Where has the critical thinking gone to analyze facts and make a personal decision instead of being cowed by some piss-ant mayor or governor or not wanting to be different from the herd? I don’t wear the “Rag of Submission”, nor do I “lock-down”. I have yet to be confronted by any Sheeple over my “selfishness” of disobeying. If one does look like they want to say something I just glare at them and they move on. (It helps by putting on your “War Face”) laugh.
it should however be noted that Selco was operating under a WAR situation, although some of the circumstances might be similar SHTF isnt necessarily going to be because of war.
War or non war, when the system crashes/grid goes down, it’s the same everywhere. People are people, response is pretty much the same along a certain timeline. At the core, the fight for resources is what dictates human reactions.
It might not be because of war but the violence always finds its way into the vacuum created by events in my experience.
Even just a hurricane shows how quickly it unfolds.
Dont have to go to a hurricane.
See the chaos and violence on-going in places like NYC? St. Louis? Chicago?
And more . . .
Around us there will be same lesson the Norwegians taught the Russians in 39 and the Russians the German in 43.
Minus 40 for a week plus….. 8 feet of snow….. if you are not ready…. you wont make it.
I have a question for Selko – what are people doing for sex on a daily basis? This may sound strange, but I have first hand experience of this within a volunteer group in a closed environment in normal society. It does not take long before the single men are making unwanted advances on the women or looking for paid or free sex on the outside. I can only imagine what must go when society is falling apart.