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I don't know if the term "Prepping" is complimentary or pejorative, but I do know that my Mom now qualifies for the label. Like so many people that buy Emergency Preparedness Supplies, my Mother, who is an Arkansan, is becoming increasingly rattled by the escalating pace of events across the country and the world. Culminating in a recent Bible Study group among friends where the topic of the day was Middle East unrest, (events that many thoughtful people perceive as biblical in scale), somebody apparently said, "Should we be getting prepared?" To which my Mom referenced SurvivalOutpost.com. Interestingly, the leader of the group is a regular reader of our blog.
Later that day my Mom was calling for advice on what she should do to be prepared for our increasingly unpredictable world and uncertain future. This change of heart represents a full circle for my Mom.
It's funny to watch how people react to the notion of 'Prepping' (the term given to the act of storing supplies in the event of an emergency, whether man made or natural). When Brian and I first decided to launch SurvivalOutpost.com, our family and friends, not to mention our professional associates, were incredulous at best, downright scornful at worst. Perhaps part of the reason for the raised eyebrows over our business decision is that prepping has had such a bad rap over the years. Prior to September 11, 2001, people who stored supplies for an unpredictable event were perceived as fringe -- camo-clad anarchists living in the woods waiting for society to unravel. It doesn't help that some of these very same anarchists proved themselves to be quite unbalanced. Hence, prepping became regrettably associated with the fanatical.
Then buildings began to fall down in New York City; an entire coastline was devastated by a category 5 hurricane, leveling a historic American city; the United States became mired in intractable and seemingly unending wars; the economy was brought to it's knees by wild-eyed and selfish Wall Street racketeering, sending the entire planet reeling into an epic recession; weird and unpredictable weather events started slamming across the planet sending flood waters over entire continents; biblical droughts; epic snows; mind numbing heat; a shifting, rocking and rolling earth, leveling whole cities and creating waves that defy imagination; massive and unexplained animal deaths across the planet; bizarre increases in credible sighting of unexplained aerial phenomena; and then, of course, there are the Mayans and a whole host of predictive traditions that suggest we are living in extraordinary times, times of great turmoil and upheaval.
Suddenly, thinking people are beginning to wonder if prepping isn't such a bad idea after all.
Like my Mom, as I watch people slowly accept the validity and reasonableness of 'Prepping' I am reminded of Authur Schopenhauer's famous quote regarding truth. Schopenhauer said that all truths go through three stages, first it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third it is accepted as self-evident. I think this principle applies rather appropriately to 'Prepping'. At first it is ridiculed as fringe. Then it is laughed at as silly, fanatical, nonsense, a waste of money. Finally, people start calling for advice. And while we can all agree that it is a sad state of affairs that require us to plan for the worst, while hoping for the best, it is, nevertheless, the world that we live in. It is real.
Preparing for an uncertain future is not fringe at all, it is smart.
Welcome to the world of the real.
