No, I haven’t abandoned the Self-Sufficient Writer series. The path to self-sufficiency is an ongoing journey for me, and I wanted to take some time to learn a few things before I shared them here. My attempts at gardening this year ended rather badly, but I learned a lot from it and I’m carrying those lessons to other projects like an indoor herb garden, which seems to be doing well. Expect some interesting posts in the next month or two.
I started this blog series in order to explore topics like homesteading, emergency preparedness (also known as “prepping”), and the self-sufficient lifestyle from the perspective of a career writer, or really anyone who freelances in a creative profession that affords them a great deal of flexibility.
When you are a writer, you are your own boss. You set your own hours. You can work from anywhere in the world (or in space, I suppose), so long as you have an internet connection. And while it takes a lot of work to be successful, it’s not like a nine-to-five assembly line job where you’re doing the same thing all the time. Creative work requires periods of down-time where you “refill the well,” so to speak, where you typically switch focus to something more mindless in order to allow your creative batteries to recharge.
In short, writing is a profession that allows a great deal of space for pursuing a self-sufficient lifestyle. And that’s important, because it’s also the sort of profession that requires a degree of self-sufficiency, at least for those who intend to make it a lifelong career. With writing, there is no security. There is no minimum wage, $15 or otherwise. You never know when the market will fall out from under you. You’re constantly vacillating between feast and famine, and when you first start out, it’s usually more famine than feast. If you don’t have all the other aspects of your life in order, it’s going to be a really rough (and potentially deadly) roller-coaster ride.
But there are other reasons to pursue a self-sufficient lifestyle—reasons that apply not only to writers, but to people of all walks of life. With the tragic events in Paris last week, those reasons are becoming more and more apparent to everyone with the courage to recognize them.
We live in a global society that is on the verge of a catastrophic collapse. The economic and geopolitical pillars that held up the old order are buckling, the chaos and bloodshed in the developing world has started to spill over, and our modern consumer lifestyle is completely unsustainable. A detailed discussion of all these factors would require multiple blog posts, but for a writer like me who studies this sort of thing, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that the strain on our culture’s failure points is becoming more severe.
One of the responses to this has been the prepper movement, also known as survivalism. It’s been around for a long time, but has grown significantly in recent years. And there’s a lot of good that’s come out of it. Preppers believe that individuals should take personal responsibility for themselves and their families, in order to be prepared when shit hits the fan (SHTF).
There’s certainly a lot of overlap between preparedness and self-sufficiency, and the more seasoned and experienced preppers tend to fall in the space between the two. But there are also some key distinctions between the typical prepper mentality and true self-sufficiency which can be quite instructive.
The typical prepper spends a lot of time and energy on guns and ammunition, and is more likely to see their neighbors as the enemy in the event of a collapse. In contrast, those who are self-sufficient are more likely to reach out and help their neighbors, understanding that the first step to helping others is to take care of yourself.
The typical prepper is obsessed with doomsday scenarios where the entire society collapses all at once. In contrast, those who are self-sufficient are more focused on personal emergencies, such as accidents, unemployment, medical conditions, etc. They understand that it is far more likely that they will face a personal catastrophe than a widespread general one.
The typical prepper spends a lot of money on stockpiling supplies and equipment that they may never use. In contrast, those who are self-sufficient actually save money by buying the things they know they are going to use and getting it in bulk or when it goes on sale.
The typical prepper stocks up on dehydrated foods and MREs that they probably would not enjoy living off of, since they do not rotate through it. In contrast, those who are self-sufficient understand the principle of “eat what you store and store what you eat.” For them, food storage is a lifestyle as much as a contingency plan.
The typical prepper has a lot of camping gear and a massive “bug-out bag” that probably has more stuff than they can carry. In contrast, those who are self-sufficient are much more prepared to “bug-in,” with a garden that yields fresh food, livestock such as chickens or bees, and other aspects of a home economy that enable them to withstand disruptions without having to abandon their homes.
The typical prepper tries to do everything himself, so that he can face the post-apocalyptic world on his own. In contrast, those who are self-sufficient understand the importance of community and are more likely to band together and barter with others for the needs that are more difficult to fulfill on their own.
In his book More Forgotten Skills of Self-Sufficiency, Caleb Warnock devotes an entire chapter to the differences between the prepper mentality and the self-sufficient lifestyle, with the controversial chapter title “STOP BEING PREPARED.” While I think there’s a lot of good to be said about emergency preparedness, it’s important to understand that the intersection between preparedness and self-sufficiency is the optimal place to be.
Preppers who do not develop the skills of self-sufficiency tend to let their preparedness lapse, and people who pursue a self-sufficient lifestyle without understanding the need to be prepared end up missing some of the most important reasons for pursuing self-sufficiency in the first place.
In the Mormon scriptures, there is a verse that reads: “if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” That is one of the most important points of both preparedness and self-sufficiency: it gives you security and peace of mind, both to face the major disasters and the personal ones as well. For those pursuing a creative career that has little to offer in the way of security, that peace of mind is key. It allows you to be more creative, because you don’t have to worry as much about your basic needs. It gives you confidence and helps you to think positively, even in the face of hardship. And while this series is more about self-sufficiency than it is about preparedness, the two go hand-in-hand. Because without a mentality of personal preparedness, the self-sufficient lifestyle is ultimately incomplete.
The Self-Sufficient Writer
- Introduction
- How I Got Started
- What I Learned by Leaving the Country
- Lifestyle Choices
- First Steps Toward Food Storage
- Bread, the Staff of Life
- Preparedness vs. Self-Sufficiency
