Self-Reliant Living

You know the only way this can happen. Is if the so called "Corporation" wants it to happen.

The paradigm that has developed during the past 150 years is collapsing before our eyes

This can be done. You have to want to do it. I built a little place in the mountains, generate my own power, grow or hunt for food, make my own beer and wine.

My only connection to the dying corporate world is this wireless internet connection.

It's a great way to live, I wish more Americans would take the steps necessary to cut the corporate cord.

Gee, lucky you.

And how are they gonna stop someone who wants to live off the grid? If millions want to go off-grid and decouple from the system, who's gonna stop them? That's one little bit of freedom we still have, to drop out of the rat race and take our survival back into our own hands. All we gotta do is declare our own independence in our own minds, and just do it. Break the spell, wake up, and take control of our own destinies and not follow the the short-sighted idiots who have been leading us to the abyss.

Time is short.

My great-grandmother was born in 1888 , I spent a lot of time with her as a child and the house she lived in was pretty basic , no inside toilet , one cold tap , no fridge just a pantry but she was happy , I d say a lot happier than most people nowdays who have everything.....she lived til 98 and saw a great-great grandson(my son) , I would love a little house just like hers with a wood burning stove and a well , to be able to be self sufficient too would be great , maybe a few chickens and a goat......

We CAN go back to "the old ways". I moved from the city to the country. I am on a lake and have hundreds of thousands of water on my own property in private lakes. I have three wells. I canned over 800 jars this year, I make my own bread, I have hens, I buy meat from local ranchers.

The average income in this county is very low but when you have ample ability to grow your food along with hunting and fishing, it doesn't take a lot to pay for electricity and a little land - modest home.

The choice is more about greed than anything. People want more material things and so they remain chained to the cities where that can entrap them very quickly should any problem arise be it natural disaster or anything else. If the supply chain is interrupted, things will turn ugly quickly.

Nostalgia for serfdom? Walking behind a harnessed mule? lol

Not necessary at all. Small farm tractor running on biodiesel, electric appliances running off batteries powered by solar/wind. Pond for fish farming running a small hydro generator.

One can go off the grid, live well, eat well, and not have to give up all modern conveniences. The best situation is to use modern tech to generate power where it's used, grow food where it's eaten. Not such a big leap. and definitely a more efficient way to run an economy, not the centralized globalism that is now crumbling.

I suspect we have a crisis of definition.
You dont really practice self sufficiency, at least for biodiesel you need KOH and MeOH, sufuric acit and phenothaelien. And oil, of course. DO you make ANY of those, hmm?
I suspect you can make your batteries and chargers right?
Off grid is a misnomer. You survive as a targeted consumer as long as you make payments to those who would take everything you have by waving a piece of paper at you.
You cant live without coming into town and buying what you cant make, which is more than you wish to admit. Not a bad lifestyle, for sure but not close to self sufficiency.
I dont call that self sufficient, we arent on the same wavelength to even have a discussion

We have for the past 150 years or so drifted from self-sufficiency to near total dependence. As if some Declaration of Dependence was signed behind our backs, we have through four or five generations become all but totally dependent on non-human corporate entities whose primary function is not to make our lives healthier, wealthier or wise, but to reap the maximum profits from their activities regardless of the consequences to humans and the planet Earth.

In the process of giving up the self-sufficiency of our great-grandfathers we have been poisoned, drugged, brainwashed, ripped off, manipulated, swindled, coerced, deceived, spied-upon, and sent to slaughter. We have gone from growing our own fresh, healthy organic food to being dependant on levethian corporate chemical additions of toxic chemicals pleasantly-packaged and skillfully promoted for our sustenance. GMO added to preserve harmness.

For warmth and cooking and our other various convenience tools, entertainment and communication, we have become dependent on corporations to deliver the electricity than runs our world. Our transporation needs are controlled and delivered by humongous corporations. Otherwise, we walk, our voice is limited to over the next hill, and the only music we hear is that we make ourselves.

Every nook and most crannies of our lives, especially the most basic survival needs, are entangled in dependence on these non-human entities that have come to be known as multi-national corporations owned primarily by a relatively small group of elite banking and industrial families who thrive on the power of financial domination and political control, often to the detriment of society and nature.

Over these past four or five generations, our worlds have been taken under control by The Corporation, while we the people have been boonswoggled into believing that our best interests are being served by those who make the big decisions. We no longer rely upon ourselves and our neighbors. We are under control by powers beyond our choices and we are vulnerable to the whims of nature and The Powers That Be.

Westernized Civilization is teetering on the brink of it's own excesses and we remain constantly less than a week from chaos should The Corporation's production and distribution channels be disrupted by financial collapse or cataclysmic natural events. Since we've lost the basic suvival skills of our great-grandfathers, and our water and food supplies are no longer found at our local corporate outlet, food crisis will develop in a matter of hours. Some neighbors may shed their veneers of civilization as their children experience hunger for the first time while the urban and suburban regions descend into precarious and sudden disorder. As the civil engineering infrastructure breaks down, those living in densely-populated areas will quickly find themselves living in desperate circumstances as water distribution and sanition processes squeel to a halt. This all a result of the near-complete dependence on the system The Corporation has designed.

This Great Mutation from self-sufficiency to dependence that has developed during the past few generations has left our freedoms and opportunities vulnerable to systemic collapse and threatens to send us all back to where this age began. And that in itself is not a bad thing. In fact it is a good thing--and a necessary thing because this top-heavy, lop-sided, wasteful, profit-driven, inequitable system that has evolved over the past few generations, or that has been built, is not working to the benefit of most people, but for the benefit of the few while nature coughs and chokes on the fumes of The Corporation.

Fortunately, change is coming. Ready or not, things are going to change. At the other end of this tranformation a better world awaits. Between here and there we the people will face many challenges, some sudden, some more gradual, that will put our living skills, our survival skills, to the test. Now would be a good time to take stock of our situation, determine our dependencies, and gain the skills and knowledge to necessary to break those chains The Corporation has lured us into so we will depend only on ourselves and immediate neighbors for our basic needs of food, water and shelter.

In these precarious financial times, the best investment is in those things that would fulfill Buckminster Fuller's definition of wealth: the number of days of forward survival. A garden and canning skills, greenhouse, solar panels, windmill and good batteries will ensure the least disruption should The Corporation's best-laid plans go awry. And if your normalcy bias prevents you from believing in any sudden collapse of your local world, at least you'll be eating healthy food probably for the first time in your life, and your lights will work as long as the sun comes up and the winds blow.

Whether TSHTF happens suddenly, or whether the teetering edifice of The Corporation crumbles slowly, we all will benefit by embracing the self-sufficent toolset of our great-grandfathers and retake control and provision of our own basic needs. This system we were all born into is not working because it does not live in harmony with nature and does not work towards the refinement of the human experience, so it will either collapse on its own greed and fixation with material consumption and accumulation or it will transform itself into something that provides health, comfort and allows everyone to become everything they are meant to be.

This transformation will be fueled by nature, built with a self-sufficient toolset, and inspired by living every day in a simple quality of beneficial interaction with those around us, our basic needs self-sustaining, our dependence on The Corporation long-ago banished to the shelf of failures in history. We will then have arrived at a human-centered civilization that will be our springboard to the stars.

There will never be a better time than now for us to take these steps into self-sufficiency. Better now to do it voluntarily while we still have a choice, than to wait for The Corporation and it's minions in government to fix the mess they have made over the past 15 decades or so.

Do it. Do it Now.

--Durango

Do they have you brainwashed into believing you have no other choice? They are not all-powerful, in spite of their hubris. It's time we exerted our freedom to choose. They are nothing without our cooperation and patronization. Boycott them, and they lose their economic power. Just stand up and turn your back on the whole frickin mess and DIY.

The system they have built is fundamentally flawed and is now collapsing all around us. We need to break free of it and assume responsibility for our own basic needs.

Gee, lucky you.

Well said!

I'll give you that point that setting up for self-reliance takes an investment of time and money. Not arguing that point. That was my point in recommending people to convert their paper assets into tangible tools of self-reliance. But it is possible to disengage from "The System" and live simply and live better. Sure we'll have to run to town to pickup certain supplies, to barter locally for certain needs. But creating your own energy and growing your own food is major leap towards ensuring those basic needs when the distribution channels break down. It's possible to live cheap, live efficiently, and live well without depending on monster-mega-corporations to provide those needs.

My great-grandmother was born in 1888 , I spent a lot of time with her as a child and the house she lived in was pretty basic , no inside toilet , one cold tap , no fridge just a pantry but she was happy , I d say a lot happier than most people nowdays who have everything.....she lived til 98 and saw a great-great grandson(my son) , I would love a little house just like hers with a wood burning stove and a well , to be able to be self sufficient too would be great , maybe a few chickens and a goat......

Arm yourselves with knowledge and skills. Go learn how to do stuff, then PRACTICE it. Living History museums are a great way to learn old skills, there are spinning and blacksmithing guilds all over, go to your local historical society lectures and learn..we have had lessons on how to hew a beam from a log, and gotten to try our hand at it! Learn how to sharpen your tools and care for them properly!!!! It is just as important as how to USE them.

Be familiar with canning..but do you know how to harvest? There are often wildcrafting lectures at botanical gardens, gardening clubs, etc.

Don't overlook your local extension office as a source of information. Take a free hunter's safety class and learn about hunting AND at least field dressing! If you don't know how to butcher properly, read up on it, or you can always just hang the deer up in cold weather and hack a hunk off when you need it. (not joking)

Learn how to make soap, how to cook over an open fire, how to sew and knit, how to spin fiber into yarn.

Learn how to keep warm! I cannot stress the benefits of visiting a good living history museum and studying the houses, the layout, the fireplaces, the barn, the tools. There have been vast improvements on many of these things now, but it is a foundation from which to learn. and a way to connect with people who can teach you valuable skills!

do you know how to render lard? tan a hide? make a maple tap from a branch? how to tell when the sap has boiled enough?

which wood in your area burns well? I will tell you, if you are trying to heat with willow? You would freeze to death.

sigh. rant over.

Oh THAT? I been telling folk that for a decade and more. But moreso, one only achieves that if one has a benign political environment, one that doesnt have your demise and confiscation of all you have as central to their plans. UNFORTUNATELY... plans are afoot to snuff out any independent thought or lifestyle, or independant wealth and from that, passive noncompliance will not prevail, but feeds into their plans for depopulation. When Winnie the poo runs the govt, then it's fine to hide and live as one wishes with christopher robin. Ut;s just not what's up presently.
You can PLAINLY see that dear leader is aligning his numerous and secret dictats to snuff out any outliers and outriders that would pose a poor example for others to go their own way. On paper, you cannot possible comply with his world and your world, and the system is designed to shortly if not already, make it so that whatever property you think you do own, will not be ransomable or remain yours or your families forever.
Like I'm trying to get you and others to see, you may be ABLE on your own to survive and live simply, but will you be ALLOWED to succeed at it?
Personally I dont think so.

Just sayin . . .

The paradigm that has developed during the past 150 years is collapsing before our eyes and those who do not have the self-reliant skills of our great-grandfathers probably will not survive.

There is still time to position ourselves to weather the coming storm by generating our own power, growing our own food, creating our own fuel. There is still time to convert our soon-to-be-worthless digital "paper" assets into tangible tools to facilitate our survival. But time is growing short.

The new paradigm is a more local, decentralized, self-reliant, simpler way of life, free of mindless consumption and dependence on corporations for basic human needs. Those who embrace such a way of life now will have a much better chance of surviving the coming inevitable changes.

I see yourand raise you:



Everyone should have THE FOOD ROOM.
I like to think of us as food hoarders with gun problems.

I'll keep my valuables, my guns and my freedoms, Youkeep the change