It’s no secret to pretty much anyone who knows me that I’m a prepper.
If you take the time to do a quick search on Google for my name, you’ll discover this blog – who I am, and essentially, what I do at home. I’m verypublic about my prepping. So you’ll know that I take prepping seriously. You’ll know that I have an emergency stockpile. You’ll know I have a lot of items stashed away in my small flat that you’d probably love to get your hands on if an emergency does actually take place and you end up needing it.
And so, if you know me personally and you know where I live, chances are you will come knocking at my door in case an emergency does take place.
A lot of people over the years have commented on this blog saying they would never be public about being a prepper. They hate the idea of anyone they know knocking on their door asking for handouts if and when the time does come when the SHTF. They hate the idea of not blending in because if they stick out like a sore thumb as being a prepper – as being someone who can manage perfectly fine in a situation where resources are low because of what they have at home and because of the skills they’ve acquired – the disadvantage then comes in other people trying to take advantage of the situation for their personal benefit.
This makes perfect sense. To people who live this way, hidden in plain sight and blending in perfectly with the mainstream – not telling anyone at all that they’re a prepper besides the few who are part of their ultimate SHTF plan – good on you. You don’t need me to tell you to keep doing what you’re doing, but I wholeheartedly believe in your point.
So why am I public about my own prepping then? Why am I completely un-phased by the potential for friends, family, and acquaintances to come-a-knockin’ at my door when times are rough? Why do I take the huge risk making it so obvious that I’m a prepper online and why do I seem to act like it won’t come back and bite me when I need my own resources the most?
There’s a few reasons for that.
The main reason I have for sharing my beliefs in the value of prepping online:
I think some people should be doing it.
Who? Those who aren’t in as sensitive a position as others. Which leads me to my second point:
I am not in as sensitive a position as others.
Let’s look at these two points individually and see if you still think I’m crazy for being so public after I’m done.
WHY I THINK IT’S IMPORTANT THAT SOME PEOPLE ARE PUBLIC ABOUT BEING PREPPERS
I’m going to list off a variety of reasons here and if you’re not happy with a number of them, hopefully you’ll see value in at least a few of the others. Here we go –
1. PUBLIC PREPPERS HELP DISSEMINATE INFORMATION VALUABLE TO PREPPERS.
It’s not the hardest thing in the world to find information related to prepping, especially when so many different skills are valuable to a prepper. But if you’ve got sources like a prepper blog or news site or any other kind of website that hones in on prepper topics, it’s a lot easier to subscribe to that source and reap as much knowledge as you can from it than it is to look here and there and everywhere for your knowledge. Without preppers who are public, it’s harder to get information pertinent to prepping.
2. PUBLIC PREPPERS HELP NORMALIZE PREPPING. WHICH MEANS MORE PREPPERS.
I don’t care if you think this is important to you personally – obviously if everyone’s a sheeple it makes no difference to you if your preps are good enough, but you likely can at least agree with me that the world would be a better place if there were more preppers in it. A more economically stable place, a place where bad situations would be a lot less bad for everyone involved if they were to take place. A place where you wouldn’t have to worry at all really about the people you care about who currently “just don’t get prepping,” because if they did get prepping and actually bothered to do some themselves they’d probably be just fine in an emergency. Things would be better all ’round, I think. If you don’t agree with me, that’s cool, but maybe you’ll be more convinced about why more preppers is a good thing by my next two points.
3. MORE PREPPERS MEANS BETTER PREPPER PRODUCTS.
If you’re really unconvinced by this, take a second to think about it. More preppers means a bigger prepping market. This means that there will be more startups and big corporations taking notice of preppers because of the potential income they can make off them. Which in turn means they’d be competing with each other to make more desirable products for us – leading to us getting better products for better prices. Free market, baby.
What kinds of products could be on the horizon? I’m thinking things like home water filters that mean you can use rainwater as your only source of water, solar panels and wind turbines combined with excellent energy storage life that means you can use only your electricity, cheap and affordable bunkers, long-term food that’s much more compact and cost effective, and so much more. The stuff of dreams when it comes to being totally off grid. The technology for these types of items is sort of there but it’s not yet affordable. At all. If we had a huge community of preppers all over the world, chances are all this amazing tech would have already been invented for the mass market and sold at a somewhat reasonable price.
Because a big market means big opportunity for businesses – more preppers would honestly be a good thing for you as an individual.
4. MORE PREPPERS MEANS A HIGHER LEVEL OF PREPPER KNOWLEDGE.
You’re not stupid. You know that the very best way to gain knowledge of absolutely anything is to learn from those who have the knowledge you’re after. You’re not the type of person who’d go out with a knife and no knowledge of bushcraft and try your best to put together a good shelter. Nah – you’re going to research that first, and then with your knowledge, going to practice improving your skills. The hell is the point in making up ways of doing things yourself when there’s literally been hundreds of people before you who have taken the time to do the kinds of things you want to do and have done it better? You can reap from their knowledge. You can cheat your way to success by learning from them.
And yes, there’s plenty of knowledge to go around on the internet, but you can’t tell me you actually believe that if there were more preppers, all working hard to the end of being as self-sufficient as possible, that there wouldn’t be breakthroughs made that would enhance your life and future security as a prepper substantially? More preppers means more breakthroughs and then (back to #1) more disseminated information on those breakthroughs – which means there’s a high chance that if those breakthroughs are made, you’d know about it because prepper sources would all be talking about it.
Alright, that’s enough. If you can think of any more reasons the world would be a better place if there were more preppers, please leave me a comment down below telling me why you think so. I’d love to make a giant article detailing your thoughts on why if you can think of any I missed out on. But you get the gist of my picture. Now onto the second part of my argument.
WHY I AM NOT IN AS SENSITIVE A POSITION AS OTHER PREPPERS
Okay so I’ve spoken about why I think it’s important for there to be some public preppers even when we all know how valuable it is for most preppers to be under the radar. Now why do I think I’m in a less sensitive position than others and thus think it’s fine for me to be public about prepping in comparison to many other preppers?
1. I DON’T HAVE VERY MANY IN-PERSON FRIENDS.
The vast majority of the friends I have are online friends who live quite far away. Having recently moved to the UK from Canada, I don’t have many friends in this country period, and the ones I do have don’t live in the same city as me. They don’t know where I live and even if they did, I wouldn’t be too concerned because chances are they’re not going to drive hours upon hours, through many different cities, to try to get to my resources when times are bad. It’s just not practical.
If you live in a place where you have plenty of friends as neighbours – and those neighbours are not into prepping at all – and you don’t want them to rush to you for help in case of an emergency? Yeah don’t be public about prepping. Not a good idea. Don’t have many in-person friends, don’t really have friends in your city let alone your neighbourhood, like me? Yeah it’s probably fine to be a prepper publicly.
2. NOT MANY KNOW MY ADDRESS & I AM PERFECTLY HAPPY TO HELP THE F&F I HAVE TOLD WHERE I LIVE.
I don’t want bad things to happen to my non-prepper friends and family and if these people know me well enough to know where I live (it’s a short list, let me tell you), I don’t really mind taking them in if an emergency strikes. Right now, my stockpile isn’t big enough to sustain anyone besides myself and Thomas for very long, but eventually I’ll definitely get it up to where it needs to be to happily take in these “strays.” If I’m not going to let anything happen to my cat during an emergency, I’m not going to let anything happen to these folks either, and I will happily prep extra for a few extra people if that’s what it takes for them to be safe (since they’re not going to do it themselves). That being said, these are the kinds of people who likely wouldn’t mind me using up some of their attic space for extra preps, so it’s not like I’d help just anyone – only those who I’m really truly close with. And that’s easy to keep that way because these days, those are the only people who know my address.
IN CONCLUSION
I wish there were more preppers in the public eye. I wish that more “public” preppers (it’s rumoured that even Ashton Kutcher is a doomsday prepper) took the time to speak further about it.
When I watch all these liberal vloggers on YouTube, and read the articles published by hyper-liberal lifestyle bloggers, I can’t help wishing there were many more prominent faces for those who are politically center and politically on the right. I wish those who hold center and right views would share more of their lives. Because yes, the media is way too swung over to the left, leading young individuals to overwhelmingly be liberal, but how can you expect any different when youth are rarely ever exposed to ideas that might swing them further right in their day-to-day lives? When the discourse about the center and right is overwhelmingly negative, the only way to fight back is to increase the positive coverage of these ideas.
I’m not saying preppers should be public for the most part. I don’t believe that’s true. I’m not saying the way I’m doing things will definitely not come back and bite me one day. It very well may. But I’m saying that the world would be a better place if there were more preppers, and that the only way that’s likely to happen in the future is if there are more public preppers, and more individuals with big platforms being vocal about prepping.
The world would be a better place if there were many more preppers in it. And I’m happy to do a little part in making that more likely to take place.