In this day and age, survival in the traditional sense of the word is no longer a thing. Or, at the very least, its meaning has shifted from what hunter-gatherers considered it to mean a less extreme version of getting by in the world.
But, it is by no means gone as a concept. There is always a non-zero chance of any one of us finding themselves in situations that would require survival skills.
So, just to be safe, folks in this viral r/ask thread shared random first aid and survival facts.
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Image credits: CantFeelMyLegs78
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Survival can mean a lot of things. Seriously, Wikipedia’s segment on survival alone suggests everything from survival of individuals, societies and civilizations as living organisms to physical, non-living things like engineering structures as well as concepts like legal interest holding, and political succession and even things like the soul and spirit.
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This is besides side-concepts like reproductive success, i.e. survival of particular genes and even nominal terminology for a genre of film, video games, and other aspects of media entertainment.
So, you can imagine why the traditional concept of survival—as in a person just trying to stay alive—is not necessarily the first thing that comes to mind.
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In an article by StudyFinds, it says that the average American thinks they can survive in the wilderness for roughly 16 days. This, however, seems very questionable because only 17% of folks are very confident about their ability to start a fire, let alone identify edible plants and berries (14%).
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The upside of this is that nearly 2 of 3 people experienced a newfound appreciation for the great outdoors because of the pandemic. Nearly 80% of them started thinking more critically about their eco-friendliness with another near 80-percentile claiming that this appreciation also boosted their willingness to take more action about said eco-friendliness.
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Journalist and author Beth Winegarner discussed the idea of survival within the context of modern-day society.
A book that she read, but did not disclose, on survival essentially claims that today’s individual is generally not equipped with the skills needed in order to survive, say, a climate change driven apocalypse.
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According to the book, the skills needed to survive include building structures, hunting and foraging, cooking food, and making as well as repairing clothing, among other things. Now, it would spell trouble in cases when the person is alone or, even worse, becomes ill or injured. However, if things do become so dire, i.e. there’s an apocalypse, being alone was never a long-term strategy.
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Being alone won’t be the case this time around—folks have historically formed communities, and so communities will continue to form, no matter the calamity. So, in that sense, you don’t need to know everything, just enough for everyone within your group of survivalists to be able to fill in the gaps with their YouTube tutorial experience.
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Moreover, being disabled herself, Winegarner remembers how early in the pandemic disabled and chronically ill folks showed an example through proper masking, socializing online and mutual aid. Besides that, disability activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha also put out a guide that essentially walked folks through storing two weeks of water, food, power and fuel, sanitation and medical supplies, among other things.
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This in turn means that, if anything, most if not all disabled folks are more or less already ready for the apocalypse. Mayhaps even more than the average healthy person. Now, it won’t hurt to scroll through this list (especially if you’ve come this far and have already committed), so keep it up and internalize it.
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So, don’t worry, in case of a calamity, just stay smart, get the basics down, and don’t forget that people are by nature social beings whose survival is mostly based on staying together.
Speaking of which, why don’t you also stay together for the comment section and share some of your insights into survival down below!
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