Hold On!

"Ask me again why I am the way I am, when the tide is high... and the water's still rising." -- Ghosts of Mars

This is not a comprehensive survival guide. How could it be? This is merely intended to be the basic beginning of inspiration towards getting through an emergency. It is meant to give people the opportunity to explore their mindset and maybe find their footing when crisis strikes, as it sometimes does. Five paragraphs in from this one I will offer some of the pragmatics of survival. Before that, a little commentary on the politics of why we end up in an emergency sometimes. Skip ahead, or plow on, you choice, always. Either way, remember that you CAN make it through the bad times with just a little thought and a whole lot of heart.

In the end, you will or you won't survive your emergency, and some of that is out of your hands, but sometimes you can turn the tables by the strength of your mindset alone. Face that possibility; we all get one final surprise. But you can still improve your odds! Unfortunately, the best tool you have for doing such in a crisis - your mindset - has too often been dulled at the behest of those who seek dominion over their fellow man for the most low of reasons. Some people do not care what happens to others as long as they get their long desired power and profit. You come from a better place than that, and are a caring, capable human being. You can handle this emergency; you can do this!

You will have to reach deeper than a normal day of effort, deeper than cultural conditioning has defined you, for your true strength. You will have to see the moment as it is, and not how it is supposed to be, or how it was promised it would be. I am going to comment on a few of the political/cultural problems exacerbating emergencies and then move to the pragmatics of getting through them.

People who put selfishly manufactured "principles" ahead of people, are often people who hate people. The true principle that matters is doing right by other people. It is that simple. And people who put politics ahead of people for the sake of power and profit are people who will eventually hate themselves if they don't already. They took that basic principle, marketed it, packaged it, made it exclusive, and sold it, which is a tragedy of its own! The bosses WANT all of your eggs in one of their baskets; stop going blindly along with that. Like within your mind, there needs to be diversity in your life approach. You are a person who wants the best for everyone, a person who knows we are all in this together!

From time to time, folks have had and will have to endure an emergency they were not expecting, and one that is often not directly of their own making. And endure is exactly what they have to do. Sometimes it is ALL they can do. It is your duty to all who care about you and to your own potential as a person to survive if you can, and I know you will feel compelled to assist others if you can when the time comes. You might need help sometimes, but you always want to help if you can!

I have seen a heck of a lot of unkindness of late during emergencies. I have seen a heck of a lot more lying and blaming for gain as an accepted norm. I have the sneaking suspicion that almost nothing will be learned by the powers that be from ANY emergency which will benefit the majority in this era, but maybe we each can move forward on an individual level. Perhaps we can avoid an additional tragedy the next time. We are capable of so much more than we are allowed to be sometimes! We see that potential time and again in the goodness, sacrifice, and cooperation that can come from hardship and challenges!

So much for the systemic dysfunction that exacerbates the emergency or crisis, here is what I got for the pragmatics of survival:

Hold on, hold strong, hold fast! Time is your enemy in a crisis but it is also your friend if you look at it the right way. The longer you can hold your line, the better chance there is for rescue, for nature to turn a better direction, or an opportunity to present itself. Time will grind on you during this, and will sometimes bring more of the bad and it will feel rough. Everything is about buying time, the sort of time that will benefit you and get you through the crisis. Keep holding on!

While holding on, look for ways to advance to a better situation, to change the balance of the struggle in your favor. You MUST start with yourself and what you need to do, and then move to those closest to you who need your assistance. Do NOT worry about bigger things or normal stresses, stay in the moment and do the best job you can, then help the person next to you do theirs. Do that until the crisis passes or the emergency is over. Your crisis job will often need to change during the event, so make those changes without illusion or regret. It will be challenging, but I know you can!

What I offer today will not help - or not enough - today if you are in the middle of an emergency; you are in the squall, a storm of emergency, crisis, and terror, doing your best to just survive and hanging on the only ways you know how. But what I am saying might help a bit, or the next time. And there is always that next time, unfortunately. I cannot offer specific advice because I will not have your problems and you will not have mine. I have prepared in my own life for everything I can think of - and have the resources to be able to - but I am not there and you are not here. I CAN say that you need to learn from your emergency for the next time. Rely on yourself to do the best you can for your areas of responsibility. Official assistance may be slow in coming - if at all - and you may be on your own someday, and if so, I want you to make it through!

Back to the emergency:

Eat the elephant. (Not literally; they are nice people those elephants. No, as a figure of speech meaning a complex problem.) That is, solve the emergency problem one step at a time. Start with priority needs, and start those with the ones you can do, both in ability and resources. But do the work. Do not wait too long to start, or solely rely on anyone else; you may run out of time. Each time we help ourselves, we free up community resources needed to help others. Even if you can only save your own AOR, that is a huge help. And even if self-extrication is impossible, anything you can do to move toward a solution buys you a greater chance of seeing it through the crisis!

Each crisis needs it own specialized approach, as each situation you will ever find yourself in terms of an emergency both on its large scale and as an individual has its own challenges. There are some basics:

You need to breathe as a number one priority. Three minutes is a long time to go without air for most folks. So, big time priority, that breathing stuff! If you need supplemental O2 via tank and are worried about the supply, ration. If on an oxygen concentrator and the power is out, do what you can, I know it is rough and there are not always easy answers. Do not over do it with exertion and create more problems! Breathing... no burning of toxic material to stay warm, no burning ANYTHING without ventilation. And so on... make breathing a priority, including working on the problems of the crisis over panicking about them or politicking about them. Take into consideration the medical needs of yourself and those you are responsible for and do your best to keep those airways working! Anything not related to doing your duty to yourself and your AOR towards making it through the crisis is a waste of breath.

Next you need shelter, and quick. Exposure to any number of things can strike you down where you stand very quickly. Shelter takes many forms, but look for something where you can keep the temperature livable, something you can defend from the elements and other dangers, something relatively stable and safe from immediate threat, and located near or possessing necessary resources. Shelter in a crisis is often less than desirable or ideal, because, well... crisis! Don't be picky. Shelter is sometimes one good place, sometimes it is on the move because doing so gives you more opportunities. The emergency and the challenges that present themselves will help define what you need from it. Be prepared to abandon a shelter that does not meet your needs any longer. Hanging onto your Franklin Mint collection while the volcano is erupting will make for one helluva tourist attraction a couple millennia later. Like anything in a crisis, shelter only serves you, if it serves you. Move on if it doesn't, or make changes. You and your troubles will define the shelter's specifications. Sanitation is a part of both shelter and the next priority.

You need water. Cleanliness does matter, because getting sick won't help. But organ failure due to dehydration will REALLY matter in both the short and long term. Unfortunately, most folks live marginally dehydrated in the best of times. Crisis exacerbates the problem. The more active you have to be, the faster your reserves are depleted in this and other areas. Filthy water brings us back to getting sick, but the difference between life and death has demanded at times that I drink some unsavory stuff, with mixed results. Try not to, really try! The weaker and more desperate you get, the more delirious you become, the worse the choices you make will become. Boil what you drink if you can, including snow. If heat or fuel are a problem, then there are options but none I want to specifically get into in such a general way as they take specialized knowledge not suitable for this essay. This is where skill development and reference material really comes in handy; if not this time, next time. Get some for next time. Bottom line, water is not as immediate as breathing and shelter, but it gets really immediate, real fast. Avoid alcohol in a crisis for obvious reasons under nearly every condition. Sodas and juices are better than nothing but are not a long term solution. Work the water problem as a continuous effort. Designate a potty area and keep it away from you. Try to keep your hands as clean as you can. Water is a survival bottleneck and you will have to sort it out. If I was there with you, I am confident we could work something out regardless of the details. I am not so you are gonna have to. I am confident that you can or will learn! Warm the snow before you eat it, if you can. Giving yourself hypothermia and defeating your shelter is not helpful.

There are hundreds - if not thousands - of books on this survival subject ranging from bad to excellent. They help, the good ones do anyway. But if you don't have them and haven't studied, just keep them in mind for next time. Your unprepared crisis right now will have to be on the fly, by your wits, and by the skin of your teeth. Your mental fortitude and plain old human cussedness will be your tools. You can do this!

Moving on...

Food. I like food. You probably do, too. Food is not an immediate priority. Stop screaming. Modern folk especially, we can go a significant duration without eating before it matters much in the big scheme of things. If you have a medical condition, then you are going to have to figure it out, ration, plan, whatever. It will depend on the specifics. But if you have air to breathe, if you are warm/cool enough, if you aren't too thirsty... in a modern crisis that will probably have bought you enough time to get to the food. It can be a challenge when it comes to meds, but that is a specific in your life you know more about than I do. I know what I need to do with my own medications and I encourage you find something workable for the next crisis. Even if you don't technically need to eat right at the moment, if you are worried about it or it makes you feel better, eat something. And if you can keep eating regular, there is no reason not to other than sanitation and long term considerations. When it comes to food, cook it if it is something that will make you sick if you don't. Keep perishables cool. Remember, getting sick will just make it all worse. Eating makes poop so deal with that. Do not eat dry rice in quantity, nor too much of certain other things too numerous to list. Hunger will be a long term issue after a big enough crisis, and will have to be dealt with. Crop loss, livestock kill off, economic issues, transportation interruptions... these will be cascading crises that are easier for a wealthy nation to deal with than a poorer one, but ones which a wealthy nation is badly prepared for in terms of mental fortitude and general motivation. If food is getting short, don't advertise that you have any, and make sure that your shelter prep includes defensive capabilities. A human is a predator, never forget that. I know you are not, but be ready if someone comes along who is!

Beyond that... morale matters. Recreation, distraction, and companionship will help the crisis pass. Purpose matters, folks. Your purpose is to ride the storm of the crisis out, do your duty to self and community, to learn and grow from this one for the next one. Lean on that purpose, lean INTO that purpose.

What will happen after the crisis is a lot of static. I have no hope that many people will rise above it and tune it out. You will, because you know that the yammering is not helping! If too many people enable the yammering, it will make each subsequent crisis worse and worse. Unfortunately hindsight is seldom 20-20, too many people compulsively lock the barn after the horses are stolen, and experiences are quickly lost back to apathetic comfort. It is what it is. But you will be ready and you will help you community be ready, I know it in my heart!

Breathe. Shelter. Drink and clean. Eat if you can, and don't get eaten. Dark humor helps, but only in small doses. Worry about those frozen pipes, muddy rugs, bank accounts, and senseless punditry later. For now, one bite of the elephant and then the next. You got to make it, and you can!

The pain you feel from disrupted lives, missed opportunities, personal loss, and just general distress over the mess is very real. Life will go on, it will rebuild, and if you buy enough time to see the post crisis cluster-funk, then that means you have bought yourself the time to make it work out. Even if you have lost everything but you are still here, folks... you gotta KNOW that that is a win! The human race has been down that road a lot, and we are still here. I will help you, your neighbors will help you, and you will reciprocate! We could do this better without all the demagogues and the bosses' toadies jamming us all up, but even with those a-holes NOT helping, we will still find a way to help each other. We got this! YOU got this!

It is human to survive, and it is human to do more than just that. You will find a way to THRIVE, but you got to make it through the crisis, first!

Survivors survive, and the point of civilization is to HELP each other BE survivors. We are all here for as long as we can be. If we cooperate and collaborate, we can kick some backsides and come through it. This storm rages, the next storm approaches... and you will meet it when it does!

All hands on deck! We got this!