We're Heading Into WW3

Unfortunately, I come from a long line of survivors.

My abuela survived ww2 in her childhood, along with surviving her own abusive mother. A little over 20 years later, her daughter (my mother - who was only 11 years old at the time) was growing the families food because that was the only way to ensure they could eat. This was not some romantic farmhouse-chic trend. This was grow food or be hungry, simple as that. This time round it was a personal disaster, not a world war, but in many ways there is not much of a difference between the two. These experiences carved themselves permanently into my family's psyche. I was often told about the teachers who would steal food my my abuela's lunch box at school because they themselves were so hungry. Adults stealing from children because they couldn't fight the pain from hunger. Could you even imagine doing that? I'm sure those teachers could never have seen them selves doing that, yet they did when the pain became too much. My mama has always fiercely opposed to any kind of food waste, and when you consider that at 11 years old she was tasked with raising (and butchering) the chickens and rabbits that they raised for food, it's hardly surprising. While my ancestors are farmers, neither my mother or my grandparents were farmers, and their only reference to survive this new reality was a copy of The Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour. I can't imagine having that enormous responsibility on my shoulders at 11.

Now, at 30 years old, I have a copy of this same book on my shelf, though mine is written in English, not French. I grew up with an urgent understanding that we are never as secure as the world would make us think we are. We are out first line of security. When times get hard - be it for personal disasters, economical ones or potential world wars - we must take action to protect and provide for ourselves, our families and community rather than hope our bumbling government will do it for us. My government had parties at downing street while everyone else said goodbye to their dying granny over flipin' zoom. Dying alone or, at best, with strangers around them, while our officials were have piss-ups, flings and granting themselves larger salaries.

I have spent the last 10 years working towards self sufficiency for myself, and now, for my small family too. Truth be told, I had always hoped that my prepping would be for normal things such as job loss, loss of health, or even a minor recession. I've experienced a serious decline in health and job loss before. Now I am utterly convinced that we are teetering on the edge of a recession that will make the great depression look like a day-trip to the spa, along with a third world war to make it all really cozy.

Fuck.

I wish I had a more eloquent way to put it, but fuck. Fuck. FUCK.

Ok. Breath.

Here is what I'm doing about it:

I've always approached preparing as an insurance I have complete control of. Most of my veggies come from my garden. I have enough food stored in my house at all times to not have to buy anything for more than three months - you can only imagine how useful that was during the lockdowns. I can heat my house without electricity, cook without it too. These are just some of the many little bits and pieces that mean I'm hugely insulated from many problems, from job loss to world war 3.

Over the next few months I'm going to write a daily (or semi-daily) post on how to get started on self reliance. These are all things I have done or that I'm working towards. This will be applicable to you regardless of your state in life. It doesn't matter if you're renting or have a mortgage, a big garden, or no garden at all. There is too much of a focus on the ideal situation when it comes to preparedness, and frankly, it really pisses me off. It encourages hopelessness which is an absolute poison. Sure, I'd love to have 5 or six acres, a 5 bedroom house passed down to me by granny and a savings account with several zeros with no debt, but I don't. Also, these kinds of preparedness topics tend to be SO America-centric. Guns, ammo and rice in mylar bags is the mantra that often wafts over from across the pond. Well, I’m from the UK. We prefer good old-fashion knife crime.

This guide is for those of us in the UK. With the climate we have, the economic reality that we face and the culture that we live in. It's for people who rent, or have mortgages that they'll likely be paying for the next 30 years. Small budgets that are getting smaller every day, those are the kinds of people this will help.

It's going to be rough, but if you get ahead of it, you'll be ok. Don’t just dive head first thinking “Oh God! Everything is disappearing! My arse will never know toilet paper again! I need to buy all of the foood!”

Look, this is not going to be a massive list of all the ways the world can go to shit - that’s just not helpful. Things have always gone wrong, and that’s not exclusive to people and humanity. It’s just part of being alive; just ask the dinosaurs. Even with everything going on in the world, I’m incredibly grateful to be born in the time I’m in. We have such an advantage compared to most people in history. The books, recourses, local skills that we have now are the kind of things royalty just two hundred years ago could only have dreamed of having available to them. It's going to be ok. It's ok to be worried, but use that worry to be proactive and bit-by-bit be a little more secure than yesterday. I don't want you to just survive the coming years, I want you to absolutely thrive and help others in your circle to do so too.

I'll have a new article for you tomorrow.