Sorry the posting has been light of late. There are reasons for that, and I’ll get to it some other time. But I stumbled across this today and had to share. Barricade Garage is becoming one of my favorite YouTube channels for the humorous yet pointed way they look at modern issues. I think we would all be better off if we could look inward and examine our own ways of thinking and our own flaws before we attempt to tell everyone how to fix their own. That is true self-reliance.
Category Archives: The Greater Cause
Securing your base
By now you all know I rather enjoy the site Art of Manliness, though frankly it could almost as easily be called the Art of Common Sense. There are certainly a lot of articles exploring “manliness” from all angles, but there is also a lot about basic preparedness and self-reliance.Take their recent article, Sunday Fireside: Secure Your Base.
Deriving supposedly from Carl Von Clausewitz’ “On War,” writers Brett and Kate McKay discuss what “securing your base” means in practical, civilian ways:
Securing your base means establishing a self-sustaining, shock-resistant “headquarters” that is well-defended against disruptions from external forces.
They list foundational concepts such as:
- Good health
- Financial independence (avoiding debt)
- Mechanical skills
- Domestic skills
- Strong social relationships with family and friends
- Firmness in beliefs
That last point I found most interesting, as it was the least predictable:
Finally, a secure base requires secure beliefs. While philosophic and political positions can and should evolve over time, they should not be so unexamined, so lacking in well-studied context, that every current of change knocks you into an incapacitating stupor of confusion and cognitive dissonance. You should know why you believe what you believe.
I suspect many of us are experiencing some of that confusion and cognitive dissonance these days amid the political and social turmoil in the United States and around the world. We are being simultaneously told that “Speech is violence,” and “Violence is speech” as valid, peaceful protests transform into destructive mobs inflicting significant property damage, cultural vandalism, and loss of life on the very people they claim to be supporting in their “protests.” The only way out of this mess as a society comes from people firm in their principles insisting on a better way forward than what we’re currently getting.
The purpose behind securing your base is best summarized by the authors, and I’ll close with this:
The purpose of creating this kind of personal garrison isn’t to passively retreat from the theater of life; rather, it is to create a fortification from which to better launch your offensive operations.
The pursuit of usefulness
I’m often on the search for the thoughts of others on self-reliance. One time the search engine showed me an article by Darius Foroux. I’ll probably get to that one at a later date, but in the process I ended up reading another of his articles which I also found quite interesting. In it he proposes that the purpose of life is not happiness, but usefulness. This may sound familiar; it was posited by Ralph Waldo Emerson:
“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Foroux expands on this:
Most things we do in life are just activities and experiences.
You go on holiday.
You go to work.
You go shopping.
You have drinks.
You have dinner.
You buy a car.
Those things should make you happy, right? But they are not useful. You’re not creating anything. You’re just consuming or doing something. And that’s great.
Don’t get me wrong. I love to go on holiday or go shopping sometimes. But to be honest, it’s not what gives meaning to life.
What really makes me happy is when I’m useful. When I create something that others can use. Or even when I create something I can use.
He goes on to explain that it’s what we are doing each day, in large or small ways, to make a difference is what life is all about. Whether it’s taking on a little extra work, unasked, for your boss, writing an article sharing something important you’ve learned, or building a piece of furniture, it’s all useful in some way to someone. It’s nothing big, necessarily, but a life built out of these small things adds up to a what we could consider “a good life.” Or, as Thoroux puts it:
The last thing I want is to be on my deathbed and realize there’s zero evidence that I ever existed.
He’s not advocating changing the world in any big way, necessarily. Just do something a little outside yourself, a little more permanent:
One day I woke up and thought to myself: What am I doing for this world? The answer was nothing.
And that same day I started writing. For you, it can be painting, creating a product, helping the elderly, or anything you feel like doing.
I think his last piece of advice must have been aimed directly at me:
Don’t take it too seriously. Don’t overthink it. Just DO something that’s useful. Anything.
Is it worth it?
Ken Jorgustin at Modern Survival Blog takes up the question of whether it’s worth it to invest in self-reliance. He looks at various types of home production, such as raising your own chickens, growing your own garden, or even switching to solar energy all cost money, and often those same products can be obtained commercially for less.
During the process of building their palace, I’ve thought about the money it took to get this done. As well as the ongoing costs of maintaining the small flock, and feeding them. Let me put it this way. You might get depressed to realize the ultimate cost per dozen eggs output compared to the money input!
Ken Jorgustin
I’ve noticed that with gardening. In both places we’ve lived our irrigation and gardening water comes from the same water as our culinary and hygienic water, and the cost can more than double during the summer months. Whatever money we save by growing our own vegetables is more than eaten up in the water, seeds, tools, and fertilizer needed to grow them. We ultimately decided it simply wasn’t worthwhile to try to grow our own potatoes in Idaho.
We also looked at solar power ourselves a few years ago and realized that in spite of what the salesman told us, the system would never pay for itself, even if the power company paid for any excess electricity we generated–which they stopped doing within a few years. While we would like to have been able to do more to reduce pollution and our own energy dependence we just couldn’t justify the expense.
It can all be enough to make you step back and wonder if it’s really worthwhile to take a different path. But, as Jorgustin explains, the answer will be different for everyone. For some people cost is the only consideration, and they’ll likely not bother with many self-reliance measures. For my wife and I, we find home-grown food is usually healthier and better tasting. What’s more, there may be rough times ahead–times when the stores won’t be able to get the stock they usually get. We may very well need to supplement our food supply from our own yard. In the middle of the crisis is not the time to be learning what grows and what doesn’t, or how to lay out your garden, your watering, etc. And as we’ve seen, the price of things can increase quickly when it’s in short supply.
A considerable part of self-reliance, and especially emergency preparedness, is not just having the things you need when things go wrong, but knowing what to do with them. Maybe not everything we can do we should do, but it is worthwhile to consider what things you want to be able to do. And sometimes it just feels good to do it.
Leadership skills for self-reliance
I recently found an article titled “Leadership Skills Anyone Can Develop.” It outlines five traits of leaders:
- Take ownership of your life
- Be optimistic
- Be honest
- Measure results
- Believe God wants you to succeed
Simple ideas, though not necessarily easy to implement. Read more at the link.
Takin’ care of business
At the risk of getting political, I want to share this article. It’s not really about one person, who happens to be a politician, but a contrast in attitudes that are shaping our country. One is self-reliant. The other…is not.
May I suggest that the way of the Braskem America workers is the spirit that built America into the greatest and most prosperous country the world has ever known. It’s also the animating force by which our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and beyond were able to survive and sometimes even thrive in a world far different and far harsher than our own.
– Adam Ford
The attitude of responsibility and hard work. Sleeves rolled up. Playing through the pain. Standing tall as one on whom others can lean in tough times. Whatever needs to be done — just turn me loose on it. I’ll get it done; I’ll figure it out. And keep your handout! I’ll work for my own. And I’ll outwork anyone here. I’m grateful for my job — and I’ll be running this company in five years.