Not a Prepper

There's a reason to look through ancient technologies. You see all these preppers, building compounds and bug out shelters, stockpiling food and weapons, etc. I don't need that. I researched, studied and practiced stone age tech. Everything from Olduvai up to late neolithic and copper culture. As long as I've got two rocks to bang together, I can build all the tools I need from stone, wood, bone and antler, start a fire without matches or a lighter, a dozen different ways, put up a wattle and daub roundhouse, throw and fire clay pots, tan leather, weave baskets, spin rope, build and work a loom for blankets, collect wild cereals, grind grain by hand and forage, trap or hunt all the food I need. But I can go a step further. I learned bronze age tech. Mining, smelting and casting, pecking stone molds and hafting blades onto handles, so I can be more comfortable, with better tools. And I can go further. I learned iron age tech. All the carry over from the bronze age, plus sand casting, bloom furnaces, wrought hammering and tang handles. So my tools can keep their edge better than bronze. The blades can be longer and be resharpened a greater number of times before needing to be replaced, and bend less often and less easily. Then I learned apothecary and natural chemical sourcing, so I can find and prepare some medicines, preservatives and flavoring for my food, as well as baits, poisons and repellents, to deal with animals. What tools would I use for hunting? I learned the evolution of archery and how to make arrows and bows. From the stone tipped fore-shafted atlatl, to the composite horn recurve and iron headed arrows that the Mongolian hordes used. Then the development and construction of the crossbow, from the ancient Greek gastrophetes, to the Roman balista. So I'll be able to hunt any size of game. I researched Roman age technology, tactics and engineering, so I can build a better house, make lime plaster for the walls, build a hypercourse for in floor heating, install plumbing with clay pipes and make glass for windows. I read the sagas, the archaeological findings and written histories of Viking era technologies, light metal, boat building, long houses and navigation, Medieval tech, like blacksmithing, green wood working, pole lathes, stone masonry, wheel cranes, making armor, shoes and clothing, Saracen medicine, even the invention of pills and gunpowder, both in ancient china. And there's still more! I read Archimedes, Isaac Newton, Copernicus, Darwin and others to learn about the natural world and how to observe, manipulate, measure and predict it. From my grandparents, back on their farm in my childhood, I learned to tend animals, build pens, skin, butcher and process livestock to waste nothing, trap live animals, fish and hunt, grow crops, milk goats and cows, raise chickens, collect eggs, shear sheep, spin wool, dig a well, pump water with a windmill, make preserves like pickles and salted meat, press oil from plants or animal fat and use an oil lamp or cook tallow into wax for candles, brew beer, make wine and distill liquor from mash, cook down poplar and birch bark to make tar, collect hardwood sap and cook it into sugar or syrup, find natural yeast for fermentation.

So no. I don't need to stockpile food and guns, or build a bug out shelter and be a prepper. As long as I can find two rocks to bang together.

And who knows, within a couple of years, I might be fat, drunk and pointing a loaded cannon at anyone who wanders onto my land, looking for trouble.