How Do you Prepare for Collapse During a Collapse?

Today, we're seeing reports that Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the channel that carries 20 percent of the world's oil, not to mention a range of other raw materials. Meanwhile, you can probably gauge a crisis by how much the current regime attempts to minimize it. When Trump says "little excursion," that should send chills down your spine. At least, it does for me.

Think about what the people of Tehran have been through. Last year, they lived through the worst drought in a hundred years. Their pipes were running dry. Then their currency collapsed. Now, a corrupt and dying empire is using the last of its strength to bomb them into oblivion. This empire knows nothing about human rights, bombing schools, water infrastructure, and oil refineries that expose millions to toxic plumes. It's safe to say, they're living in collapse. Will this be us one day?

I'd say, yeah.

We've done as much as we can to prepare. We have a decent garden going, with a few vegetables already sprouting. We've got food preps and water preps. We installed a small solar power system to run critical loads.

We finished the first ("beta") version of the guide just in time. It covers 90 percent of the essentials. I'm making some notes about where to expand and what to include in the next update. One thing I didn't cover yet: bicycles.

The guide talks about the details, but my mind has also been looking to the bigger picture, not just surviving a few weeks or months.

I'm trying to take some time to reflect.

We're looking at a few things we haven't gotten to yet, like installing a full composting toilet, because I'm not sure the war in Iran is going to derail the techno oligarchy's data center plans. But it will make things harder to get...

Of course, all of this prepping runs up against a hard reality.

The collapse timetable has moved up, again.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, it felt like we were out of time. But the system has continued to limp on. Now here we are again, living with a sense of urgency we haven't felt in a while, even given all the bad news from last year.

It feels like we've moved out of the preface of collapse and into the first chapter. That leads to an interesting question. How do you prepare for collapse in a collapse? How do you prepare for a disaster in a disaster?

What good does a composting toilet do if you lose your mortgage? How do you forage for food when there's no public land, and the police arrest you for sleeping on a bench in a park? How do you survive in the woods when the billionaires say they own the woods, and you're not allowed to go there anymore?

If it comes to starving versus poisoning yourself, do you eat the kudzu growing by the highway? Or do you hold out, because maybe things will go back to normal, at least for a little while, at least long enough to buy a sandwich?

It's crucial to learn how to survive, and that's why I started this guide. But I think it's important to contend with an important reality check, even if I don't have all the solutions for it (yet). You could know every survival trick in the book, but none of it can stop evil people with robots from crushing you, just for sport.

It's a dark thing to consider, but that's also part of prepping. Ironically, I think it forces us to go about this endeavor with some perspective. There's no point in running around in a panic to do everything I've listed in this guide without looking at the bigger picture, about what happens in five years.

We're doing what we can with what we have, and we're budgeting resources. We can plan for some disasters, but not every disaster.

At some point, you have to let go.

Here's a funny example: In my research, I came across a company that installs emergency sprinkler systems on your house to protect it from wildfires. These systems seem to work, but they cost tens of thousands of dollars.

You have to wonder...

Even if you had the money to spend on a system that shielded your house from a wildfire, it's not going to protect you from the smoke. It's not going to protect you from the oxygen depletion that can happen in the very worst wildfires. So in the end, is it really worth it? Is that really going to help you? And if you survive a wildfire, but the rest of your town doesn't, what then?

At some point, you're not just prepping for collapse anymore. You're living in collapse, and that's a whole new level.

It's easy to spend your way to peace of mind. It's easy to stockpile food. It's easy to talk about community, even with friends and neighbors. It's harder to decide what matters more, installing a compost toilet or reinforcing your front door. It's harder to look at someone and decide whether you can really trust them.

In the 19th century, even many homesteaders still worked seasonal jobs for part of the year. They still traveled to town to buy supplies. They were never completely on their own. There was still an infrastructure that made the tools they used and gave them the supplies they needed. So, there's really no reasonable reality where we remove ourselves from the equation completely.

That's important to remember.

It's especially important to remeber all this when you feel compelled to panic buy things or make huge investments, fearing the worst from this war.

Yes, it could happen.

But you don't want to prep your way into a more vulnerable situation than we're already in. So, proceed wisely. Prep, but also...

Reflect.