Sudden burst of the survival instinct.

Recently, I've had a sudden burst of the need to survive. I've been interested in increasing my physical strength, as well as my mental strength. I've been packing a BoB, (Which isn't going very well, I'm only 15 and I'm broke. ) Finding out of place areas to hide, and live for short periods of time, and possible routes out of where I live. I also have been looking around for different types of survival guides, and army field manuals, learning as much as I can. I'm not paranoid, so I can rule out paranoia. Anyone here at ATS got any solutions to why I've been a little obsessed with survival, and the possible outcome of Situation X.

[edit on (7/14/0707 by Hexidecimal]

The age of fifteen was a major turning point in my life, I wonder if others are the same. Personally I "blame" hormones.

Pretty sure I'm past the puberty stage. If it's hormones, I would've had this survival burst a long time ago. A few weeks ago, I was sitting at home, playing video games on my computer, and just recently, I got the "Urge", So to speak.

Hmm...maybe you needed more physical and mental activity and this is just the most convenient way for you to get both?

Maybe, I have been getting a little chubby lately. But that wouldn't explain all the preparation for Sit. X. Such as the BoB, and the routes out of town.

Best bet is to form a family plan. Friends too. Get a cheap camper and stock up on the easy to get stuff. Water, food, and tools. Extra propane and a few can openers. Glow sticks, batteries, on and on. Enough to survive for 1 month is best. After that FEMA might be off their ass, but 3 month supply wont hurt. Going to need at least 2400 calories a day per person and a gallon of water per person per day at least. Simple meds too. Crank radio, place for all your loved ones to meet. And a second place for those left behind. A .22 rifle and tons of ammo for hunting small stuff and putting holes in bigger stuff. Duct tape, gauze, and lots of matches. A few good knives, and a dog or two. Seeds for food, long can be fun and hey if nothing happens you can stock your first apartment bud

What is this BoB you speak of?

Originally posted by Project_Silo
What is this BoB you speak of?

BoB is short for Bug out Bag and I believe a term used mostly on ATS.
OP have you been reading the survival forum a lot recently? Could account for your feelings as such.

BoB means 'Bug out Bag,' or short term survival kit to be used for evacuation purposes.

The topic of this thread seems to be, not what should I do, but why am I doing it.

My guess is that it is due to a number of factors. As mentioned earlier, 15 is an age of change for many people. Our world view expands along with our self awareness.

One can also look at current world events and understand reasons why we would be concerned for future survival in these troubled times.

The fact that you are on ATS and read postings about current events and survival, could also be quite influential.

I am also curious about what 'video games' you enjoy playing. (Xbox 360 RULES Btw!!!) If you are blasting away bad guys in Halo for example, perhaps the adventure could lead you to pondering your survivability in the real world.

What ever the reasons one has for thinking about survival mode, there are millions of years of evolution behind you. As a species we have survived a considerable amount of upheaval, and planning activities that increase your odds are only natural. Starting with simple things like a BOB, and Evac planning is both useful and educational.

Don't panic and be prepared.

I personally know how hard it can be for a teenager to get together a good BoB. You're new to it so you lack a lot of knowledge of what is good to have and what you can do without, and also you may not have the funds available to put a good BoB together.

My advice would be to do what I did. Get together as much as you can, and then for the rest of it, just make a list of what you need and where it's located in your house so you can grab it at a moments notice.

For example if you can't get a good knife of your own, you know there will always be knives available in your kitchen at a moment's notice. The kitchen holds lots of other good stuff too... grab some granola bars or other snack on your way out that will be light to carry but full of nutrients. Grab some rope and tape and misc. tools from the garage or basement, etc. Try to be able to gather up everything you need in only a few minutes.

Since you can't drive yet, you'll probably be planning to bike out wherever you need to go if you are doing it alone without your family. Plan out a good path to take, preferrably a walking and bike trail that cars aren't allowed to drive on to avoid mass confusion and possible violent encounters. Have a long-term goal of where you want to reach.

Get some friends to start thinking about it as well, although this part can be hard, it is much better than going alone. I haven't been able to get any of my friends to really commit to any sort of survival plan, just that if the you-know-what hits the fan, they might come with me. So good luck with that. Most people don't seem too into it.

If you want more specific manuals, websites, or answers, U2U me or just ask here. I've got a couple of military manuals and other misc. survival guides that I might post up later. A Google search will give you a good list of what you should include in your BoB, but compare lists on different sites and drop things you don't want/need.

Oh and you were right on the money with personal fitness. There are lots of so-called survival experts with big beer belies that couldn't run a mile if their life depended on it (which it might some day.) I've been meaning to start working out a lot more... thanks for the reminder . You can't over-estimate it. All the fancy equipment in the world won't be worth anything if you can't run and fight for a few hours straight.


[edit on 7/14/2007 by Yarcofin]

If you have Barnes&Noble or Borders nearby, I suggest you do some heavy reading in the mag rack, Wilderness Way and the Backwoodsman Magazine. Both offer excellent advice on scrounging up survival gear from other folks discards.
If you own a mountain bike, that should be your primary bug out vehicle.
I'd put both front and rear racks on it for added load carrying capablity. Buy the absolute best tire, tubes and seat you can afford for it. Flat aren't easy to fix and are best avoided and your butt will thank you for a cushy seat.

I am also curious about what 'video games' you enjoy playing.

I've recently been playing "Frets on Fire", "Half life 2", and "Maplestory". Half life is the only Human survival game I've been playing.

There are lots of so-called survival experts with big beer belies that couldn't run a mile if their life depended on it.

Actually, I'm already incredibly athletic. With a top running speed of about 20Km (10 miles), and a general knowledge of Akido and Karate.

Haven't had much luck convincing friends and family to make a BoB, or a group. They all say I'm crazy and that nothings going to happen. I say it doesn't hurt to be prepared.

If you want more specific manuals, websites, or answers, U2U me or just ask here

Now, I wouldn't mind that at all. Thanks.

DAMN YOU HEXIDECIMAL!!! LOL YOUR MILES AHEAD OF ME!!!

i am also 15 too, in an ok state of athletic being and too on the lil' chubby side. Unfortuatnly i have only thought of these survival things and unfortuantly i havnt put them into action thinking i wont ever need it. But then again, seeing the state of the world and things to come i dont think it would hurt to prepare.

Good job on taking the initiative on what you have at hand

and yea, for some weird reason my world too has been flipped upside down when i turned around 15. LOL i too blame hormones, lil guys always run amok

Instead of an expensive BOB, learn to use what nature gives you. Knowledge is the lightest tool in your bag. (Even lighter than titanium!) Learn to be in tune with your environment, instead of relying on technology. Think Low tech, topo maps printed from www.topozone.com, several small cheap folding blades, in case you lose or break a couple, and put one in your bob, one in your pants, and if you're carrying a hip pack or detachable parts of your mainbag stash one in there .(my bag comes apart and gives me a large hip pack)

Make a pepsi can stove and bring a small (~1 liter, i use a coffee can) pot with stand to boil water and melt snow. Use HEET as fuel, it's sold in hardware and auto parts stores, it's a fuel antifreeze you add to your tank, but it's almost pure alcohol, burns almost invisibly, and leaves absolutely no soot on your can, the bottom of my boiling pot is still shiny after lots of use. Be careful though because it's not easy to see it burning, which is a plus if you don't want to be seen.

Most importantly, go spend time out around where you live using your equipment. You'll realize after a while that most stuff you carry that you thought you'd need never actually gets used. The more i go out here, the less i need. I used to take my basic gear, a tarp/tent, 40deg bag, rope, stove, burner, lighters and matches and it was light, after a while i found i was just tossing on my regular camelback that i carry everywhere i go, like a purse. Recently, i don't even bother tossing on any pack, t-shirt and gym shorts w/no pockets, socks, shoes, and i'm good to go. I'm in the sky islands of the high sonoran desert which isn't the easiest environment to "survive" in. I do mostly night hiking through mountain passes and have no problems navigating trails by starlight even on a moonless night. My friend comes with me and he's using his light a lot less now, mainly to navigate steep rocky sections and climb rock walls and stuff.

Yesterday I headed off into the mountians with just my boxers, a t shirt, and shoes, thinking it would rain, and i'd get water. It cleared up and didn't rain. I ended up finding a shaded low spot under a dry waterfall in a wash, dug a hole with a stick and a flat rock, and within a few minutes of digging i had a nice little pool of good water, enough to get a drink, and soak myself down and cool off. Learn to survive like an animal and you'll be all set. What if you lose your pack and end up butt nekkid in the wilderness?

If there's any fish where you are, get a small handline fishing kit together and put it in an altoids tin or a hollowed out Sharpie marker. My "fishing pole"is a sharpie wrapped with friction tape, ten spooled with some 10lb line, and some assorted sized needles which i can either rig as a hook or use for sewing are stashed in the inside of the marker case, along with a few feet of waxed sinew for making large repairs like sewing a pack back together, or fixing footwear.

Originally posted by Hexidecimal
Recently, I've had a sudden burst of the need to survive. I've been interested in increasing my physical strength, as well as my mental strength. I've been packing a BoB, ...
[edit on (7/14/0707 by Hexidecimal]

IMO this has nothing to do with your age. You are being extremely smart given circumstances in the world today. Instict works in funny ways. Murphy's law.

The best way to get a survival mindset is to practice. Don't wait until you have the "perfect" bug out gear, just do it. learn how to make fire, build a shelter, gather food and then do it. start small and work your way up. while it is true that you get what you pay for, prepardness does not have to be expensive, in fact it can be one of your least expensive hobbys.

Most people aren't ready to leave their homes, within a moments notice, and survive outside of their comfort zones for a long peroid of time. That why practicing is essential. A BoB will help, but time spent practicing basic survival is ultimately worth more than all the gear you could hope to lug.

The typical survivalist usually thinks in terms of a "retreat", which is usually the survivalist's rural home, or second home. A "fixed position". The good survivalist is self sufficient and considers themselves well armed and able to ward off attack. Most survivalists do not consider this possibility, as they have so much invested in their retreat.

The most BASIC equipment you should have is a homeland defense rifle,
(K98k, all variations Mosin Nagant,SMLE, K31 Schmidt-Rubin,SKS all around $100) ammo, navigation equipment, first aid, water filter and rucksack or web gear. You should practice rifle marksmanship, orienteering, first aid, recon, patrol, cammo, counter-recon, escape and evasion and sniping techniques.

To be a jack-of-all-trades and master of none takes your survival potential to new levels. In short, there is no one skill or piece of gear that will see you through all survival scenarios.

I would highly reccomend you Practice and keep in your BoB Tom Brown Jr's book "A Field Guide to Wilderness Survival". If I could have only one thing with me when SHTF this is it.

Also, Buy Military Surplus: Its the best, it cost Uncle Sam a bundle, you can buy it for next to free.

My BoB is an medium Alice Pack with the frame taken off.
It fits everything and more than my Kelty pack which is twice as big.
cgi.ebay.com... My knife is a ww2 MK2.
cgi.ebay.com... iewItem
My water filter is the Military grade MSR MIOX.
cgi.ebay.com... dZViewItem
A fire piston is the best way to get fire, every time.
cgi.ebay.com... cmdZViewItem" target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">cgi.ebay.com... cmdZViewItem

Get a summer job and spend your $$$ on these 4 items if you are interested in gear that won't let you down when you need it.

Originally posted by Hexidecimal
Recently, I've had a sudden burst of the need to survive.

Howdy, Hex, welcome to ATS, and the Survival Forum in general.

IMHO, the "need to survive" is far more natural than the placid sheeplike state of assumption that someone else will ensure your survival. It is especially pronounced at your age, before you've become numbed by the 9-to-5, are eager to leave the nest, and getting ready to prove yourself as a man (or woman) to be self-sufficient. Once you start getting to be my age, you find that the job, the wife's honey-do list, and things like "getting the nursery ready" really impede progress just as much as a lack of money when young, if not more so. However, even oldsters like me still take time out of each day to do a little bit more towards survival. If anything, it's become even more important to me with a kid on the way.

Anyway, don't worry about whether or not your need to survive seems out of place in your community. As long as you aren't nutting out and doing crazy stuff like shaving your head with a bowie knife, or shooting up high schools, or something asinine like that, there's no reason to bother worrying about what other people think. Personally, I judge my friends based on "test balloon" questions. Some of them are VERY open to the idea of Survival and preparing for Situation X, and some of them you just don't even mention it.

And that doesn't change much. My best friend and I will talk for hours about prepping for Sit-X, while is wife will, quite literally, stick her fingers in her ears and go "lalalalala-doom, doom, gloom, destruction, doom, lalalala". Which, frankly, makes her look like a complete idiot, IMO. But that's just how some people are. They just cannot accept the possibility that bad things can happen, and that preparing for them improves the chances of your family surviving.

So, rather than try and convince people of the obvious, use test balloon questions when conversationally appropriate, like "You ever wonder what you'd do if we had something like (pick the most appropriate: Katrina/F5 tornado/Major Earthquake/zombies)?" If they say yes, and especially if they start listing off preparations they've already made, you know they're cool with the subject matter. If not, shrug it off and find someone else to talk to about it. That way, maybe you plant a seed, but at least you don't waste their time and yours.

Originally posted by Hexidecimal
I've been interested in increasing my physical strength, as well as my mental strength.

You mentioned a few martial arts that you were into. Those should be plenty to get you in shape. The only other thing I can think of is perhaps to start survival camping. Survival camping is pretty inexpensive, but will get your mind and body in shape to handle the wilderness. Watch Survivorman.

There's a member on here named DezertSkies or something like that, he's pretty hardcore, does things like plunging his fists in boiling oil to toughen them up, camps out in the desert, etc... You might ask him if he knows some low-budget ways to harden the body for Sit-X. But truthfully, your body will adapt as needs be, so long as it's already in pretty good shape. I'd focus more on getting acquainted with wilderness survival than hardening.

If there's a scout troop in your area, joining them would be a really good idea. It can be pretty expensive, but if your parents are willing to shell out for your martial arts classes, they'll probably cough up enough to join scouts. I learned a helluva lot from my time in there. They teach you everything from what kind of backpack to wear and how to buy it to how to walk through the wilderness without breaking your ankle on a tree root, and lots of other extremely useful life skills like first aid, etc.

Originally posted by Hexidecimal
I've been packing a BoB, (Which isn't going very well, I'm only 15 and I'm broke.

)

Well, you could probably do yard work for money. There's always a few people out there willing to hire a neighbor's kid to do the lawn, trim shrubs, etc, rather than hire Jimbo's Illegals and Ex-Cons Lawn Service.

For survival gear, use Friday mornings (while it's still summer) and Saturday mornings to hit every garage sale you can find within bike-riding/walking distance and look for any old camping or survival gear they're selling. Garage sellers will usually haggle with you, but if they won't go down on a price to an acceptable amount, wait till around 11 or 12pm, when they're wilted from the heat and just wanna close up shop for the weekend, come back, and I guarentee they'll let you have it for whatever price you offer.

For books, find a used book store. I literally just bought an Army Field Manual (Survival) for $4 at Half Price Books this weekend. Alternately, if you have access to a printer, there's various sites you can just download the PDFs and print them out, but then you have a larger mess to deal with in terms of loose papers, and trying to get them bound, etc.

Ebay is another great source of goods/books, but dunno if you have a bank account/paypal account.

Pawn Shops are also a great source for equipment, but shop around. Sometimes Wal-Mart is cheaper than a pawn shop.

Craig's List is a good one...

freecycle.org sometimes has free stuff people just want to get rid of.

Hope this helps.

Originally posted by thelibraThere's always a few people out there willing to hire a neighbor's kid to do the lawn, trim shrubs, etc, rather than hire Jimbo's Illegals and Ex-Cons Lawn Service.

I just realized how bad this sounds, and wanted a chance to reword this, lest I unintentionally look like some kind of arse.

Where I live, we have a lot of yard services that employ illegal immigrants and they also hire ex-cons. I'm not intending to lump the two together as one, nor did I wish to denigrate the industry. It's honest work, and work that quite a few people don't want to do themselves. I have zero problems with anyone, legal or not, who wants to do a job that entails honest hard work in rather brutal conditions for a few measly bucks. Better that than a crime, and god bless 'em for working their arse off while someone else sits and watches TV in the air conditioning.

However, a lot of people in Texas will still favor a kid from the neighborhood, because it's someone we know, trust, and kinda ties the neighborhood together.

That's all I meant by that statement, and I apologize if it came across wrong to anyone, it was just very poorly worded on my part.

Im turning 15, but unlike others, i have felt this need long time already, a few years now. I tried to form a survival group here on ATS few months ago but it was deleted due to identity hazards, well right now im stumped on what to do to be prepared, i need help. something has been bothering me, telling me that im responsible for my family and loved ones. right now im proficient in the field of computers, would it be valuable in post apocalyptic scenarios?

Originally posted by Hexidecimal
Pretty sure I'm past the puberty stage. If it's hormones, I would've had this survival burst a long time ago. A few weeks ago, I was sitting at home, playing video games on my computer, and just recently, I got the "Urge", So to speak.

I just wanna chime in here about puberty real quick. I'm 27 and I am still finding new hair on my body. Puberty isn't a stange its a transfromation that doesn't end...I imagin the next transition will be grey hair and twilight years...that or middle age life crisis.

One possible reason is the initiation of the 'Indigo Child' within you. I didn't want to use that expression, cus' its too New Age for me, but the concept is still viable.
Kids are coming into the world with the will to survive. I was in exactly the same position as you a year ago, as I'm sixteen now. The 'Indigo Child' or the kids of our generation tend to be alot more rebellious to the larger establishments and survivalistic in nature than those of older generations... So it's pretty much every kid thats growing up today will go through this in different proportions...
Maybe its a survival technique for our entire species, as something large might happen that may jeoperdise our existance..