Learning about TEOTWAWKI
TEOTWAWKI is an acronym for The End of The World as We Know It.
Having lived most of a sinfully decadent life already, decadent in that I have gotten to do most of the things I set out to do; chase and shoot bad people, climb some great big mountains, fly really fast aircraft, eat great food all over the world, meet and know some very intelligent people who anyone can admire, travel every corner of the world, I
found myself wondering what to do next. I am at the stage of thinking, “you know if I die tomorrow I wont have many regrets”, but Im not ready to cash in just yet. Being a fortunate soul who has planned ahead and now owns a small farm in rural
North Carolina I should be content to settle down in the front porch rocking chair and just admire the view for the rest of my days. There are tons of books yet to read. I have just started “On Combat” by Col. Dave Grossman. Can’t wait to start “Starving the Monkeys” by Tom Baugh. So why can’t I be placid my few remaining years? I suspect I’m just born with too much WASP blood or too much warrior sheepdog in me as Col. Grossman puts it. I have also worked in many different sectors of public and private life and the one job I enjoy above all others is helping train the next generation of
America’s military men and women. . I’m just cruising down the Maslow Heirarchy of Needs highway one day when it occurs to me and I
Idecide to set off on a new adventure; using the knowledge and resources I have to train urbanites in how to survive social calamity or almost anything.
I often hear people say things like, “well if worse comes to worse I’ll just plant a garden in the back yard and go shoot some deer in the woods” without bothering to find out in
advance if they can even do that or obtaining the tools nessecary to do it. Most of the folks I hear say this have never grown anything or eaten anything they killed. I think to myself, “Boy are you in for a rude awakening someday.”
Its true American people in the past did survive and eventually prosper following massive failure and depression of their economy and social structure. Those were different people than the average American today. They were already accustomed to helping each other, traveling without cars and providing their own food and medicine. Today’s average American couldn’t survive a week without their credit card, cellphone or shopping mall. How long will the average American live when the police are overwhelmed and drug gangs are looting the local Walmart? How long after the Walmarts and Food Lions are empty and they turn on private individuals ? Even with advance planning, training and preparation your odds are only a little better than zero if “worse comes to worse” but heck, slim odds are better than no odds at all.
So here is where we are with all this. My target audience are urbanites who have never even thought about these matters before but
now due to the many political uncertainties are waking up and wondering what happened to
America as we knew it. The usual stranger in his own strange land. Disenfranchised salts of the earth. It may be too little too
late but I feel compelled to try to help some people survive what is surely coming.
I have created a survival camp in the woods. It has a US Army surplus 8 man artic tent
as primary shelter. The students will get an introduction to the main survival topics and
hands on instruction in how to create and make their needs. They will also be trained in basic self defense in homemade weapons and firearms use. The strongest focus will be on
the pshycology behind survival and the will to survive as the most important tool.
With all the survival schools around the country why is one more important? The answer to me is obvious. In extreme circumstances who else is responsible for your survival, the state or federal government? I know the Constitution says that is their main job but do you really think the citizens are their highest priority? They can’t even get FEMA to operate well in regional emergencies. Nope they are going to worry about themselves first and have already done so. They might get to you in a couple of weeks if it fits their agenda. Is having the greatest number of people at least exposed to this way of thinking going to hurt anything? Not unless you are one of the ones who would like nothing better than to see Americans suffer and die. Can anyone learn everything they need to know from any one school or any one person? My opinion is you could take one hundred adults who have spent most of their lives learning survival and put each of them in ten different situations and they would each learn ten different things they had never thought about before. Will I have as much fun organizing and conducting this training as I’ve had doing
other work? Why would I waste my time doing something I didn’t enjoy?
Once I asked a Buddhist monk at a temple in
Thailand what I should do with the rest of my life. He was a rather young monk and after a lot of chanting and meditating he got
flustered trying to find the answer to my question. After consulting with an older and wiser monk I was told that all I had to do for the rest of my life was; “Find work you enjoy and be kind to animals.” Doesn’t sound like bad advice or kharma to me.
Hey , that brings up another idea; Learn how to survive almost anything and morally
and spiritually prosper and have fun doing it. Oh well, that will be my Survival 102 class.