Sustainable Lifestyle questions for Forum readers

[ChrisM.]

Dear All,

May I please ask just a few questions, to elicit some honest and perhaps indicative replies from forum readers? These are not for formal survey at the moment, merely to be indicative, as honest replies/feelings.

1) Do you yet know what you want to do in life, what you're innate ability/calling/natural talent/livelihood is (if, indeed, you accept that you may have any)?;
2) If yes to 1), are you as yet living/practicing this talent (sufficiently?)?;
3) If no, would you like an accelerated means that enables you, by your own ends/experience, to determine such, relevant, of course, to your particular stages in life?;

4) Would you be prepared to live without electricity, by which is meant, without human-created electrical goods, supplies, devices, and so on - perhaps, if at all, only having such goods on an as-and-when 'luxury' basis?;

5) What abilities and skills do you have to survive real life, this meaning not just within human society, but generally in all of life, and which would you like to have to survive?;

6) If you eat fish or meat, would you be prepared to personally kill each of the types of animal that you eat if the option were genuinely there to experience this?

This'll do for now. I have many reasons for asking, and hundreds more questions, but interest for the moment in totally free/open replies.

Many Thanks everyone!

All the Best!

Chris. M.

[Lobacr]

For the first three questions I have no answer, or better saying.... I know what I want but it's complicated and simple at the same time so I won't discuss it here.

for number 4: my grandparents and my parents lived without electricity and in my country there are places with no electricity; main problem is our tools to face that as we in our nowadays houses don't have what we need to live without electricity. But I know I could live without it.

Number 5: well, I know basic skills to cultivate and I have a lot of teachers... still on my country there are people who still cultivate all their food and some members of my family still do too.

Number 6: I know how to manage this issue.

[daybrown]

For me personally, these are academic questions. I was born on a farm in 1939, and still remember how it was done with draft horses. I lived off the grid back when I was raising kids, but then my house burned down, so now I'm in a trailer at the end of the grid in the Ozarks. I still have some of the solar panels, and could do all that again if the grid went down permanently.

Since my power is from the Petit Jean Hydro electric *COOP*, things will havta get pretty bad. Altho, if the economy tanks, and gasoline goes up to 50$/gallon or whatever, I can see how if the power is knocked out by an ice storm, it'd take lots longer to fix.

But forget the rural homesteadder doing it alone off the grid. If it gets that bad, there will be armed gangs taking on the homesteads one at a time. Even the bunker boys will have a hard time. You havta sleep sometime.

Sustainability was not just the family farm in the old days. There were critical times, such as at harvest, when a crowd would gather to get the wheat, or whatever, in, all at once when the weather was dry enuf. The one threshing machine was hauled from farm to farm. they usta have teams of 10-20 horses to hit a field with a 5 or 10 bottom plow to get it all done when the ground was not too wet, nor not too dry.

Whatever *you* think that you alone should be doing is trivial compared to what a group can get done in the way of sustainable living. DNA shows that Native Europeans evolved in yeoman farmer villages of 150-300 over the course of the last 10,000 years. That's the size to shoot for. Psychologically, it is the most efficient, with 1/3 elders taking care of the 1/3 kids while the 1/3 adults, 50 men and 50 women, managed the resource base.

Studies show that small business, max, 50 staff, is the most efficient. This is because they all know each other face to face, and dont need to waste money on status symbols to know how to relate. They each have enuf personal contact to know what every other staff member can produce, and nobody needs to be wasting time writing bullshit reports about it.

Whether the questions relate to sustainble living with a reasonable per capita carbon foot print, or just survival after a global economic collapse, the best chance, by far, is in the out of the way yeoman farming village. Those of us who descend from that lineage instinctively know how to do it.

[Corey]

1. No I have no clue. Yes I know I have artistic talents and have the knack to see how things fit together. Like jury rigging things to not run on power like a bike powered grain grinder using waste parts already made. Although I have talent It is useless in an corporate society that wants drones.

2. No. In this day and age only the real wealthy can really afford the "Arts"
I do not want to be supported by their greed. I could not survive doing art for the poor. The sense of community is gone.

3.At this point I am thinking the world would be better off without us. As long as we are so over populated I am not sure I can morally support the arts unless it is built into function.

4 I suspect I would die within a year without electricity I use a CPAP machine that needs electricity to function. due to the messed up environment my respiratory has been compromised. I am only 33 and already have sporadic irregular heart rhythms. and nervous system abnormalities that are triggered by certain chemicals not entirely known. I know this for I react to certain foods or chemicals in a non typical allergenic way.

5. Yes, I would hunt and farm. Problem with hunting/ fishing is there currently is too many people. The wild life would be decimated if we reverted back to hunter gatherer. There is also concern of contamination and not knowing it till its too late. I have done both in the past only biggest animal I have ever killed was pocket gophers and striped squirrels. I have fished plenty. It has always sickened my when it came time to clean them. Which maybe a good thing in that I have no desire to kill more than necessary to survive.

[isenhand]

1) Do you yet know what you want to do in life, what you're innate ability/calling/natural talent/livelihood is (if, indeed, you accept that you may have any)?;


Yes

2) If yes to 1), are you as yet living/practicing this talent (sufficiently?)?;

Not yet, but working towards it


4) Would you be prepared to live without electricity, by which is meant, without human-created electrical goods, supplies, devices, and so on - perhaps, if at all, only having such goods on an as-and-when 'luxury' basis?;


No

5) What abilities and skills do you have to survive real life, this meaning not just within human society, but generally in all of life, and which would you like to have to survive?;


I fix things and find things out and the apply them

6) If you eat fish or meat, would you be prepared to personally kill each of the types of animal that you eat if the option were genuinely there to experience this?


Yes

[daybrown]

My remote, off grid Ozark house burned in 1996. But for most of the previous 20 years, I been there and done that, and if you want to do it now, your only real chance at survival is as part of a sustainable community.

There is just too much to do; you need the economies of the village scale. The carbon footprint of the nuclear family house requires more investment capital than you have to attain a sustainble level.

And with the nuclear family household goes the romantic idea of monogamy. Those few communes which I know of that have lasted for 30 years tolerate monogamy, but dont support it. You just cant have people in a common space without pheremones having psychological effects, and you cant afford to heat nuclear family homes.

[mybarnconversion]

1) Do you yet know what you want to do in life, what you're innate ability/calling/natural talent/livelihood is (if, indeed, you accept that you may have any)?; -- life is a journey we have many callings along the way.

2) If yes to 1), are you as yet living/practicing this talent (sufficiently?)?; - yep
3) If no, would you like an accelerated means that enables you, by your own ends/experience, to determine such, relevant, of course, to your particular stages in life?;

4) Would you be prepared to live without electricity, by which is meant, without human-created electrical goods, supplies, devices, and so on - perhaps, if at all, only having such goods on an as-and-when 'luxury' basis?;
No - don't be silly, it is human nature to progress. However, if I had to live in such a way to survive then not a problem!

5) What abilities and skills do you have to survive real life, this meaning not just within human society, but generally in all of life, and which would you like to have to survive?; - My family and I lived from the land for many years

6) If you eat fish or meat, would you be prepared to personally kill each of the types of animal that you eat if the option were genuinely there to experience this? I have / would kill animals & fish ... to suggest such a thing solely as an experience (rather than a necessity or a job) is quite frankly sick and probably misguided.