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.
Monthly Archives: July 2020
Is self-reliance a white invention?
I don’t want to get political on this blog, but this week saw a rather…interesting…publication from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian Institution. The publication* attempts to spell out the elements of “White” culture that, because of the white majority status, may have been adopted by minorities. As with most generalizations, it’s difficult to know what to make of it, but I did find interesting what it had to say about self-reliance:
Rugged Individualism:
– The individual is the primary unit
– Self-reliance
– Independence & autonomy highly valued + rewarded
– Individuals assumed to be in control of their environment, “You get what you deserve”
Taking all of this at face value, it would appear that self-reliance and individuality are inherent in being “white.” Less clear, however, is whether they can be assumed to be unique to Caucasian peoples, or even if there is any ethnicity to which they are not inherent. Certainly cooperation and compliance are more prevalent in some other cultures than in America, as witnessed by the willingness in other countries to adopt blanket measures against the COVID-19 virus.
But is this generalization even true of Americans as a whole? Identity has become a major issue in America, with individuals relating more closely to factors other than race. I’m not so sure we can claim that the individual is the primary unit anymore–if it ever was. Likewise, independence and autonomy is increasingly downplayed, even criticized. Helicopter parents and lawnmower parents are witnesses for the contrary opinion.
In some ways independence and autonomy are still valued and rewarded, but there seem to be plenty of rewards for going with the herd these days, as well. Both sides of the increasingly prevalent “cancel culture” reinforce this. Usually the one being canceled was doing something independent and autonomous, and the mobs doing the canceling seem to lack independence, if not autonomy.
I would also argue that the individualist and the self-reliant understand they are not in control of their environment. What they “deserve” scarcely enters into their calculations. What they want is what drives them, coupled with focused, committed work to overcome or compensate for an environment that is ambivalent at best, hostile at worst. They don’t assume the environment is just going to roll over and give them what they want.
What one “deserves” is more the watch-cry of the entitled, a most decidedly reliant group if there ever was one. It’s the motivation of the proverbial “Karen,” who assumes he/she deserves everything precisely the way they want it, with no more effort on their part than to harangue into compliance those who stand in their way.
It would be interesting to conduct a study of non-white immigrants to the United States, and to other countries. Do those immigrants who succeed here do so in spite of their non-compliance with dominant, white culture? Or do they succeed because they came here already equipped with similar values instilled by their native cultures? Or is it that they recognize in American culture the same values they have sought to develop, and that drives their decision to come here instead of other places they could go? Can immigrants without those values succeed just as easily or well in countries with entirely different values?
I’m willing to accept, depending on definition, that America, by and large, is an individualist society. Individualism, however, is a two-edged sword, and could just as easily manifest in very un-self-reliant ways. But in any case, if the above assumptions on individualism and self-reliance can currently be considered true, it’s also true that those values are very much under siege, and the undermining of those values is largely the source of any decline in the effectiveness of our culture. If it is indeed becoming increasingly harder to “make it” in America, there’s as good a chance it is due to the quality and approach of Americans trying to make it, as any change in the environment in which we operate.
From a self-reliance standpoint, at the heart of self-reliance is the assumption that we are not in control of our environment, but that knowing that, we can do things to be prepared for when things don’t go our way. We can anticipate the most likely fluctuations in that environment and be prepared with backup plans. We can build up reserves of whatever we need to ride out periods of scarcity and uncertainty.
If the self-reliant attitude were truly intrinsic in American “white” culture this blog wouldn’t be necessary. It would be as redundant as sites pushing the value of education, or clean water, or wearing clothing. But it is precisely because many of those values listed by the NMAAHC are not prevalent in modern culture any more that we see much of the turmoil we currently experience in this country. It is a return to those values that is needed if we’re going to reverse the decline we are in.
*- The publication has evidently been removed now because of the controversy.
Practice makes prepper?
I live in a part of the world where self-reliance is almost literally a religion, though few actually follow through on the counsel given. But one couple, who live about 40 minutes from me, have been preaching self-reliance and emergency preparation themselves for a while. Then last year they decided to test their actual preparedness by not going to the store for 90 days.
Needless to say, when COVID-19 hit this year, they were ready:
“In a day, things went from normal life to, ‘Oh my goodness,’” said Kylene, remembering when everything came to a screeching halt in mid-March. “For us it was very surreal, because of what we’d already been through. We had a plan and we knew what to do.”
Read the entire article here, and check out their website here.
Fun with prototyping, Part 2
I was able to get out and work on my canned goods storage/rotation system this weekend and finished my prototype unit. Here’s how it turned out:
The pictures aren’t the best; my apologies. As you can see, though, it’s still rough, still…a prototype.
What I ended up with holds two types of cans, 28 oz. cans in the lower half, 14.5 oz. cans in the upper half. I did this because it was clear after the first half that I wouldn’t be able to fit four more levels of the 28 oz. cans in my unit, so I decided to try how many levels of the smaller cans would fit.
I realized pretty quickly that I would not be able to fit four levels of smaller cans in the remaining space. At that point I was slanting the shelves at a 2-inch slant front-to-back, so I tried reducing that to a 1-inch slant. I also lowered a few of the bigger can shelves to that slant as well. As it was, I still couldn’t make it all fit. There wasn’t room to put the cans in at the top, as there was still the 2×2″ support beams across the top, even when I tried laying the very top shelf flat instead of the usual slant.
Next I tried taking the 2×2’s out, figuring at that point I had enough shelves screwed in across the sides to stabilize the unit. That worked. I suppose at that point I could/should have added a slant to the top shelf, but I didn’t. I was more concerned about how well the unit would hold up.
My next step was to take the unit down into our basement and see how many cans I could fit in it, if the gravity feed would work correctly, and if it would hold up. Sorry I didn’t get pictures of that. But I can tell you that the bottom half holds 20 of the larger cans. It does have some difficulties feeding, which I will need to work out. It’s not a big deal, but it does involve reaching into the unit to clear the blockages.
As far as the smaller cans, the upper section held twelve of those just in the first two shelves, with room for at least one more. I didn’t add more, as I didn’t want to add a different vegetable at that point. Not having a slant on the top shelf is an annoyance, as you have to manually push the cans to the back before they begin to feed. I’ll definitely have to fix that, as my current plan for the storage room will put that shelf up near the ceiling, making it hard to push.
All in all, the unit was sturdy enough to hold the weight. If anything, loading it with cans made it more sturdy. The feeding is the primary issue. The transition from an upper shelf to a lower shelf is one issue that can likely be addressed in the next iteration.
The other problem is that the cans rub against the sides and the friction slows them down or stops them altogether. For that I blame the materials I’m using, at least for now.
Pegboard has two sides, a white, smooth side and a brown rough side. I went for appearances and put the smooth side out. In reality, when these are lined up next to other units you won’t even see the outside surface. On the next test I’ll put the smooth side inside, which should reduce the friction against the cans. When the slant on the shelves was 2″ the friction wasn’t nearly as big an issue, but reducing that to 1″ lessens the pull of gravity. I don’t think I can get by making the slant steeper, so I’ll have to find other ways to help overcome friction from the sides.
A third issue, related to the second, was that occasionally the shelves were too narrow, and when screwed into the sides they pulled the sides in too much, narrowing the passage enough to catch the cans. I hope to have better tools by the time I try the next prototype and be able to get more uniform cuts to my wood.
I’m still impressed with the versatility of the pegboard. The ability to see through the walls, so to speak, is invaluable, as is the ability to move shelves around without having to drill new holes in the walls. I’m hoping to find a way to position the screw holes in the sides of the shelves more uniformly in the future as well so the shelves will be more level side-to-side.
I also plan to experiment with having less support structure. If I cut the shelves uniformly they should provide lots of stability to keep the tower from leaning. I may be able to get by using 1×2″s along the back instead of 2×2″s without losing any stability, and at this point I’m not sure I even need any support along the bottom and top edges, which may open up more vertical space for shelving. I’m really hoping I can make this work with good efficiency using standard sizes (ie. 2’x4′ pegboard panels) to minimize waste. If I have to make each unit 4.5 to 5 feet tall, for example, I’ll have to cut 4’x8′ sheets to size, which will waste the last three feet of pegboard.
The biggest success I’m seeing so far is the potential efficiency in storage and rotation. While a series of shelf a la Donkey Kong isn’t entirely efficient, it’s more efficient than standard shelves. Being able to line these units up side by side will increase our storage capacity considerably, and make rotation much less work. I’m excited to move on to Phase Two of this project in finalizing the design I’ll then start “mass producing,” as well as getting a final idea of cost. It appears so far that I’m spending about $30-35 per unit, but I’m hoping to pin that down tighter.
Stay tuned!
Living with self-reliance
Okay, let’s go back and look at the third section of Trudi Griffin’s wiki-How article, How to Be Self Reliant. Last time we talked about managing your money independently. This time we go broad with the following topics:
- Identify and have knowledge of which things you must be responsible for
- Cook your own meals
- Plant a garden
- Master emergency health basics
- Understand basic auto mechanic repair
- Maintain your health
- Know when to visit your doctor
- Live off the grid
The first, knowing what you are responsible for, seems fairly obvious, or should be. Unfortunately we live in a time when people really don’t seem to know. Filing taxes, paying off credit card bills, paying the electric bill–these should be obvious. But whose responsibility is that patch of grass along the side of your house on the other side of the sidewalk from your fence? Do you know how your estate is handled in your state? Do you know where to vote? There is a lot to get to know in any new situation, and for many of them ignorance is no excuse.
When it comes to cooking I may diverge from Griffin a little. I think there’s a difference between not cooking for yourself and not knowing how to cook for yourself. If your priorities and income are such that you want to eat out, that’s not necessarily bad. Griffin cites money savings and better health as benefits, and while I agree on the monetary savings, it’s entirely possible to eat unhealthy at home, too, so perhaps learning about nutrition should be included in this?
Planting a garden within whatever space you have could be rewarding, educational, and cut food costs a little, even if it’s a little window-ledge herb garden in an apartment building or a lemon tree on the patio. Knowing how to keep plants alive and grow them to maturity is always a good skill to have in your self-reliance toolbox.
To Griffin “emergency health basics” includes things like learning CPR, first aid, or helping someone who is choking. It may also include learning basic and emergency treatments for hazards common to your area, like ticks or rattlesnakes, or exposure to poisonous plants. Consider the most common “what-if” scenarios where you live. She also recommends learning any basic medical procedures or operating medical equipment needed for your care or others around you so you can do them yourself in a pinch or even save some money on nursing care.
Knowing how to maintain or repair your car may not be so important if you don’t have one, but if you do, learning to change a tire, examine your engine belts for wear, checking and changing fluids, or other basic maintenance items can save you money and time or help minimize the fallout from otherwise nasty situations. Keep an emergency kit suitable for your area in your car at all times.
I would add to this that learning how to perform basic maintenance around your home is also important. Fixing a leaky faucet, hanging a picture, changing a light bulb, oiling squeaky hinges or other items, rewiring lamps, backing up your computer, installing anti-virus, cleaning a dishwasher, using a garbage disposal, and many other tasks can save you money down the road.
Hopefully we already know what it takes to maintain your health. We should know about regular exercise and a healthy diet. If not, that’s a good place to start. Similarly, avoiding the doctor altogether is not necessarily the best plan, any more than is going to see the doctor for every little ailment. Make sure you schedule regular checkups appropriate to your age group. Be aware of health conditions that run in your family or result from your lifestyle. Learn the warning signs for life-threatening conditions, and what to do about them.
“Living off the grid” is not something I really recommend, and I’m a little surprised Griffin even brings it up. Fortunately she at least recommends starting with a vacation at an off-grid location so you get to experience it temporarily first before you decide. In any case, her advice here of considering growing your own food and exploring alternative energy are just the beginning of adopting that particular lifestyle, so if it interests you, do lots and lots of research first.
I’ll admit that to me this section of the article seems less useful, but perhaps that’s because I was involved in scouting growing up, and had parents that made sure I could handle most all of this before I left home. I don’t do much auto maintenance, it’s true, but I know at least to get my car in for regular maintenance, which had really saved my bacon on many occasions. They’re usually able to spot problems before they happen, which is important when most of your driving time is spent on the freeway. Breakdowns can and will happen in the worst possible places.
But even while I find the first point (Identify and have knowledge of which things you must be responsible for) a little silly (it’s like saying make sure you know about all the things you don’t know about), I find it also somewhat profound. Far too often these sorts of things are learned by accident, in the school of hard knocks. Schools don’t teach the basic life skills they used to, like maintaining and balancing a checking account, or registering your car, etc. Finding out before you start “adulting” just what all is involved will spare you a lot of pain.
But in the end, this is really what self-reliance is all about. It’s figuring out what can go wrong in your life, weighing the costs of dealing with that problem vs. the cost of avoiding it, and planning accordingly. I don’t need to learn how to prepare my house for a hurricane (in Utah!), and the cost of which far outweighs the risk of doing nothing. Learning how to recognize heat stroke and how to treat it, however, may be worth the time and effort.
Much of this no one else can fully prepare you for. You must be self-reliant toward achieving self-reliance.
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.
Stock-up items
In many ways the shortages we experienced a few months ago are fully in the review mirror. One might be inclined to think we’re out of the woods, so to speak. And yet every time my wife comes home from a grocery run she tells me about one or more items that she can’t find anymore, has to buy a different brand, or has to buy a different way.
For example, today she came home with a #10 can of diced tomatoes. Normally she gets the 16 oz. or 28 oz. cans, but today there wasn’t a single can in sight, except for the #10 can. Not a problem for her–she usually freezes the remains of the 28 oz. cans anyway. But now I have to wonder: is there about to be a total shortage of diced tomatoes? Should she have picked up another can while there still are some to be had?
Well, probably not, because we already have a several-month supply of the usual cans. But there are other things, like the particular brand of peanut butter we love, that wasn’t in stores for at least a month a while back, was back for a few weeks, and now seems to be gone again.
Daisy Luther, over at The Organic Prepper, suggests we should be looking ahead with the idea that more shortages could happen at any time. And with the recent resurgence of COVID-19 cases nationally, she may not be wrong. The supply chain was interrupted quite a bit the first time around, when infection rates were considerably lower. Another shut-down of the country could have even bigger impact.
With that in mind, she recommends that we prepare now, by picking up regularly the items most likely to disappear quickly if more shortages comes our way. Every time you go to the store, even if you already have some at home, consider adding more of the following:
- Toilet paper (Do you know how much you need?)
- Bleach
- Hand sanitizer
- Canned goods
- Yeast
- Baking Supplies
- Powdered Milk
- Rice
- Beans
- Meat
You may also want to consider any items specific to your situation, such as baby supplies, pet supplies, or for specific dietary or medical needs. You can also stock up more slowly on other items like paper towels and cleaning supplies (especially disinfectant sprays).
She also recommends saving up some emergency funds, stocking up on supplies for various regular projects (both for work activities and for entertainment), beefing up your home office, and picking up any other items you found yourself wishing you had during the last lockdown. Make sure you have what you need to do most basic repairs around the house.
Wouldn’t it be great if the Coronavirus fades away, the riots end, and the rest of 2020 is free of trouble? Nothing would please me more. But in case it doesn’t, it wouldn’t hurt to not get caught off guard next time.
Life comes at you hard sometimes
Our neighbors’ eleven-year-old daughter has cancer. I was going to say that I don’t know how they can handle it, but I know better. You do, because you must. You take it one step at a time, any way you can, because that’s what you do.
I recently came across an interview between Jordan B. Peterson and his daughter about his recent recovery from benzodiazepines and how he became dependent in the first place. It’s really a frightening story when you realize this was someone who stood to legitimately benefit from a drug prescribed by his doctor, but it went on a little too long until it was almost too late. It may still be. Life came at him hard, and what was supposed to help just made it exponentially harder.
In both cases there are support systems in place. Our neighbors have family and friends within range to help. They have us–we’ve been cultivating a relationship for years. They know we can and will gladly do anything within our power to make this easier on them. Peterson had a daughter and son-in-law willing to go to incredible lengths to get him help, who quite literally saved his life.
No one wants to need help. But that’s the problem with self-sufficiency. Everyone has their breaking point, where you just can’t cope any more, when doing the most basic of tasks seems pointless. It’s important to have friends, to have that network who care enough to step in and take care of whatever can be reasonably delegated so that you can focus on what’s most important, what only you can do.
No one wants to be a burden on others. On the other hand, people love to feel useful, to be needed, especially by those they care about. I was thrilled today when my neighbor approached me about taking care of something for them over the next couple of days while they’re seeing to their daughter. We have a chance to show them we care and how much they mean to us as neighbors.
This is the reason why I’ve always insisted that self-reliance does not mean becoming a hermit. Some of the greatest satisfaction in life comes from being useful in some way to others. I believe everyone has something to give that at the right time would mean the world to someone. It’s not where the rubber meets the road, but where people meet people that magic happens.