Can you have it all ways?

Some things I have, as a modern person, come to rely on whether or not, evolutionary speaking, it does me a scrap of good. I am a good few generations in from having to make fire or dig a well for water. Perhaps, I am a dullard from becoming too soft and reliant on switching a switch for survival and placing my basic needs in the care of others but, in my defence, I have known no other way and I cannot recall much protest from those who inhabit the western world. Of course there has been moments when we realise the whole earth does not wake each morning to running water or functioning electricity, but on the whole - most of us pampered folk have fashioned our lives around these two facts: we will wake up with clean water and electricity.  For many of us, our survivalist skills are all but forgotten, hence the abundance of adrenaline that courses around our veins. Living without a daily near death experience to expend it we've become anxious of shadows and invented fears amongst our comforts. Sometimes, from guilt or too much comfort we ask esteemed survivalists to show us how to live on the roots of the earth and the fruit of the lands - for fun, and meanwhile we step deliberately over the modern survivalist: the myriads of homeless and poor that deal with near death experiences daily. We politely look elsewhere as true survivalists are driven mad by the coursing of adrenaline - designed to make us run, hunt and kill - not passively ask for change, scraps and charity or queue in endless lines of bureaucracy.

 

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I am not a particularly squeamish sort, although this has never been fully tested - I have only come across moderate amounts of blood, shit and vomit in my life, such is my privilege and yet this week's news has caused me to look away and shudder behind my fingers. Somewhere in the pinnacle of western democracy and civilisation (Texas) are lots of people who have woken up for several days without those things they have been conditioned to be reliant on: electricity and water whilst in the middle of an unprecedented snow storm. Now, if we were living 200 years ago you would be forgiven for expecting these folk to brush off their survivalist skills and memories to build bigger fires and break ice from wells and generally 'get on with things', the best they could. There would be death, but death was not the oddity it is today and whilst no doubt people would grieve there would be an expectation that many would not survive. 

 

It is without a doubt, the strangest mind-set to expect the modern day human to ‘survivalist’ their way out of such a deathly situation and an indication of how mix-matched and treacherous some of our thinking has become. Whilst Tim Boyd mouths off freely that no-one should look to the 'state' to help and only the strong will survive, he draws breath and cries freely that he and his wife have become victims of cruelty and unnecessary treatment as she loses her job and he receives death threats. I ask: what is it you want Tim? Are you an advocate of returning to the arbitrary cruelness that is living in a world which requires an ‘only the strong survive’ survivalist mind-set, or would you like to live in the modern world where you can punch your keyboard really hard and believe you have suffered because you chaff your fingertips?  You cannot advocate survival and then cry off when it gets too difficult for you. 

 

Then, there are the 'prepare yourself' folks: who say that people should be 'more prepared'. I thought about this one; I live in a house without any fire places and I have never invested in a gas fuelled heater - I know this is a terrible faux pas on my behalf but as I may have mentioned earlier, my survival skills have been trained to worry about whether or not I will be able to afford to get my kids through college (should they wish to go). I don't recall any public service announcements which warned me of the possibility of living through a freak snow storm without heat and water, but I do recall a lifetime of marketing which tells me that if I buy the right perfume I will succumb to a lifestyle of seduction and luxury. What do you want from me western capitalism? Am I meant to get weak and smushy under a lifetime of marketed promises or am I meant to don animal furs and run down a deer, just so I don't rely on the 'state'.  All of this tough talk seems to come from people who whack up the car radiator when the outside temperature is 10 C or get aggressive if they haven't eaten at their allotted time. 

 

The fact remains- the west prides itself in its comfort and its ability to live without drawing upon any of our evolutionary survivalist skills. Indeed, we have a long history of deeming other peoples who are still in touch with their ability to be fundamentally human (survive off the environment) as uncivilized or primitive.  I haven't been to Texas, but have heard from a friend that some of its cities are designed against the pedestrian- any infrastructure  that becomes reliant, even for small trips, on the car is not expecting or encouraging their citizens to have the mental toughness or means to 'dig up' ole survival skills. Besides, who can prepare? Not the families who are living month to month: 'Dear, we have some savings, shall we invest in that portable gas heater we saw- just in case we have a freak snowstorm that knocks out our very rich and amazing infrastructure to shit?' Or the disabled grandma living in her 1 bed apartment: 'I know what I need to invest in- a survival blanket and a generator... just in case this western amazingness that we are never meant to question, turns out to be fragile….’

 

The way I see it, asking for modern folk to second guess and prepare for this event is like lulling a toddler to sleep and once he drifts off to that pure and blissful sleep, screaming in his face and landing a punch for all the noise he is making.