Need advice from the older generation of ATS.

reply to post by vendettent


Hey Vendettent,
Take a deep breath and relax. In fact, take a few deep breaths.
In through the nostrils out through the mouth.

Consider becoming a Scoutmaster. As there will soon to be millions of children
who will recognize something of great importance is missing from their lives.

Something that requires effort, and is not available to just the push of a button.

I am certain that you are not alone in this feeling of an unplaceable absence.

Go Forth , Live Long, and Prosper.

Lets see..

I thought s.. was going to htf in 2012 so I bought a take down recurve bow, some arrows and learned how to use it.

I thought.. well at least I might be able to find me some grub.

I also have one of these ever lasting fire starter rods, and backpacking gear from hiking, in case I ever have to live outside or on the run.

Well one of the last Mayan dates have finally come and gone, and by bow is still just hanging on the wall.

Hopefully, I'll never have to use it.

If society is still here, better off preparing to live in a society.

Very impressive, given your stated age. If more of the "younger generation" were like you, I'd definitely uphold an optimistic attitude.

Sadly enough, the youth of today have become "technologized". (Yes, I just made that word up.) Their default mode is attachment to a piece of technology, whether Xbox, laptop, smartphone, mp3 player, or whatever the latest gizmo becomes. The youth of today are becoming more advanced than us, understand the gadgets better than us, and accordingly, are more dependent on them.

With their technology, they know how to research anything, and find answers. Take away their tech, and they are lost and mindless. They have forgotten (or never learned) how to read books, never experienced Heinlein or Clarke, and would prefer to stare at a widescreen TV for hours on end. They are being fed information through mainstream media, the webz, or txt msg. I lament the loss of all the old skills. The practical skills.

I was born into an era before the interwebz, but luckily, I was in on the groundbreaking, and have sat back in my rocking chair watching and interacting. I can build a customized ROM for an Android device, root it, and tinker with clock speeds and voltages to maximize battery life. I love Starcraft 2, suck at the bosses in Diablo 3, (can't get past Mephisto soloing) and have about a 15 second lifespan in multiplayer Halo 4. I am as technologized as the younger generation, relying on the Navigation app on my smartphone to get me to places I've never been, and in truth, it's a convenience.

But none of that is a necessity.

[ begin rambling mode]
I also garden, raise honey bees, fish for sport, and walk through woods or mountain bike. Camping is seasonal, but there's nothing better than to break away from it all and spend a night roughing it. I was fortunate to have a grandfather that had a large farm, and I learned all the survival skills at a very early age. We were taught how to hunt, taught how to fall trees, what their names were, and how to process them into firewood, 8 cords of wood per winter, for two families, with two adults and two kids doing all the work. That's a lot of wood cutting. I could trim a downed tree with a chainsaw by the time I was 16, as well as sharpen the blade on it with a rattail file, and tear it apart, clean it, and reassemble it. We were one of the families that switched to burning wood during the 80's oil crisis, and even though it was backbreaking work, as I look back, I gained a lot of skills.

For instance, a couple years back, I had a coworker ask me if I could take down a tree for them. I asked what kind. She said a Walnut. I asked why.

It was a dying tree, and she had already called all the local tree companies, and none of them would touch it. It was in between three other trees, on a city lot, with other houses within falling range, cable tv lines, and power lines all around, and a narrow 15 foot wide path behind their garage, the neighbors chain link fence as one border, and the back of their garage the other. The was no room for a bucket truck to reach it, so I saw why she asked me. The tree was about 40 feet tall, straight trunk, diseased, and about a foot and a half in diameter. They wanted it out to allow more light in for their grape arbor, so I agreed to do it if I got all the trunk wood.

(I turn wood on a wood lathe, as a hobby, creating wooden bowls and such, and since walnut blanks are fairly rare and expensive, after inspecting the tree, I set my price.)

I hadn't dropped a tree in years. I dug my chainsaw out of storage, tuned it up, and was good to go. They must've thought I was crazy when I looked a the tree from every angle, calculating, old information pouring back in, lessons my grandfather taught me, unused, but remembered.

I made a notch in the trunk, at the proper height and angle, whispered a prayer of thanks for the tree under my breath (just a bit of codgery old druidism) and ran the felling cut from the other side. The slight breeze dropped the tree exactly in the narrow 15 foot corridor, and it fell evenly between the fence and the garage. All the onlookers cheered. I smiled and chuckled, mimicking a curtsy to the gathered crowd.
[ /begin rambling mode]

The point is, older folk ramble. They ramble as I have about their experiences. Those experiences are now just stories, but to honor the older generation, pay attention to their stories now and then. Visit a nursing home, and listen. There's wisdom in a story, and not just in the words, but with what you are able to walk away with. Knowledge is precious, and the older generation has boatloads of it. We're not all just doddering old fools. We know stuff, if you kids would just listen.

After reading through all that, I have but two pieces of advice for you:

Be proud of what you learn.

Never stop asking questions.

(BTW, I'm roughly 16,060 days old.)

haven't read too many responses, but, my advice to you is, this.....as harsh as it may sound, "IF" something were to happen, protect you and yours, first and foremost, Two...after whatever happens, go on with life, it might be different, but, going off topic here, a quote from a very good book and series, "the World has moved on." And so should you. BUT, try and make it a better place, if possible.

Just my illusions of grandure...sorry.

30 odd years ago there was a little diddy, which had a line in it " hold on to 16 as long as you can.....changes come around real soon, make us women and men". I held on as long as i could, till 17 anyway. The world would turn alot smoother if our youth today had a similar attitude as yours . Disasters come and go, accidents , disease , deaths in the family or friends and so on, and nothing can prepare you for the reality of these things , its your mind set that needs to be ready to handle it, and i am sure you will be able to weather the storm when it comes , good luck buddy.

reply to post by vendettent


Never live your life in fear of the unknown. Many preppers do this and fear is a very ugly thing it will creep inside you and turn everything black.




I am a prepper and during the end of 2008 I really thought the sky was going to fall. Don't get me wrong I really do think hard times are coming......when is the question.

reply to post by vendettent


Hmmm.... I can sum everything up here for you. Everyone likes a good conspiracy. But when you turn your computer off, there is no need to worry about most of this crap. Instead, you just concentrate on making this world a better place for your generation. Worrying also wastes precious time that you can use to be out enjoying life and getting a good education. Promise me that you will forge forward, and leave this crap behind you, ok?

reply to post by smirkley


Ok pop whenever you want to spin a yarn for the lad he'll be waiting

I'm over 17,000 days old. I'm probably old if you ask a teenager. I'm still a kid or young man if you ask someone twice my age. Asking about hardship, we older folks tend to think of more severe hardships. If you ask what it was like for us when we were younger we can describe it. I had no personal computer, no cell phone, no tv in my bedroom. I felt lucky that we had two or three tv's in our entire house when I was a teenager. We had to get up to turn the channel on the tv for several years until someone invented a remote control. Even in college I took an old tv with me that had knobs on it and one time I yelled out to an annoying guy that lived in our suite. After he walked in our room, my roomate and I asked if he could turn the channel for us. We thought it was funny. I think one time he did and then he talked about how lazy we were not to get up and turn the channel ourselves.

We had rabbit ears to pick up maybe 6 to 9 stations. Years before when I went to elementary school, there was no air conditioning in the schools. I remember sitting in a classroom that was literally 100 degrees inside during days when there was a heat wave. We were sweating and it was tough to study. We got to go home early. Not everyone had air conditioning in their homes. They drank plenty of water and tried to get fresh air. We might put large box fans in the windows to vent the house or put some air in the room. I got lucky because my parents bought a window air conditioner at an early age when I got sick supposedly due to the high heat. I heard I would go to sleep without wearing too much on the cold floor and seemed perfectly fine. It was the heat that made me sick.

I got my first home pc after I graduated from college. It had no sound card and no sound. Computer games were more text based without too many graphics. Later on, computer games got better and more came out. I was about ready to start learning more programming languages to write my own games but more money and people got involved and the computer game business really got moving. I dropped the idea since I enjoyed my time better playing all the new games. For years it seemed like I spent as much time trying to configure and set up a computer game to run within a certain amount of memory as I did playing it. It wasn't that bad but I did spend several hours on some games trying to tweak the memory configuration on the pc I was using. I probably spent over $2,000 to buy a 386 computer which was close to top of the line when I bought it. The price had dropped a bit but it had become more reasonable as far as pc's at the time. No sound card. I installed one later on.

I grew up never using a cell phone, personal pc, or any tv of my own until I went to college. That was when I got a tv of my own. I never had a room to myself until one of my roomates in college moved out one semester.

I used to go camping all the time when I was a kid or a lot of the time. Finding a flat spot with no roots underneath the sleeping bag under the tent was always a good choice. I hated it when some roots were sticking up and I was trying to sleep in that spot. My family was so trained in putting up a tent, I heard other campers used to watch us because we were like a precision team. I heard someone asked if we were in a circus because we put up a tent like clockwork, even us kids were helping out even though I may have only been less than 10 at the time when I first started. I believe at one point, someone decided to buy inflateable life rafts to use to sleep on. It would cushion us from any roots and it was probably cheaper than a sleeping bag. Anyway one morning, my brother splashed out of his bed. We all had to quickly move. There was a bunch of rain upstream and the creek nearby was flooding and we were already floating. We had a number of adventures. I don't call this any hardship. It was just the way it was.

Oh, I was going to say, board games, books, or other games you can play with friends are important to have to prevent boredom after you got the basic survival items. Cards work good too.

I'll add the college dorm rooms I lived in had no air conditioning either. Maybe this is still normal. I'm not sure. I believe it is rougher on older folks with a lot more fat to endure the heat than it is for some young kids without much body fat trapping the heat in. The heat always bothered me more than the cold though.
Except when I worked a summer job in the hot end of a glass plant. The working temperature in there was around 140 degrees sometimes hotter. We would cool off outside in the 108 degree air. One day I walked down one very hot corridor and I saw a thermometer that showed the temperature at 180 degrees. They said my face was still red several minutes later in the break room where they had air conditioning. I didn't have as much trouble sleeping at night when I got home. I usually sleep better when the temperature is in the 60's. My parents at that time liked to keep the house around 76 or 78 to save on electricity. I would sweat like crazy in the glass plant. I could lose 8 pounds of water in a single shift and did from sweating.

reply to post by orionthehunter


Well made post. You've shown that life wasn't easy.

I think that's part of the problem. The older generation has endured so much, and we want to make our offspring more comfortable than we were, but in the process, we lose sight of what tough times really are.

The generation gap is there, but as parents, we created it so they could have it easier than us.

Have we served them well?

OUCH!

Our kids (and OP) have it easy. They're comfortable, but not in the least prepared for an economic collapse. None of us know when the collapse occurs, but we all feel something brewing.

Tough question, and no easy answer.

What a thoughtful OP......as other members have said your insight for a young adult is inspiring...

It can be overwelming to comprehend how one will react in a SHTF senario....and lot's of variables...having lived through a few major earthquakes here are a few things I've learned.

1. Learn how to turn off the gas and water if neccesary.....fill the tub with water if possible. Fill up empty bleach bottles with water.....water, water, water ...have some bottled water stored ! If you or any of your neighbors have a pool that is quite helpful...lol...except everyone knows when you need to go potty when you go fill the bucket of water that actually will flush a toliet.

2. Have firewood and outdoor cooking equipment.....bond and share with neighbors...it's scary and people need each other...emergency services will be overwelmed so we all need to react accordingly and help each other.

3. Have candles, flashlights, lanterns......nothing is worse then being in the dark

4. Batteries and a Radio, keeps you updated, and music helps too...cause disaters suck!

I don't know OP, the odds are in your lifetime your generation will see some changes that my generation will hopefully work out to keep you kids as safe as we can....Mother Nature is beyond our control....plan a fun camping trip this summer...enjoy everyday, learning and your life....I guess I would say being prepared should make us live in less fear....but I do believe in "God"...whatever that means....

How can you cope mentally?

Usually you just grow up but based on the paranoia here on ATS, I'm not sure some in the USA really do.

reply to post by vendettent


This is an excellent question that I can't answer. You made me realize that throughout all of my life I've heard of the 1920's Depression, but I never thought to hold it under a microscope to see just how bad it was for the individuals struggling through it. I know there were unbelievably long food lines, and something like fifty percent of the U.S. population was out of work. Farm lands were turned into a dust bowl from the lack of rain.

So, the only thing I can suggest (for you and me both) is to find anything you can on that era and see how people survived it all.

Originally posted by vendettent
I am still a youth, only 16. I visit ATS frequently and have found a great deal of knowledge and information. I believe that my generation is very dependent on the system and have a lack of survival skills. I strive to be open to others opinions and beliefs and not be selfish and self-absorbed like many of my peers. While I try I will admit that sometimes I fail.

While I don't believe a disaster will definitely happen I do know that it is a possibility. An economic crash seems like a possibility right now and I will admit it has me worried. I live with my mother and she is skilled in making ends meet and dealing with extraordinary situations in the past so I highly respect her. While I despise the fact I do feel I am dependent on the luxurious lifestyle that the middle class has (in terms of receiving necessities and living in a comfortable environment). While I know that picking up a book is the best way to learn survival skills my question is how can I cope mentally with an abolishment of our societal system, if that were to happen.

I believe the older generations were much more accustomed to hard conditions as they weren't part of the "everyone gets a trophy age". Has any member ever experienced a harsh situation out of your comfort zone? I want to be able to prepare myself to deal with a disaster if it were to occur. Right now I am focused on studying hard in school and getting good grades but today it struck me that there is much more aspects to life that my generation has not had to experience resulting in a lack of preparation.

I apologize if this is a stupid or hard to answer question and I hope that this is the appropriate forum.

It's not a stupid question at all. You want information, and you wisely look to older people for answers. For a teen these days, that's flat out amazing! Your mom must be doing a great job.

The first thing I would recommend is grow a garden. It's not complicated, and you can get advice from most gardening stores. Knowing how to get your own food is a good place to start. Plus, you can work outdoors, and get the satisfaction of producing something yourself.

Next, as you already mentioned, BOOKS. Get books, real paper ones, on subjects you think you might need. Gardening, carpentry, hunting, trapping, curing meat and hides, identifying edible plants, water purification, candle making, and so forth. Read them. Learn.

Have tools you might need. An axe and hatchet, gardening tools (not power type), rope, wire, whatever.

Be able to entertain yourself without electronics. Again, books are a great start. ANY sort that you like to read for that is good. Simple entertainment, and all you need is light. Basic games are also good. Board games, cards, chess, checkers, etc. Whatever is interesting, that doesn't require power.

Be able to defend yourself, your family, and your home. At your age, you can't own a gun, but you can, with parental approval, learn to shoot. You can also learn to use a bow, and get some self defense training. That's good for you, in any case.

Learn how to hide things. There are some good books out on that. If things went really bad, you would probably need to hide things for safe keeping.

Maybe learn a musical instrument. I know I would really miss my music, in a world with no power.

Doing those things is a start, which would have you somewhat prepared. Having some confidence that you could handle certain things can go a long way towards handling such a situation mentally. Beyond that, well, be adaptable. Know what is really important. Adequate shelter, food, water, and the people we care about are important. The rest is extra. You would have to expect some emotional turmoil. Not having any wouldn't be normal. Being able to deal with the situation, though, would get you through. After all, things can go bad as the world is now. People can be killed, get sick, and so forth. We have to do what we can with what we've got.

Finally, a sound spiritual life is a HUGE help. I don't know your beliefs, but I know that prayer, and the presence of God in my life, have gotten me through some really tough times.

Harsh situations? Well, I would count basic training as one, the way it used to be! WAY back in the dino days, they could yell and scream at you. The idea was to be sure people could function under the stress you might have in a real combat situation. Believe me, they could bring a TON of stress. These days, it isn't like that, but then, wow.

Amazingly, you appear to have the same maturity level I had at your age. Mentally, I was 16 going on 30; had the responsibilities of an adult from a very early age due to having a dysfunctional family. I've known some really rough times in life. And I've literally been in many situations that could have ended my life! But, I'm still here....so there must be a reason why. I know how to roll with the punches life has thrown at me thus far. I have no fear of death; just that it comes quickly when it's my time, according to our Creator.

I'm a Boomer and roughly the age of many poster's on this thread. I raised 3 kids (one is a generation "X-er" and the other 2 are of the Millennium). I had a few struggles raising them, but always sacrificed whatever I had to, to give them the best I could afford. Which I see now was a mistake, overall! They, like many of their generation, are self-centered and selfish. They refuse to see and believe what is happening before their very eyes. And worse, they aren't preparing for what WILL happen! Fear is our greatest enemy, but I've spent the past few years working on overcoming this debilitating emotion.

What will be, will be.

Stay strong..... and keep learning! Knowledge IS power.

Godspeed to you and your family.

reply to post by vendettent


My advice comes in three words. I use them in daily life and they have proven to be life savers in dire situations.
They are as follows:

Adapt
improvise
overcome

Stay calm (as many have said) analyze the situation and try to adapt to it.

When you need a tool to do a task, think about what you have around you that could be used for that task. Understand simple machines.

Know that whatever situation you are in, you will overcome any obstacle.

There you have at least one old guy's thoughts.

reply to post by vendettent
I read a couple of your other post's and you like pushing the fact you are 16. If in fact you are, you are way ahead of your years and leads me to the question why you would not be able to answer this question your self.

The best way to know what to do is study human nature, this will tell you what needs to be done and what to look out for because you can not change human nature...............we are what we are, use common sense and reason and belive nothing now a days.

You will form a belief system once you start uncovering all the lies and the control structure.............good luck, I don't envy you one bit at 16.

reply to post by vendettent


Even though I'm the same age as you, I would like to give you my advice. I would say the best way to cope with a collapse of everything, would be to simulate life without all of the luxuries you live with, I'd say go camping for the weekend sometimes with no electronics or packed food. That's my opinion

Back in the day I used to walk through four foot snow drifts - and that was just to get to the living room.

reply to post by vendettent


I'm only 6 years older than you but I'll still try give you some advice if I can on survival skills...

What has helped me learn more about survival as a whole is :

1. Learn gardening and hunting/fishing if it's possible there is no better feeling than eating what you have provided with your own hands plus learning skills like this will help you better understand nature and seasons as a whole.

2. Engage in activities that better your self reliance and knowledge of being self independant/reliant such as camping or you could join clubs/groups such as the cadets or boy scouts as others have suggested.

3. You could volunteer some of your time to a rescue service, the skills you learn with such organisations can be invaluable in times of an emergency, plus the practice exercises can be really fun if you do something like cliff rescue

4. Wrabbit2000's advice about downloading PDF's on survival is a great idea, I too have a selection of survival PDF's on my laptop that I haven't really read yet (just part of a Ray Mear's one) but they are saved just for my pleasure of reading up on.

5.If you can learning to build and fix things with your hands, carpentry or woodwork are always good skills that help practical creativity, I've made some awesome things in the past just toying around... one of my favourites was a crossbow with some heavy duty elastic bands,a spring, some skirting board and some screws. It was crude but it worked really well and even had an operating trigger. I've also made units, shelves etc in the past including an aeroplane from scratch with a friend, making things is a good hobby to have and can be invaluable if necesity calls for it.

6. Don't try to take life to seriously non of us get out alive.

It's refreshing to see the youth interested in survival and to be honest all you need to do is keep up what you are already doing and that is learning and having a want to learn more, I know I'm not of the older generation but I couldn't help but bring my pennies to the party.

Respect It's always good to see the youth suprise their elders in society.

reply to post by Aleister


I love it hahaha and I bet that was the good old days when men were men eh?