Soc 101 HOW DO "NON PREPPERS" VIEW YOU?

[pinshooter45]

I thought about making this a poll, but I think I'd rather hear directly from you on this one. Sometimes the Media makes those of us who prepare to be some kind of a nut. So how do your family friends, and Co-workers view your actions?

BTW please let me know if I can quote you directly in my paper, I will only use your screen name if I do.

 

[Mosinguy]

My dad supports it, stepmom calls me crazy then turns on the TV and eats chips all night.

 

[Dragon]

My family and friends know my personality and intelligence level very well so it makes sense to most of them. Many don't know what I do, but those who do prep in some way or another anyway. I guess it's about who you choose to let into that circle within your life. If you surround yourself by negative people, you'll deal with negative things.

 

[eldirector]

Friends and family just know me as someone who is handy to have around. We seem to always have "enough" to help when they are in need, whether it tools, spare parts, food, blankets, candles, etc.... The downside of being "that guy": you are the first on the call list when something goes down!

Co-workers don't have a clue. Their version of "prepared" is stopping at KFC to pick up dinner on the way home. They are shocked I have a garden.

Of course, I don't own a bunker, wear camo, and have 10 years worth of MRE's stacked in my living room. Maybe I'm not really a "prepper" after all?

 

[Tbald14]

The "Wife" isnt 100% about it so thinks im a tad crazy in here eye but as she says as long as im "happy". Family is mixed emotions, some think it good im preparing in general others think its a waste or money. "Friends" think i should cash it in and join them at the bar.

 

[jgarst]

Most people dont know what I do. I think some have a general idea but dont ask. My dad says im wasting my money..but he is one who relies on government. My mom (has has nothing to do with my father is 23 yrs) thinks its a good idea. Most things i buy are dual purpose and well thought out. My fiance just says im nuts. She goes along but tells me im nuts half the time something gets brought up.

 

[churchmouse]

With a look of confusion or amazement or dumb founded. Depends on who or when it comes up. I no longer openly preach the prepping gospel. Those who are and know will be welcome. Those who are not, well, NO.

 

[halfmileharry]

At first my sanity was questioned about my preparations but lately as they become more aware of the possibilities of a natural disaster mostly they're beginning to get on the bandwagon and stocking up their cupboards and necessities "Just in case"
My mother has questioned my carrying a handgun for years and now when we go anywhere she usually asks "do you have your gun?" to which I can always reply, "Yes, Mother, I've got my gun". She's more comfortable now with my carrying than not. And yes, she has her own home protection weapon now.

 

[mike8170]

What is a non-prepper because I honestly don't know any. Don't get me wrong, some of my neighbors and buddies don't prep as much as I do, but no one that I know thinks I am off. But on the other hand, I have an extremely small circle, and not the norm in society.

 

[melensdad]

My brother called me one day to borrow my generator because he wanted to lend it to our cousin who lost power (tornado). I asked why he didn't just lend her his generator as he lives in the same town. He said he couldn't start his. I asked him if it had fuel. He said yes. I asked him if he opened the little butterfly valve on the bottom of the tank to let the fuel flow. He said HUH? So he went out, found it, and lo and behold the generator started. He called me back and said he'd take his generator to her house. I told him to take a chain and padlock. He asked why. I said so people don't steal his generator he'd need chain it to something sturdy/heavy/solid.

Over the course of the converstation we discussed many issues. At one point he said "WHO THINKS OF THIS STUFF" to which I replied . . . "well you called me for a reason!"

 

[teddy12b]

During the recent storms in Fort Wayne I made mention on facebook that we were getting a hard lesson on our own preparedness and ability to suck it up. I got some comments about being a "doomsday" prepper by one sheep and another that I would regret making such a comment by a person who had to evacuate for katrina. All the comments were light hearted but still with the notion that maybe I was a little overboard on preparedness.

More times than not I think sheep view preppers as people who literally and actually envision a day with zombies coming up from the ground after some majically dark day of death and destruction emerges from an ancient aztec calendar where their lives will be forever changed into living moment to moment through horrible combat living only on what they've got stored up. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Many of the preppers I've encountered are educated well thought out people who have their own reality based reasons for living a life more focused on self reliance. Many of the preppers I know are vets who've been exposed to seeing nations and communities collapsing or they're well educated people who've studied history and economics and see that path that our country is on. Whatever the case may be, I make an effort to befriend those who prepare and think ahead in any form of life.

 

[Kedric]

i have been prepping since I got out of the Army (had my eyes opened a bit while I was in). In the last 4 years though I have managed to get my mom and both my sisters and their families on board and they are now training, prepping, and becoming more politically aware and active.

As for anyone who is too blind to prepare for themselves, I really don't care what they think as they won't be a problem when things fall apart. Me, mine, and my group will still be there doing what we do, and hooking up with other like minded individuals as we find them.

 

[spencer rifle]

The Light of My Life thinks prepping is mostly a waste of money, and restricts what she knows about. She does not want to survive any disaster. The kids all support my preps and sometimes ask for my motivations and what preps are important and where they are. Some church members have started a mutual support group and are beginning to coordinate preps. My extended family has no clue we prep and I don't see any signs they do.

Fellow preppers thinks we are well-prepared for most possibilities. Others think we are somewhat paranoid.

 

[emclean]

most of my family keeps a couple of weeks of food around the house, but around the lake it is common sense that you will have nasty storms.

past that, my wife thinks I am odd worrying about zombies, and other situations that might come up.
my perants, and in laws are not aware of my preps as such.
they know we camp, and I collect and shoot all sorts of things.

 

[CrimsonRayne]

I'm not too big into it myself, but I would never down someone for it. If anything, it's good for the economy. I don't think zombies will happen, but I solar flare? Maybe.... Just glad I have friends that are more into than I. They stockpile food and water. I stock pile lead. Seems an advantageous idea.

 

[HeadlessRoland]

We live in an age of distance - distance from the natural world, distance from one another, and distance from reality. Despite being digitized, we are socially isolated. Despite being able to order jewelry instantly from Hong Kong, we cannot seem to do more than get by. We are now interconnected more than ever - with all the precariousness which that involves. We - collectively - get our shirts from Taipan, Guam, American Samoa and myriad other sweatshop nations, our televisions from South Korea and Japan, our cars from Detroit and Japan and Mexico, and our food from mass-production lines scattered throughout the world, at home and abroad. "Fresh" produce is sterilized from predation with heavy coats of pesticides of varying degrees of toxicity, and wax. "Fresh" meat is mixed with ammonia to keep it looking as nicely gleaming pink for as long as can be managed. Our "fresh" spinach has taken a two-day trip from a field in Salinas.

Consumer goods are made to be so cheap, and so affordable, that nothing lasts longer than the time it takes to throw it into the dumpster when it wears out, well before a hand-crafted or dutifully-made item would be worn out. Of which, hand-made items, lasting generations before their eventual demise to oxidation and brittleness, are almost impossible to find. Manual versions of now-modernized, electrified processes are barely existent. Did you know there existed - and still exist a few - drills which are operated not by electricity, but by hand? Two gears and a handle produce a workable, if slow, drill. But not anymore, certainly not. Not when 18 volts has the job done in a fraction of the time.

We live in an age of sending radio frequencies through the air and through our bodies, an age of mind-rotting tele-screens of which Orwell and Bradbury warned, of the expectation that we have no innate rights except what is doled out to us on our carefully-portioned platter. We are made to feel guilty for consuming energy, for consuming food, for consuming, so that we may be offered less in the hopes that we will be sated with less, until the day when the few hold much and the many hold nothing. We live in an age in which home gardening and using cash currency is considered suspect, and wielding arms as promised by our founding Document is considered worthy of immediate fear and apprehension - apprehension first internalized and then externalized in the panicked call to law enforcement, which then results in another apprehension. We live in a savage age, neither civilized nor wise.

A single break in the chain of this savage-yet-supposedly-civilized, unnatural situation means resultant chaos. Spinach, having crossed the hands of a dozen migrant workers, is expected to be clean when it reaches our plates a thousand or more miles away. But it often isn't, prompting recalls of a staggering magnitude, until the next enterococci makes its way onto our plate. And so it is for any and all food industries, and all industries, indeed. Meat is a prime recall item, given the possibility and likelihood of bacterial contamination somewhere from the bull to the butcher - save that there are hardly any butchers anymore - so let there be a re-phrasing, to 'from the bull to the processing factory to the Styrofoam-wrapped, ammonia-injected package at the nearest mass food distribution center'. Any one recall of which can cripple food supply for the very hungry, now non-agrarian people who rely on others great distances away to supply the vast majority of their food supply. Societal priorities and unwise reliance upon a complex interconnected network of food distribution aside, there are also natural disasters. Political considerations. Societal unrest.

Governmental intervention as per the concentration camps, race riots as per Rodney King, and social unrest as per Trayvon Martin, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, solar flares, polar shifts, mudslides, and occasionally an entire lake draining into a nearby river a la Wisconsin Dells in 2008. We live in an age of feigned fealty and false assuredness. Nothing is certain and nothing is safe. The clamoring many quickly shrugging off their innate rights to cling greedily to the illusion of safety can never be made to understand the illusory nature of their unreal blanket. 'Safe' is as relative a term as one may find, and total safety is wholly non-existent. If and when something unpleasant or dangerous does occur, isn't it better to be secure in body, location, and food supply? Or would one rather walk the streets marauding and begging for whatever scraps one finds in the wide world? These may sound like rhetorical questions, but are not. There is very much an optimal option, and it is to be as prepared against that which there is no total preparation. It is to mimic the famous motto of a famous organization: "Be Prepared".

How do I think others view me? Most don't know as to my meager attempts to prepare for calamity, and those few who do don't quite understand - why should they? Raised to believe in the power of Government to provide almost everything, why should they worry when the supermarket has a plethora of food at any given time? Why worry at all about the earthquake for which this region is well over-due, given the geographic proximity to the New Madrid faultline? Only in the face of serious adverse conditions do people truly take notice, and even then, most notice only due to the absence of needed items: shelter, water, food, security. When some large adverse event does occur - adverse events happen on a small scale daily - it is better to try to conquer it before than to try to catch up after.



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Good luck.

 

[Iroquois]

My Wife finally supports it and is learning the joy of gardening and preserving. She can shoot
Some and is interested in getting better. My stepson has come around and would be a resource
In SHTF. Most neighbors are used to power failures and are somewhat self reliant.
Some friends are waking up and asking about guns for the first time...seems to be a trend.

 

[Blackhawk2001]

The wife's brother lives in the country and we talk about prepping. I talk to my neighbors about it occasionally, but keep it low key. The rest of the family ignores the subject for the most part, and we don't talk about what we do.

 

[churchmouse]

Most people dont know what I do. I think some have a general idea but dont ask. My dad says im wasting my money..but he is one who relies on government. My mom (has has nothing to do with my father is 23 yrs) thinks its a good idea. Most things i buy are dual purpose and well thought out. My fiance just says im nuts. She goes along but tells me im nuts half the time something gets brought up.

Are you nuts or just getting into something, well, you know. Like minded my friend. Pick a partner that will stay the course with you and bring something strong to the party. I am blessed with a good partner that is and has been on board from the start. She weathers the comments from family and helps me in my readiness. Not questioning your choice but just saying.

 

[Indiana Self Defense]

I was raised a "Prepper" as they call us now. Ithas been a way of life for me. Growing up in the middle of Gods country it was normalfor all of us living far from town. When I startedmy family we moved closer to civilization people perceived us different. Overthe many years I have been called everything paranoid, crazy, a Y2Kr and Ican continue from there. In the last few years allot has changed. The sameco-workers who wouldn’t even acknowledge or called me a nut case now want to be my best friend. Istarted finding people I didn’t even know started coming to me for advice. Mysolution was to open a Preppers Shop “Indiana Self Defense” in Indianapolis(8017 E Washington St 46219). We help people learn about and get what they need– food, water, warmth, shelter and personal protection. I want to help good, intelligentpeople get thru any disaster and/or survival situation. I have found manypeople want to learn but just give up due to the difficulty of learning aboutand getting supplies so they then they turn against us. We all need to worktogether. We cannot survive alone, but we cannot support the world. Educationusually converts the same people that laugh at us.