June 12, 2025
Day 1,350 of the Adventure
Normally in this blog, I deal with the virtues of self-sufficiency, backwoods life and the homestead lifestyle. Occasionally, I veer off into the realm of emergency and practical preparedness. Today is one of those days. Specifically, the subject of riots and protests. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the two. Living in a rural part of the Midwest, (on purpose) I feel mostly insulated from these events, even though small variations of them do occur locally in the bigger cities and towns that are not that far away. Personally, I've never been too alarmed by them, even though they appear to be devastating and dangerous when viewed from a distance. My question has always been, "At what point do they spill out of the typical urban areas and become a real threat to the nation in general?" The answer to this, I do not know. The one thing that keeps me wondering about this is that whatever the issues that cause the uprisings, they are generally things that have aa nationwide audience. If, for no other reason, the media makes sure of that. The concentration of people in large urban areas tends to get heated up quicker with more volatility than quieter, more rural parts of the country. I also believe there is a cultural and core values difference as well that keeps us more insulated from these factors. Still, I believe we are witnessing an attempt to grow protests beyond the urban events out to the rest of the country over the past few years. Does this concern me? Not really. As protests go, everyone has the right to express their personal views and opinions in the form of protests. When protests turn violent, all bets are off. It feels like the underlying desire for violence is a general motive of protesters more and more as we watch examples of the events in LA degrade to violence, looting and general mayhem. This has been true of protests and riots that have occurred over the past six to ten years. Does this concern me? Yes, a little. I'm not that concerned personally due to the fact that I am living peacefully in the middle of nowhere in the Ozark Mountains. Far from the epicenter of any of these recent violent riots.... or protests...... or whatever they call them. Sor far..... but that could change if they become a localized occurrence. I actually look at the urban areas and have more legitimate concern for the people and communities affected by all this increasing chaos. If I were to see myself in their shoes, how would I respond? Would I push back against it? potentially turning myself into a combatant and possibly a criminal myself? Would I hide during the unrest? trying to show as small of a profile as possible in an attempt to avoid conflict? Would I decide to flee? Simply sell out, pack up and leave? I'm pretty sure that my solution would be to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible. Obviously, that's not everybody's solution nor ability. So what happens next. What happens when the local communities and residents have finally had it with the lawlessness? I'm not sure I wouldn't want to be around when that day arrives. Humans have the ability to only tolerate so much before pushing back. Those who can flee, have been doing so (from California anyway) to the tune of about a million and a half over the past several years. That trend is predicted to continue. Those who hide from the chaos have been doing so during these events. This leaves the ones who can't or won't leave and refuse to hide or will, at some point refuse to continue hiding. In our neck of the woods, Missouri Ozark Mountains, we have seen a huge influx of west coasters moving in, away from the urban and political craziness of the west coast. For the most part, these are people just like us, wanting to live in peace and quiet, doing their own thing and living their best life possible. I just have a gut feeling though, that we, in the quiet "flyover" country are living in a bit of a bubble that may not last when it comes to our immunity from political and cultural pressures that lead to conflicts. I hope it does not come to that, but I can see the pathways that could bring it here. I suppose there's nothing any of us can do to stop it if it comes. We'll just have to keep living life according to the Golden Rule and be kind to others while we remain diligent to the changing world around us, preparing for the possibilities.
Adventure Quote: “Every moment is a choice. The more we do the right thing even when it’s hard, the more we are creating the habit to face adversity when it comes into our lives head-on with grace and elegance and peace and calm. We are training our minds to embrace the difficulty so that whatever comes at us in our lives, we are prepared for it and it will not disrupt our inner peace because we've trained for this and we can overcome anything.” ― Todd Perelmuter
Make sure to visit our website regularly to see new products and resources.
Our Books
Please Consider Subscribing to our newsletter in the upper right corner of this page.
No comments:
Post a Comment