The basic choices that YOU, as a PREPPER, will have to face

Thanks a lot for the replies, everyone...

It really is an awesome thread to read through, especially with the feedback here.

Everyone;

I kinda hate to rain on anyone's parade or anything but continuing to 'talk' about all this accomplishes nothing. Look at it like this. You buy a striker and fire stick and go out in your back yard and use it to make a fire-now you are all happy and you got the fire problem solved. However, you have accomplished absolutely nothing since you haven't answered the most realistic question. Can I use this to start a fire when I am wet, freezing, alone, lonely, hungry, exhausted, dieing of thrust and depressed?

I think practicality is present here, because at least half the folks here already HAVE their preps, and have some level of experience using them. When your inner survivalist kicks in, trust me, depression and lonliness aren't gonna be on your mind. Making that fire is going to be your life line, and that's where all your drive will be, rather than wallowing in sadness. If our first world luxuries are gone, we won't live like first world citizens anymore, because we won't be.

And I've lived without power before.

I started a fire in my kitchen inside a big metal pot, and cooked some bacon over it. Then, I got a glass of water, ate my half-cooked bacon, and sat out in front of my apartment with a really old television of mine plugged into the neighbor's house. I sat outside of my dark, empty apartment, happily eating bacon and drinking the warm tap, while watching an extremely fuzzy episode of American Idol, because sadly, that was the only channel on this crappy little television that would even show up.

I was fifteen when this happened.

I was fourteen when I was homeless, though.

I wondered the town after school, spending most of my time one of three places; in the woods, talking to some of the homeless folks at the tramp camps (that's what they called them), at the library reading or using the internet, or at my mother's gas station, where she worked. I stole food, I bathed in the public restroom of her gas station, and I even made a habit of buying those little 25 cent brownies from the place, taking it to the tramp camp, using my pocket knife to cut open one of their old beer cans, and propped the cut aluminum up on sticks. I put the brownie on the aluminum make-shift stove top an lit a fire under it, and I cooked those little brownies. That was my supper.

I know my past situations aren't exactly the same as when TSHTF, but I have no doubt in my survival skills, or my motivation to use them, because I've done it before.

I'm sure everyone here has had at least one experience like this as well.

"Talking" about it is one of the most practical things you can do, because you plan ahead of time, and you use the minds of others to get ahead with your own thoughts--like collaborative research. This thread, like all survival threads, is a hive-mind of like-minded preppers looking to expand their understanding of what it means to "survive." Research and talking are part of the package.

Maybe everyone is just busy? This is always a good time of year to make sure that you are ready for winter.

True, I hadn't thought of that. I've been busy with similar stuff.

those who wear glasses or lenses, what do you do when they break, or are lost? or you need an eye test??

I have terrible vision. I mean, not bordering blindness, but nowhere near "normal."

What did people back in the old days do, before they had eye tests, or before glasses were so easy to come by? We'll get by. I'm supposed to wear glasses, but I've gone most of my life without them. I've gotten by just fine without them. Its gonna be harder for people who have adapted to their lenses, but hell... if their survival is on the line, like I said, they'll adapt in a heartbeat.



Thanks everyone for the encouragement, too

God speed~

We can keep the discussion going, if anyone else has anything to say.