If you did not see it coming...

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There should be no doubt left. What we are headed for is NOT a minor glitch in the systems, government, and wealth we have known. This is not a one year, or even ten year, slow down. If we are to survive with more than the shirts on our back and little else, and then only possibly, we are going to have to change the way we do business, how our government works, and how money is created and used. The rest of the world can go hang, they have for most of history. We are not, as our mother's might have said, just like everyone else. Or, at least, that is my hope.

As for the end of the world. This I cannot say. If I see Mexico City disappear under lava, if I see California separate and mostly sink, if I see China sink, if I see oceans turning to blood killing off millions of fish, yeah, maybe. Until that time, do not think you will get off that light or that easy. You will be alive, living in a corpse that will quickly go feral. If you do not prepare, you will kill people to eat, perhaps even eating those you killed. You will become the basest of your animal instinct. You... do not want to go there.

Preparation is overwhelming, seen as a whole and in full term. So do not look at the whole. Look at what you can do. Store enough extra food to see you through four weeks. Make sure it is food you can tolerate, make it food that is easy to prepare, some of it without the need to cook, and buy containers to put enough for a gallon a day for a month, then fill those. That is all, for now. It is about where I am, if I also have 80 pounds each of beans and rice. When you get that done and have the food on rotation, think further about it. I know, money, time, effort. I sometimes squeeze by with as little as $500 in a month for anything other than bills.

Another way to think of it is to think of food as the new currency. If money becomes meaningless, as it is fast becoming, food will be what you buy other things with as well. At least unless you have other goods or services people not only could but would want. Can you cut hair and do you have the tools? Can you tend children, the elderly, or livestock? What real services can you offer? Think about it and stock up. I, for example, can be security. I can train men for that as well. I need to boost my capacity in long arms, that is more than rusty. At least scoped shooting. I can also haul, lift, and am tall so I can do things others might have difficulty with.

Disabled as I am, I wonder about life after cataclysm. Will the world slow enough that my speed is more acceptable? Today, one has to go to work and be there all day, five days a week. But when simply getting food and wood, managing to keep one's home stapled down, and making sure the fruits of one's labor and their neighbors is secure, is what is required, perhaps my more sedate manners would be more acceptable. Working when I could, resting when I cannot, with a hungry belly or several to keep me on the move a bit more than I am at this time. Either that or I will die a hard death of starvation. I do not want to see this tested, but I think, if nothing changes in a huge way, I will see that. Even if those changes come, it will not completely avert paying a dear price for our foolishness.

Pray. Talk to your friends and family. Strengthen bonds and stock up. This is going to hurt. Every time I go to the grocery store, I realize we are in serious trouble. I know those dear prices are just the tip of the iceberg. The upward momentum of which is unstoppable. I just pray, pray strongly faithfully and hopefully, that the ship stays together long enough to get a real captain in the presidency. An actual man needs to be in place, a strong one too. He may have to fight the mob horde to save the worthwhile few, or choose the unthinkable. The socialism, or really communism, the current beast in office would absolutely choose.

Get to it, the clock is not on your side. Either you are a beast or a man. Take your pick and be prepared to be a little of each even with the best of those choices.