We, as survivors and preppers, have a legacy to fulfill. And what will our legacy as preppers be? What will the future be like? What is the role of the prepper?
Let’s perform a thought experiment together, if you will. Something big has wiped us out. An EMP, disease, war – whatever, it doesn’t really matter.There were survivors of whatever this event was, but they were few. Now, 400 years have passed since that time and mankind is trying to piece together just what it was that happened to us. Why did some make it out alive while others perished?
Will future generations dig through our ruins to try to piece together what happened to us? Or, will “digital archeologists” (transhumans or AI) find a thumb drive locked in a bunker or a CD in a storm shelter detailing how we once lived?
Future generations need to know the preppers of today were not self-centered people.
They have to know that everything we did was for love. Every plant sown, every tree planted, every bit of advice given – they were all to help ensure the survival of our loved ones. I would like future generations to know that not all preppers were former military, trained to survive in the most severe of conditions. Most of us were simply average civilians, understanding the inherent dangers of the world around us.
Perhaps there will be some lesson that can be gleaned from such a statistic.
We are the family breadwinners, uncles, grammas, dads, sisters, brothers, aunts and grampas. And, for the most part, we were all loving, caring people who tried to collaborate and do something for the survival of people as a whole.
Let the future know we never considered prepping a waste of time.
Those who have barely opened their eyes to the concept of prepping approach it with mixed feelings. Many people don’t know that “prepping” is a relatively new word for activities we’ve been involved with since the dawn of time.
Prepping is not just about gathering resources, but also about learning how to live a decent life while producing as much as we can. Sure, in the end, many preppers die of old age or illness with a payload of gear they never used. But that person did it out of love for their family. A love that materialized as practical tools to ease hard times.
Prepping is a way of life.
I have never lived in a place with winter so bad that people need to store food. However, I do know about ancient preservation methods in tropical areas! My father taught me that. Even in the fertile lands of my country, the rainy season makes it impossible to harvest anything. Storing corn cobs – protecting them from mice – was truly a matter of life and death.
Many people filled clean steel barrels with beans and corn to consume in the rainy season. Dry onions and garlic were wrapped in rope hung off the chimneys of the stove to be added to the meals as needed. People stored dry, salty catfish and meat in wood boxes, sometimes with a steel mesh.
This is not “prepping” a la “antique Venezuela.” It’s the way life was.
The stereotypical “profile” of preppers should NOT be our legacy.
Big-brother, Aldous-Huxleyan governments love labeling segments of society. Governments believe that by doing so, they will be able to “control” it or even “define” it.
Let’s refuse to allow ourselves to be labeled. Let’s build something else from the ground up.
Our legacy is one of courage. It takes bravery to be willing to take steps to stay self-sufficient and alive in a world filled with those under the sway of normalcy bias. To decide to learn how to can, to store food, or to treat common maladies of one’s own accord isn’t viewed as “normal” behavior by much of the world.
(Make sure to check out our free QUICKSTART Guide on canning to help you along on that process.)
Those who came back alive from the worst conflicts in history were the pioneers, the first to show the way. Some of them went through deep “manure” to do so, but they were the ones who informed the coming generations of what was out there.
I fail to see how preppers are any different. We are the pioneers, pointing people towards the self-sufficiency that mankind once had. We are the ones who try to keep our friends from paying consequences which could have easily been avoided.
What is YOUR legacy?
So who are we? Who are preppers?
We are (mostly) loving, spiritual people. We care about others so much that we will repel any aggression to keep our loved ones from harm. I like to think our legacy is both a wise and correct attitude. It is a path with dignity, worth, and relentless determination to give coming generations the brightest possible future.
Who are you? What do you think we should leave behind? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
About Jose
Jose is an upper middle class professional. He is a former worker of the oil state company with a Bachelor’s degree from one of the best national Universities. He has an old but in good shape SUV, a good 150 square meters house in a nice neighborhood, in a small but (formerly) prosperous city with two middle size malls. Jose is a prepper and shares his eyewitness accounts and survival stories from the collapse of his beloved Venezuela. Jose and his younger kid are currently back in Venezuela, after the intention of setting up a new life in another country didn’t go well. The SARSCOV2 re-shaped the labor market and South American economy so he decided to give it a try to homestead in the mountains, and make a living as best as possible. But this time in his own land, and surrounded by family, friends and acquaintances, with all the gear and equipment collected, as the initial plan was.
Follow Jose on YouTube and gain access to his exclusive content on Patreon. Donations: paypal.me/JoseM151 or the BTC address 3QQcFfK9GvZNEmALuVV8D6AUttChTdtReE
What I’m trying to leave behind is to be well rounded.
Know how to cook, can, build, castrate, rope, fight, skin and process, be compassionate, cut wood, clean or whatever.
The effective range of an excuse is zero meters. You are where the buck stops.
Your not above any task and your not below anyone.
Good points “Pioneer” versus “Prepper.” I could go into a long diatribe about government versus the “common citizen,” but frankly I am worn out over all of the vitriol associated with that.
– Pioneers. I come from a long line of people who migrated from other countries for a number of reason and left behind everything they had. Today’s “Pioneers” are, as you said, the prepping community. The collective “we” do it for a number of reasons; and it’s a broad range of reasons; one man’s crazy is another man’s reality or reason to do it.
– “Non-Prepper’s” are finding their “new reality” to be a lot more stark as societies norms are changing (especially in the US). It is no longer the “Land-of-Plenty” they once enjoyed.
– SHTF. In my opinion the classical scenario – “when it all falls down” will be a descent”, sometimes gradual and sometimes precipitous. Until it is pretty much the chaotic event some of us dream of and some of us dread, but all are getting ready for.
– What kind of “Prepper” am I? I don’t believe in the Zombie Apocalypse (though I like reading about it – “Dark Tide Rising.”) I don’t believe we will get taken out by an EMP (mostly because I am an IT guy by trade and don’t like building Faraday Cages – too much copper). In the past I have always been “prudent” in my preparation. However…In the last 5 years I have drastically increased my level of “SHTF” preparedness. Sold my house, bought a piece of dirt (Green Acres Scenario) have been developing it; “Off Grid” everything, gardening, chickens, orchard, etc.
So…can we change the general populations opinion of “Preppers?” Unfortunately we do not control the narrative because of our general nature of wanting not to draw attention to ourselves (though some have tried to make it more “main stream.”) He who controls the narrative controls the “witch hunts.” “Preppers” a.k.a. “Hoarders” will at some point be vilified because we have “stuff” that the “have-nots” feel obligated to have; whether its your neighbors or the government (a.k.a. “Uncle Sugar”) History is a great teacher!
My hat is off to you that are trying in the greater society as a whole!! (like this site).
For me and mine…we do it one neighbor, one County Manager’s meeting, one school board meting, one Church Sunday at a time.
Showing people we are relatively “normal” goes a long way.
So for all my pioneer ancestors from Scotland, Ireland and Germany…I see your footsteps…
Dear InTheBooniesTX,
I would like to mention that the entire Earth God left us to live in is a Land of Plenty…we just have to look where it is.
Take care, amigo!
The best legacy might just be teaching a mindset from which all else follows: Self sufficiency/self reliance/learning all the skills you can be taught. IOW, think like our forebears, the pioneers of yesteryear who made do with little but used their brains & experiences to thrive. Adapt. And never quit learning.
I made a comment in another article about how if things were to go all SHTF, everything becoming local, the importance of educating children (and even adults) in not just the basics (although those are very important), but also history to include the good, the bad and the ugly in context.
And the history of what lead up to the SHTF as much as we can understand it, to not repeat the same mistakes.
Depending on the timing and depth of such an event, we may find ourselves teaching children about things that might seem magical to them. Airplanes, the internet, MRI/X-rays, movies etc.
Sound impossible?
So did the idea of a locking down entire countries, economies and societies over a virus that has a survival rate 99% of those under the age of 65.
Two pop-culture references:
1) Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome, when Max is looking through the View Master slide show, the kids, the children having become so primitive, they do not know or understand what the slides are of.
2) Reign of Fire, when after acting out a scene from Star Was, The Empire Strikes Back (“Luke, I am your father!”), a child asks, “Did you make that up?”
Christian Bale’s character response, “Of course I did.”
Yeah just makes me want to get it over with already….
Like you and many here we have already hashed, re-hashed the SHTF scenarios.
Spiraling downward….
Your right…so many common task…things we do all having to be re-taught to those who have never had to do. Things we’ve done and seen, memories, movies and books.
Well said, InTheBooniesTx.
Odd is it not? I look at my book shelves and some of the Sci-fi or fantasy books (e.g. Dune, Lord Of The Rings) future children could say the same about our past.
My father was born in a house with a dirt floor in 1925 on a start-up dairy farm. He lived through the great Depression, WW2, and all the unrests and threats until he passed away last year. His legacy to his children, myself included, was how to prepare for what might be coming, deal with it honestly and with confidence, and have faith that what you are doing to not only take care of your family but others along their way.
On a note, he was a private school teacher on a meager salary, but as a youth I never knew a day without three meals, a warm bed and the love of my parents. It’s not what you have, but what you give, and knowledge and heart will provide both to carry you and your loved ones through tough times.
I’ll be honest. The main reason I’m into prepping isn’t to save the species (I’m 60, too old to have more children (or at least want any more children), saving the species is my children’s job, and apparently they’re not interested – too wrapped up in living for the moment). What I want is to live as freely as possible for me and those I surround myself with (family, new friends and compatriots I’ve adopted since the scamdemic started, etc.). If there was the ultimate calamity to befall us (in my opinion, general nuclear war), my hope would be that I’m at ground zero when the blast takes me out so I can be vaporized before I even know what happened. It’s the lesser stuff I’m prepping for.
Does that mean I don’t want our species to survive? Not at all. I just hope the right members of our species – those who care about preserving human freedom and the environment – survive to carry on.
What does this tell you about who the Biden/Woke/US Government actually wants to survive?
Evidence That US Government Targeted Red States With Deadly Batches of Vaccine,
By Greg Reese, January 22, 2022
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/01/no_author/evidence-that-us-government-targeted-red-states-with-deadly-batches-of-vaccine/
–Lewis
Hey Lewis.
Not exactly on topic, but…it´s interesting, to say the least. Thanks for sharing.
The legacy is a way of thinking – courage to do hard things, willingness to learn, getting all the education you can, morals to stand for what is right, determination to finish, grit to endure, not expecting the world owes you, self-discipline whether it is handling money or refusing to “enjoy” the sins of this world (excessive alcohol, drugs, porn, adultery, etc.), willing to work and not being lazy watching T. V. or browsing the internet beyond normal need for relaxation. It’s also teaching our families skills that are no longer taught by society such as cooking, sewing, shooting, hunting, canning and other food preservation methods, building & home repair skills, gardening, budgeting, how to shop (compare prices, sales, value), and preparing for the future and times of scarcity. I was taught those things and I have taught them to my children – that is the legacy.
My grandfather was a Mormon pioneer – walked across the plains at 2 years old and homesteaded 120 acres where he grew the food he needed, made his own tools, built his own home, and could fix anything. You don’t need to tell anyone with that ancestry not to trust the government. Did you know the state of Missouri issued an extermination order and it was legal to kill a Mormon? The reason? Not religion – Mormons were yankees and Missouri was a slave state – they didn’t want the balance of power changing with the influx of Mormon settlers not to mention it was great to run them out and take all their land & possessions for free. The federal government refused to intervene – right here in the United States. The president said he’d lose the vote of Missourians. The government has always been corrupt. It’s not anything new. Look at history and the people who have been persecuted – Jews, Irish, Catholics, Mormons, etc. and some day it will be preppers. They will find an excuse to take what you worked for.
Dear Kay in Utah,
Wonderful story. I never knew that killing a mormon was legal up there, in some part of your history. Awful. One of my grampas came here being a grown man, the other one was a younger one. Some part of my extended family never met them.
Yes, it seems their excuse is whatever they could find to take whatever they are unable to work for.
And to be prepared to fight for it should be our legacy.
J.
Kay in Utah,” Did you know the state of Missouri issued an extermination order and it was legal to kill a Mormon?”
Massachusetts had a law on the books up until 1947 I think, which said if anyone saw somebody crossing the border from Rhode Island into Ma. you could shoot them, not only that but, you were duty bound to. You see, way back when the Pilgrims had setup their colony, if you were banished from the colony, you were sent to Rhode Island, and you could never return.
Preppers will be remembered as ahead of the curve and on the right side of history.
Heads in the sand people have no chance and that is no place to be.
“That’s what governments are for. Get in a man’s way.” – Malcolm Reynolds
Always true….
Awesome!
Brown Coats!
Like that novel A Canticle for Leibowitz we must be the preservers of knowledge and honor.
Mere brute survival is not enough, needful but there must be more, hope for a better day beyond dodging trouble and hunting squirrels.
Got Books you want your kids and Grandkids to read? Got books to teach them to READ?
Electronics fail, when it’s important Hard Copy.
Michael,
My wife made the same reference to A Canticle for Leibowitz.
You are right about there needs to be more than just surviving.
I am saving some reference books that should become valuable in a post collapse, grid down future. Chief among them are a 1960’s era Encyclopaedeia Britannica, one of the last great editions before meddling editors messed up the recipe. Real history – the way we learned it – is contained in those 26 books, along with authoritative descriptions on science and technology of almost all sorts (computers clearly from a later date).
Years ago I happened across a series of technical books from post WW2 called, I believe, “The Radiation Project”, from Oak Ridge Labs (?), written specifically to help rebuild our technological society in the event of nuclear war. I’d love to track down an edition of that again.
Dear BarrensHomey,
The correct actions with those books you mention are:
1. Search
2. Download
3. Print
4. Store
5. Repeat from Step 1.
Thanks! I´m already cleaning and cataloguing some of my dad´s old books. I will post some pics in the Patreon site for the public.
Stay tuned!
J.
My legacy will be my children and grandchildren. Tomorrow my wife is leaving for our daughter and son in law for a week to deliver our second granddaughter in house. Tough women both of them. I’ll be sick with anxiety for a week waiting, but I know it’ll be fine. Her husband is a combat vet Marine and completely gets it. Preps and knowledge out the wazoo.
Our two sons both get it. One is a skipper of an offshore tug and the other is an anesthesiologist. Both are prepped up with excellent wives that get it also.
As long as we keep passing our knowledge on to the next generation, we’ll all be remembered well and honored for our duty as parents to prepare our children for their future. I can sleep well.
~Jim,
While I am not religious, I will be thinking of you and yours in delivery of your second granddaughter.
May mother and child be healthy and happy.
Semper Fi.
I’m hoping to hell there’s enough surviving preppers with the correct mindset of family, country, The Savior and general righteousness >>> that we can have a restart with the proper foundation …
More than ever I hope the “Woke”s won’t be the dominant surviving majority – bad enough now trying to transform society into their likeness >>> God help any new virgin society based on such whack-a-doodle ideals and low morality …..
Preserve yourself and yours – stay strong in your beliefs – come out in a leadership role for the others that survive >>> We’ll be needing all of you
Wokeism is a symptom of a society that as advanced to the point the absurd is embraced as common sense when in reality it is anything but.
In a SHTF event, these ideas of non-binary sexual orientation, preferred pronouns, gender fluidity, etc. will end, up, short and in a hurry as the basics of maintaining homeostasis or the base of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will come to the forefront of everyone’s existence.
You insist I use your preferred pronoun? Might find yourself on the outside of the newly forming society that has to focus on food, water, shelter, security.
All those woke ideas will be abandoned when people come to realize what is truly important.
Dear 1stMarineJarHead,
You´re right. The transitional period, I´m afraid, is going to make much of these people suffer. Albeit our collapse was a local one, I do know there were plenty of members from that community facing hard times, mostly because of many of them tend to work in non-essential activities (hairdressing, nails saloons, boutiques…). Mind you, South America keeps being a Catholic, Conservative majority. An you´re right, at the end of the day, all of those pseudo-intellectual chit chat the commies instigated within Western societies to make them crumble will end meaning nothing when they have to look for work in a farm or some production compound feeding pigs, cattle or cleaning the chicken coops day after day.
By the way and before anyone set up this section in flames, my comment was because there is a huge diatribe down here regarding the language, as the Spanish language DOES have a very close relationship with gender. The only ones forcing the “inclusion” (there was never any exclusion, to begin with) in public down here, are those promoting and forcing the communist agenda that generated our cataclysm and collapse. There is a bond, and I just couldn´t avoid to expose it.
Stay tuned!
J.
When I was s kid my grampa said, ” when I was a kid, cars were rare and horses were common. Yesterday I watched a man walk on the moon”.
Jose M says:
“Hey Lewis.
Not exactly on topic, but…it´s interesting, to say the least.”
Perhaps I should have been more explicit. My point was intended to be that leaving any legacy is not going to happen if you are part of a population (the so-called “red” states) being targeted for extinction by deadly bio-warfare agents masquerading as vaccines — and you get suckered into accepting the Fauci Flu jab — aka a kill shot (in slower motion for some compared to others).
–Lewis
Feels great to know my legacy is safe, then…!