A case for being knowledgable

It's been a while.  A LONG while, no doubt.  Many things have changed, both for me and my family.

First off, fear has been growing about the state of the world, our country, and our very safety over this election season.  The more bickering and general discontent between the parties, the less and less of the "big things" seem to get done.  The whole ideas of:

• Compromise: the art of getting something CLOSER to ideal (incremental improvements)...rather than just saying "if I don't get my way, you don't get yours either"
• Working for the people AND THEIR GENERAL WELL BEING (...a government by the PEOPLE, and for the PEOPLE...sound familiar?)...rather than just to get reelected.
• Working towards becoming more of a steward of the planet...rather than a corporate consumer of the planet.
• Acknowledging that the world, and it's various groups, all have their OWN INALIENABLE RIGHTS to rule themselves as THEY SEE FIT...so long as they don't bother us, we shouldn't be bothering them.

Many of these sorts of things have lead to a sense that the world, as a whole, is simply on the verge of becoming a very fearful place.  Without some of these things getting fixed, many reasonable people simply have a fear for the future.

....SO...

Given a fear, how do you combat it?  How do you effectively deal with a fear so it doesn't consume your every waking thought?  Various groups would have you approach it from different sides, each according to their own core beliefs:

• Religious folks would say "pray for all of us, that we may survive the coming strife"; putting faith first...while arming themselves up with guns, ammo, and whatever else they thought they might need.  In short, hoard up stuff for themselves (and maybe their like minded neighbors) to survive and wait.  They seldom care about gaining the knowledge of a larger and larger community.
• Consumerist say, "Nothing is really going to go on...and if some war does spring up, that's typically good for the economy"...which history has proven it is.  Good for jobs, good for innovation, good for pocket books (at least of the rich).  Never mind the poor are usually the ones who end up in Arlington National Cemetery as the easiest "boots on the ground" to put against any opposition.
• Extremest would tend to say, "arm up, get your survival farm planted NOW, and if you don't have or cannot get one in the ground in the next 60 seconds, buddy up with someone else who has one"...really a throw back to some of the isolationist thinking of the 1900's.  They have no interest in allowing the "outsider" to join them, under any circumstance, for fear of the unknown.
• Typical folks walking about the streets don't like to think in this area, because THINKING is just way too scary.  "What do you mean, the grocery store only has about 3 days of food on hand at any one given time?  They'll just get more"...this is about as deep as these folks go.  Kind of like ostriches, they just want to put their head in the sand and pretend they are hidden and will therefore not be affected by these sorts of events.

Given all of this background, and thousands of other snippits I've read over the last few years, I would like to promote an idea that does seem to help me greatly in these trying times:

I think it important for every person to be knowledgeable, in as many areas as possible, about what is important to them.  Such things as:

• If you enjoy eating, know about farming, gathering and hunting in your area.
• If you enjoy drinking safe water, know about purification methods.
• If you have no desire to be stolen from, know about self defense, both hand to hand, and long range.
• If you wish to know about communication systems, become an amateur radio operator.
• If you wish to know about keeping your information both yours and private, learn about cryptography.
• If you don't like being sick, learn about those methods of medicine that do not require a doctor.
• But most importantly, if you like surviving, build a community. 

This last bit is the one that is really the hardest of the bunch.  You see, many great thinkers of the past have come up with the golden adage "You can never know everything."  I'm a firm believer of this.  There's just too much to know to really do a good job of it.  This has lead our modern world to focus on the development of specialties in the work force (know some small part of the whole machine, but know that part well and truly in depth).  What is not said is that if you cannot know everything, and therefore you need folks with diverse specialties, you need  a COMMUNITY of folks working together to get anything meaningful done. Whether it be in the form of a church group, civic group, or just a bunch of folks in your neighborhood, we all need communities...NOT the rugged individualist.

Even in natural strife events (tornadoes, hurricanes, earth quakes, etc.), a sense of community comes out of the woodwork to help those in need.  It is THERE, but just hidden, maybe just DORMANT, until it is needed.  And, if you review the overall sense of community several years after such a strife, it will still be spoken of in hushed terms, least it vanish completely.  But the people who went thru such things, know it is there...and are in utter awe of what happens when it reveals itself.  This is the true strength of any nation;  How well it deals with strife.

The mindless mob mentality may well win various battles in any given strife, but the knowledgeable communities can hold the real wealth...KNOWLEDGE...and it cannot be seen or singled out easily.  Knowledge cannot be stolen, broken, or vandalized by the mob.  And in the end, the sharing of knowledge is really the only "coin of the realm" that will never go out of circulation.  If more people could see their way clear to this end point, there would be less evil in the coming strife.