Ending and Beginning

I’ve learned to expect a certain amount of leisure every day of my life. That has been the experience of my life, that I always have time to read a book for pleasure, to watch TV, or even to do nothing. And that has been what I’ve learned in my life, that the industrial revolution gave rise to leisure time.

But that’s likely one of the things that will be changing. Everything will be harder and will take longer, and we won’t be able to do nothing very much. Spring and Fall will be very busy, the other seasons less busy, but still with less leisure than we have now.

My neighbor, who is a grain farmer and small livestock keeper on his 160 acres and works 40 hours per week at an off-the-farm job, does not have the leisure time that I do. Perhaps the Change, at least from the aspect of leisure, will be less drastic for him than it will be for me and those like me.

No matter what you envision for the future — fast crash, slow decline, or BAU — you have to take care of yourself by eating right, working out, and minimizing drug/alcohol use.

Even the best-case scenarios include a steep reduction in benefits for retirees and medicare recipients. It only makes sense for the middle-aged to live their lives as if they were going to live a long time with very little assistance. I’m a state employee, but the state pension plan had a terrible year last year and is likely to have more terrible years. Frankly, I doubt I’ll get any kind of retirement at all. Although I always say I’m going to retire when I hit 62 (and I desperately hope I can), it seems pretty damn unlikely. My best guess right now is that I won’t retire ever because the benefits won’t be there and that I’ll work until I die to try to provide for me and mine.

We have to prepare for a future of unsupported, social-safety-net-free independence. I believe that in the future we’re heading into, you won’t want to get sick. Parts of our country will revert to local, amateur health care, and many of us will lose access to the miracles of medicine most Americans take for granted today. No, you won’t want to get sick, and so you’d damn well better start taking care of yourself today.

And if we’re heading into a future that means hard, physical work into old age, I want to make sure I’m as physically and mentally healthy and strong as I can be so I can work (hod carrying, ditch digging, agricultural serf, digging in the filth, whatever jobs are available in the coming Depression), and so I can try to enjoy whatever it is I have to do…which means taking care of myself now and for the rest of my life. And not just taking care of myself passively by not doing unhealthy things, but taking care of myself actively by taking vitamins and exercising aerobically and lifting weights and doing as much circuit-type training as possible.

And making sure my life is as low-cost as possible, by which I mean not bringing any costly habits into my old age. Yes, the single-malt Scotch has to go.

One of the scenarios I think is more likely is a slow decline punctuated by sudden drops and periods of unrest. And basically, that means I have to be ready to walk twelve miles to get myself home from work when transportation options disappear and sprint a hundred yards to evade danger and then be ready to take on whatever heavy-duty physical challenges come my way FOR THE NEXT TEN YEARS, until my boys are big enough to take over.

I can’t do that, of course. I’m too old and was never very strong. But I have to try and do the best I can, and that has to be enough. They’re my children and I have to do whatever I can do give them the best possible chance, which means giving myself the best chance.

I hunted in the rain for about an hour and a half this morning. I saw some chickadees.

I hate to say it, but that’s pretty typical – the wildlife grapevine goes into high gear as soon as I set foot in the woods with a gun, and all the animals hide or leave the area. Sure, when TEOTWAWKI comes, I’ll feed my family by hunting. Hahahaha.

I did see an interesting small tree that appeared to be blooming, which is really weird for this time of year in central Wisconsin. It also had what appeared to be an old nut shell attached, about the size of a marble and covered with short spines. I’m looking forward to regaining Internet access again so I can find out what it is. [Update: It’s Witch Hazel.]

And speaking of Internet access, I’ve been out of touch with the world for about 36 hours now. There may have been a dramatic increase in H1N1 cases, paralyzing some major city. The stock market may have lost 25% of its value. War may have broken out in the Middle East, forcing oil to $200/barrel. It may be snowing in the Sahara.

But we’re still alive, pretty much as we were, and I’ll bet the world is still going on pretty much as before, slowly and sloppily slipping towards whatever the future holds for it. I don’t need to be the disaster news hound I’ve been for the last 18 months. I know what’s right, I know what’s happening, I just need to get on with what I know is the right course of action.

And yet, there’s a tiny tiny chance that I’ll get advance warning of some developing disaster that will give me a reason to take some immediate action. As silly as it may be, that tiny chance is one of the things I think of when I’m scanning the news.

Why is that invalid? Because if there were a disaster that affected us locally and immediately:
• Someone would call us.
• I’d hear it on the radio.
• The chances are infinitesimal of advance warning doing us any good.
• I don’t have a get out of Dodge (GOOD) plan or preparations anyway.
That last one I can and should do something about. The others, put together, mean that I don’t have to waste time on the computer scanning for the first signs of impending disaster.

And speaking of the right course of action, many times when I come up to this part of the state, I start to think about finding and buying an old farm around here with a five or ten acres to serve as a vacation/weekend getaway/retirement home as well as our TEOTWAWKI retreat. Actually making that purchase would create many problems that we would have to deal with, but then again, pretty much any major change does the same.

The answer is always the same: if you want to do something, you do it, and you make it work, you resolve whatever problems it causes, you make whatever sacrifices it takes. You just have to make sure you really want to do it. If you let potential problems stop you, you’ll never do anything.

Today, while G and I were hanging out at the cabin and M and D were off buying some stuff we forgot, a man drove down the ¼ mile driveway, parked by the cabin, and walked up to our door. He knocked, then opened the door. His first word was, “Ojibwa?” His story was that he was looking for some Ojibwa friends of his who were supposed to be camping nearby. He said he saw no car but the light was on in our cabin, so he decided to stop. We chatted for a few minutes and then he left.

Being the paranoid person that I am, I suspect that if we hadn’t been here and the door hadn’t been locked, he would have come in. He was about my age, with a beard and aviator-style plastic glasses, clean cut, a matching logo on his sweatshirt and baseball cap. Was he a thief? Possibly, but probably not. He was just a little too forward for my tastes. Anyway, that’s why I prefer that the gate at the end of the driveway is locked

Today the family and I drove up to our favorite rental cabin in Black River State Forest. It has electricity and heat and plumbing, so it’s definitely not roughing it, but it is a nice getaway.

And it’s a wee bit of training for all of us in living minimally, in eliminating all but the necessities, and a lesson in what each of us really needs to live our daily lives. Not that I’m trying to pretend this is anything other than a vacation, but this blog is about seeing my life from the perspective of the coming Change of climate change, peak oil, and the political/financial self-destruction of the US. Perhaps we need a reminder now and then of what true silence is like so we won’t freak out when most of the cars and combines and airplanes and dehumidifiers fall silent.

Speaking of which, even though the price of oil is climbing and many of the prophets of financial doom are telling us that we’re on the precipice again, I’m beginning to think that everything is going to keep on keepin’ on for the foreseeable future. I may finally be getting desensitized to the doomsayers.

And that’s good and bad. Good because you can’t live your life in a state of high alert all the time. Bad because you can’t forget your goals and what you think is going to happen in the world, either, and I do feel myself drifting back into complacency and letting my job/kids/home routines become my whole life.

My surging complacency may also be a perverse indicator that the shit really is about to hit the fan.

The journey into preparedness I began 18 months ago is, in a couple of ways, nothing more than giving myself permission to indulge my long-time fascinations with growing things and security. I’ve been interested in growing things for as long as I can remember, as you can see by this photo of me watering the garden when I was two years old.

The need for security – keeping myself and mine safe – is something I’ve felt for a long time also. Maybe it originated with my parents telling me how awful people are and what a terrible place the world is. I fear the otherness of people and places unfamiliar to me.

So here we are in this cabin tonight, far, far away from any kind of authority. That’s one of the charms of the place for me (because I also fear and loathe authority), but I drove out to the end of the ¼ mile driveway and locked the gate before it got dark, and I made sure the car was locked and all the doors are locked, even though, objectively, we’re safer here than we are at home. I also have my 12-gauge pump here (hope to get some rabbit and grouse hunting in), and I’m very glad I do.

To me, all that seems nothing more than prudent. To others, such as my sweet, trusting wife, I’m paranoid.