It has never been an issue to have something pressing on my mind. In the 50 years I’ve been around, there are a million things moving around up there. While that sounds like some mad scientist creating their monster, be assured that the thoughts aren’t so mind boggling that the cure for some disease is going to be thought of. A better way to think of it is, you remember all the dumb stuff you could not think of at 6:30 yesterday evening. Unfortunately, you wake up to remember that at 4 in the morning. You give yourself grief for not thinking of it sooner, never write it down, and completely forget it again by the next morning. I remain convinced that 99% of life’s issues have been solved at some point, only to be forgotten somewhere along the line.
So we open to year 2 of a pandemic. I have always thought that a pandemic has no cure, it’s symptoms are horrific and we have to burn the bodies after they have succumbed to the disease. Boy was I ever wrong. Please throw this away when I get it since I am overweight and diabetic. It may be that I still could develop this disease and die from it. I also have to ask myself what happens if something comes along that has a 48% survivor rate and everyone decides they are going to stay locked up inside their homes and order out? Well, that is until someone realizes that the stuff we order out isn’t being made because those who farm it are no longer doing so.
I include myself when I say this. What we as a culture lack is the ability to live like those who have come before us. Gone are the days of Victory Gardens and rationing of items for efforts or war and depression. We are the land of milk and honey. No one will go without unless there is a life altering event. What would you call this? It isn’t killing us off by the millions but it may as well be. It is undoubtedly showing us who among us will be ready in the event the sum comes out tomorrow but there is not internet or satellite signal with it.
Looking at the world as though it is a game of Jenga has become something I am far more familiar with than seeing it for the advancements that are made. My mother and her sisters raised gardens and canned vegetables. My grandfather had a smokehouse where meat was cured to last long beyond the process we have today. I find myself as guilty as those I point to today. Guilty of not knowing the basics while understanding the finer points. I can fix machines and troubleshoot code, but if I had to grow my own food, I would starve in weeks. For all the changes we have created in society, we forgot the foundations for which it was raised upon.
I would ask this of everyone. Find ways in which you can find support in your skills and the dependence upon others. No one is asking you to build some fallout shelter in your backyard nor act as though Armageddon is upon us. Learning the skills of self sufficiency allows us to not be as dependent upon the fruits of labor that others provide. In many ways, we always know someone in our life that has these skills. Don’t let those die with them. Learn them, practice them, and if there is room to improve them, do that as well. No one has ever suffered by learning skills that bring a positive to yourself and society
The Beaten Path 