Get Your Mind Right

You're leaving a million-dollar resource untapped if you're skipping the sort of things the folks in Meatspace Training Opportunities are putting out.

The in-person classes from one and all are probably a bargain at twice the price, and all full of needful things, no matter who you are nor where you are.

Mosby (aka MountainGuerrilla) has been putting out five-star advice, as usual, when he takes the time. Lately on fieldcraft, but pretty much if he says it, you can take it to the bank, and count on your thumbs the number of times you'll be disappointed or steered wrong.

Jason Hanson (at Spy Escape & Evasion) chisels away every day at stupidity and ignorance, and provides simple, everyday suggestions about how and why you can improve your own situational awareness and situational preparedness for things that could and do happen every day. You don't live in Mayberry, and it's not 1950 anymore.

And the latest public podcast from "Sam Culper" at Forward Observer is worth every minute of your time, like the other education he gives gratis, and as the courses he charges for are.
Set aside half an hour, and pay attention to the pearls he's dropping on the ground for any that notice. He says, in so many paraphrased words:

Imagine what you'd do if you woke up tomorrow and the power was out, cell service was inoperative, the internet was down, and it didn't look like any of it was coming back any time soon. An Area Study gives you intelligence about the things that will affect you most, immediately and locally. Intelligence analysis isn't to predict the future; its purpose is to reduce uncertainty about what's likely and what's unlikely. You should prepare for the follow-on, second- and third-order effects that are going to occur locally.

Stop worrying about the colossal monster catastrophes, like SMOD or the eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera. A relay tripping in New England blacked out a dozen states, and that was quite catastrophic enough.

And pay attention to the concept of second- and third-order effects.

First order effect
The power is out.
Second order effects
The food in the freezer will defrost, and what's in the refrigerator too, and they'll spoil.
ATMs don't work.
Power-driven communications like the internet are gone.
Gasoline stations cannot pump fuel.
A/C and stoves that require electricity won't work.
Traffic lights are out.
TV and radio stations, hospitals, and emergency response dispatch are running on back-up generators, for a few days.
Pumps don't work, so water supply and sewage will fail.
Third order effects
Fresh food will dwindle, become scarce, and run out.
Traffic will be horrific.
Emergency services will be crippled.
Cash on hand will be all there is, because EBT card and debit card balances cannot be processed, even at your local bank.
Medieval disease outbreaks from lack of cleanliness and sanitation we now take for granted will become far more likely.
 
And that's just from a power failure.
 
You can keep stacking up the dominoes, but even someone as thick as a bag of hammers will begin to realize in short order this is a bad day, an even worse week, and if it lasts as long as a month, things will be well past the stage best described as "sporty" anywhere such a situation is a rare occurence.
 
Look ahead, and plan based upon what you can see, and foresee.
 
The time will come when these preparedness resources you have access to now will be unavailable, and it will be too late then to redeem the time you've wasted. So don't. You don't have to live and breathe beating drums of war, but set aside an hour, an afternoon, or a weekend or two, to learn some things you don't know, and start you thinking along paths through an unknown future from a fresh perspective foreign to your experience and ways of thinking. It could save your life, or the lives of your family, whether in a small local disaster, or in much more ominous and widespread circumstances.

That's part of what we mean when we commend to you to "get your mind right".

Do it.