Do it yourself

There's a way of thinking that comes with self reliance that goes well beyond the day to day mundane things.

There's a confidence that comes with being able to take care of your basic needs. Food: perhaps a garden, maybe raising some chickens, or knowing how to hunt and fish. Shelter: could be knowing how to make a primitive debris shelter, or it could be knowing how to build an off-grid house. Clothing: knowing how to use a needle and thread to make repairs, up to spinning and weaving. Water: catching rain in a barrel from your roof. Dowsing your own shallow well and digging it with hand tools. Perhaps you've learned how to build water filters or repair pumps.

Doing things for yourself starts to spread into other parts of your life.

Doctors are not blindly trusted. You do research and take charge of your medical care. Sometimes alternative treatments, things way outside the box, might be just what you need.

You may run into laws and rules that make no sense. Maybe it's illegal to put solar panels on your house or even hang clothes on a clothes line. Run into enough stupid laws and you begin to look at all of them with new eyes. At some point you may even reach the point that you don't care if something is legal, only if it's moral.

It could even spread to one's religious life. There's a big difference between what's religious and what's spiritual. Just like you no longer completely trust your doctor with your body, you no longer trust your minister with your soul.

Police aren't completely relied on for security. You take a self defense course. Buy a gun and learn how to use it. Maybe it's as simple as being aware of your surroundings and taking action before things get out of hand -leave town before the riot happens.

No man is an island; he's a peninsula. One person can't do everything alone. He might be way out there in the sea of independence, but there's still a connection to the wider world. This is where community comes in. Maybe you never were comfortable working with electricity. Your friend comes and gives you a hand. Perhaps you've helped fix his car. Maybe more people are asked to help. Use the model of an Amish barn raising. The whole community gets together to build it and it's done in a day. It's a community project. You learn to share with other people, but it's a sharing of equals. Everyone has different strengths and together you all benefit.

Problems are solved at the lowest level they can be solved at. It's a ground up operation.

Governments hate that level of independence. If everyone was that independent, the role of national governments would be tiny indeed. A big bloated government needs people who can't think for themselves or handle their own needs -people who look to papa government to take care of them and tell them what to do. Spreading the knowledge of self reliance is a subversive act. Self reliant people are free people.

-Sixbears