I’ll need to start supper in a little while, but I think I have time to write a post first.

So if you have been reading my blog, you know that I am a novelist and you also know I am presently working on a dystopian novel, set in the year 2068, in which the United States is mired in a 39-year-long economic depression.  In the story, 100 million Americans are homeless and without incomes, living wherever and however they are able.

I am aware that there are many, many Americans today who anticipate just such a dystopian setting emerging within the foreseeable future and for which they have been preparing by storing food, water, energy, weapons, and in some cases gold and silver.  I will tell you up front I am not one of these people.  But it is not because I don’t believe the American economy won’t crash (it certainly may) and that we will never find ourselves facing extreme shortages of food and other necessities for survival.  No, that is not why I am not your typical “prepper”.  I am a prepper, by the way, just one of a different sort.

My question is this:  If tomorrow the grocery store shelves were empty and the banks, along with the gas stations, all closed and our electricity and communication systems shut down, if all of that happened, how long would the prepper’s supplies last?  Two years?  Five years?  Yes, stores of goods and water can help one to survive long enough to figure out how to grow his own food, build his own shelter, and learn how to cultivate various energy sources.  But sitting in one’s basement alone for two years and eating through one’s stocks of dehydrated, prepackaged meals certainly isn’t going to secure his survival—not in the long run, at least.

And what will people trade with?  Gold?  Silver?  I doubt it.  My guess is that people will trade with what things they can actually use—such as hand tools, eggs, seeds, chickens, canning jars, how-to books, skilled labor—items such as these among others.  But what we will very soon learn in a dystopian landscape is that our best chance for survival depends on one thing, and one thing alone: cooperation.  Those who learn to join with others in the task of survival—rebuilding community and civilization and organizing order and sharing resources—these are the people who will ultimately survive.  How do I know this?  I know this because it is how human beings have always survived on this planet since the beginning of time, and it is the only way to do so in the future.

So I’m not preparing for my own survival, per se; instead, I’m preparing for the survival of my neighborhood, right here where I live.  I’m learning as much as I can about things like fermentation as a means of food preservation, earthen construction for shelters and ovens, low- or no-till farming which doesn’t rely on manufactured seeds, fertilizers, or pesticides for success, and various other things which I find interesting and which might come in handy some day, during a severe economic downturn.  Perhaps it would be useful if we shifted our focus a bit from a me-centered survival to an us-centered one.  What do you think?