Watch the news, people. You can stockpile food. You can store extra water. You can buy guns and ammo. You can turn your house into a fortress. But the cheapest and easiest thing you can do is simply be aware of what is going on in the world.
Now it's true that some disasters (like earthquakes) come out of nowhere and you just have to deal with it. However many times we have at least some degree of warning ahead of time. The people who were caught off guard in Huricane Katrina had plenty of warning that the storm was coming.
And even in situations that give no warning of the initial event, being informed can keep you from getting caught up in the aftermath. I have read many stories over the years of people who are not involved in the disaster who actually stumble into it simply because they were unaware any thing was going on.
The first thing I do when I get up in the morning is make a cup of tea and read the online news. When I am in the car I have the radio on. If I see clouds in the sky I listen to the weather. The last thing I do at night as I am climbing into bed is to take one last look at the online news.
Stay informed. It may save your life.
Apologies for the segue, but I’ll try to tie this back into your ‘news’ topic.
ReplyDeleteI don’t see a lot of movies, but recently on Netflix I watched this ‘Downfall’ movie, a 1st-hand account of the last days of the 3rd reich in Hitler’s bunker. It’s been out for several years now, but what I found compelling was that, amidst the *total* collapse of their world around them, literally crashing down around their ears, the (in)ability of the “true believer” to recognize that this was, in fact, the end of the world as they knew it (TEOTWATKI?)
After years of war, watching their world gradually torn apart, they remained too close to, too tied into the belief systems, too willing to continue believing propaganda, to see reality which none of them were prepared for.
Only, once it was too late, did they resolve to take the only courses of action that remained: take off the uniform & escape or blow their brains out.
Probably preaching to the choir here, but I suspect the consequences of the national choices we’ve made are so obvious and frightening, that most want nothing to do with preparing for reality. It’s much easier to resign oneself to “the end”, accept all the lies & open another bottle, than to ‘do something’ and effect real change.
Snoop-Diggty-DANG-Dawg
It's human nature to not want to face things that scare us. So lots of people won't prepare because to do so means thinking about something very frightening
ReplyDeleteYep, there are an awful lot of people who prefer to keep their head in the sand and I don't think that much can be done to change that. Facing reality can be very scary! And that's why a lot of people don't want to make their will because it means accepting the fact that one day they will die.
ReplyDeleteHowever there will always be a small percentage of us who believe that facing reality is necessary and that prepping and gathering knowledge ( i.e. reading the news) is a logical course of action.
So while we can't control the outcome of events on a grand scale, we can make choices and decisions that give us a fighting chance of survival on an individual basis.
Yep, there are an awful lot of people who prefer to keep their head in the sand and I don't think that much can be done to change that. Facing reality can be very scary! And that's why a lot of people don't want to make their will because it means accepting the fact that one day they will die.
ReplyDeleteHowever there will always be a small percentage of us who believe that facing reality is necessary and that prepping and gathering knowledge ( i.e. reading the news) is a logical course of action.
So while we can't control the outcome of events on a grand scale, we can make choices and decisions that give us a fighting chance of survival on an individual basis.