Gunner Quinn
Editor’s Introductory Note: This young man is prayerfully seeking a wife. He is offering an after-marriage gift of up to $50,000 to whoever introduces him to his bride, with $18,000 after their marriage and another $16,000 to the individual who provided the introduction after the first two births of healthy children born to him and his wife, for a total potential gift of $50,000. For further details, see this link to his article posted on February 24th, 2025: My Quest For a Wife.
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(Continued from Part 5. This concludes the article.)
Prepper Fatigue
Do you have prepper fatigue? Have you quit preparing because nothing ever happens? There may be a “cure” and no it does involve a pill to take.
Inanimate objects such as metals can become fatigued and develop stress cracks and so can pilots and preppers.
In a way, prepper fatigue is just as dangerous as metal fatigue from an engineering perspective because the metal becomes brittle and by not prepping you are losing the physical advantage that you had through your preparations.
The first thing you need to evaluate is the reason why you are prepping. Has anything changed? Maybe you were prepping for a hurricane as you previously lived in a coastal area and now you moved to a mountain area and you think you are unlikely to need an emergency life boat. Considering the recent experiences of people who lived in the mountains of the Upper South who experienced extreme flooding who helped rescue others using flotation devices may prove that people need to be considering devoting some dollars to survival equipment that ordinarily would not be used in their area. Based on the even more recent unusual snowfall in the Deep South, preppers living in those areas may want to consider at the least of getting a dedicated snow shovel and becoming familiar with winter survival skills that are well-known in areas with even modest amounts of snow.
If nothing happens, then that is actual success. No one wants to use their supplies in an emergency. It usually means something bad is happening and the danger possibilities actually increase. Going out in a severe thunderstorm to start a generator could be very dangerous: if you lived at a retreat with multiple power backup systems, you may just need to wait a few seconds for the generator power to start or flip a few electrical switches deciding which backup system that you want to use from the comfort of your home, not having to go outside in the elements. While a few hours of candlelight might be described as romantic, long term it is not sustainable, it is dangerous, and quite miserable for there is a reason why people stopped using candles going to oil/gas lamps and then electric lamps.
Recently, many areas of the country were under the possibility of an ice storm. I stayed up late that night watching the temperature drop, precipitation begin, and was waiting to see if the grid power would fail. I looked at all of our weather measuring instruments checking wind speed, temperature, and precipitation as one or a combination of them could lead to a power outage. I also was looking at a weather radar to determine the extent of the storm. I monitored power outages in our area seeing the power go out in many towns. The power never did go out during the storm for us. We had a small amount of snow. Some people had more than a week without power: if the grid power would have gone out, we would have just moved to one of our backup power systems.
I am thankful when nothing happens. I prefer to just maintain our level of preparation instead of using them. Our group uses spreadsheets especially to track maintenance items.
Do you remember from my article on retreats how I was alluding to upcoming New Year’s Resolutions? To make a resolution that works in the long-term, it has to have several layers each of which is similar to multiple layers of paper secured by adhesive or a reinforced structural framework. I maintain peak physical fitness, but this requires a lot of effort including limiting the helpings of my mom’s delicious desserts. It is easy to get lots of exercise living on a farm as I do, but this may not be available to those living in apartments as they need to go out to a gym instead of having multiple opportunities to develop muscle or cardio workouts just walking around or mowing the lawn. The easiest choice is unfortunately what so many choose to “do nothing” and just take whatever life gives you. Sir Isaac Newton developed this idea over 300 years ago that objects at rest tend to stay at rest. The same can be said for preparedness. It is easy to do nothing especially since everything appears to be improving. This is actually the time when you should be doing something if my predictions are correct as they are founded on often repeated historical themes.
I have difficulty understanding why people are not using this time to their advantage as this is a great time to make preparations to help make your future even better. I am trying at this time to find a young woman who wants to be married and have children, so that is a very future-directed, hopeful intention. It is from a place of optimism, not pessimism. Conditions are improving, but now is not the time to abandon preparing and think it will be sunny forever. We “make hay while the sun shines” as the optimum time to allow the hay to dry does not last forever and also because we know “winter” inevitably comes around when that “hay” is needed.
My direct lineal ancestors were in the Revolutionary War and spent a lot of time retreating with George Washington just trying to stay in the fight. In December of 1776, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet “The American Crisis” gave some stirring words to these demoralized Patriots:
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.”
I will never be the writer Paine was, but I do hope that my writing can encourage you to continue to stay in the “fight,” continue prepping now because “winter” is coming. A few weeks after Paine’s words in pamphlet form were distributed, Washington crossed the Delaware, beat the Hessians at Trenton, and scored a major victory. You must ask yourself are you a winter survivalist and cloudy prepper only actively prepping when things appear to be headed for chaos, but not putting in the work on your preparedness plan during more peaceful times.
The SurvivalBlog archives are an amazing place to spend time. You can think of the archives as a library of authors of varied backgrounds with a common goal to help you become better prepared. Never before have there been so many people contributing to a great conversation on preparedness. I have a very good memory, but a “dull pencil is better than a sharp mind,” so I took a deep dive into the archives in order to see what happened during the First Trump Administration especially in the period of 2019 during what would have been the peak of what has been called the “Trump Slump.”
Back in 2019, we were in the third year of a “good” economy for many Americans. There were reduced taxes, regulations, and confirmed two new Supreme Court justices in 2017 and 2018 who were more likely to give Constitutionally conservative opinions. Things were going well in 2019 that many people chose the road of complacency and apathy. It is easy to be complacent and apathetic. It is easy to do nothing when everything seems to be going just fine. Those are the times when you need to prep and train even harder because it is so easy to lose your focus on why you prepare. Easy times are not often gateway to a perpetual golden age, but often a trap door leading to hard times.
I remarked to our group that these are the times when we must closely evaluate our preps because storm clouds could easily gather as so many times they had over history. The storm clouds began later that year in December 2019 with the first case of a novel “virus” that revealed the thinness of the layer of civilization in the early 21st Century that I fear will be impossible to explain to anyone who has not lived through this era. By the first half of 2020, shortages began to appear and even the most basic items began to disappear from store shelves. As prepared people, we purchased very little during this period. We did not purchase one roll of toilet paper since we maintain a large supply. Each person who is prepared is someone who is not in line competing for scarce resources. As prepared people, we do our part even when we do nothing at all.
During these slumpy times, many preparedness-related businesses will suffer a downturn as many people often would rather spend their money on frivolous depreciating purchases or experiences than hard goods. This is a repeating cycle that very few people ever learn. Back in the late 1990s, the price of gold was reduced because of central bank selling and euphoria over companies with little profits drove their prices to record highs. Gold was selling at about a 70 percent discount during the depths of the bust with silver for over 90 percent discount off the all-time high.
I found an old catalog from the late 1990s and it is amazing at the deals that were being offered even when there was demand because of the Year 2000. The “Year 2000” also known as the “Y2K problem” became a non-event as preparations to fix two-digit dates in antiquated software code succeeded before any cascading problems occurred. There were many very intelligent people who prepared for that as just another thing to prepare for because if you are prepared for everything then you can survive anything. Within a couple of years, preparedness began to go mainstream again and prices began to climb after the events of 2001 and then the economic problems starting in 2008. Now, many people are “taking their foot off the gas” again and not being concerned about preparedness. Maybe it is part of the human condition that people flock to investments or ideas when they see other people purchasing or being a part of them often entering at a peak time paying high prices, but few people will have the wisdom to buy when everyone is selling something valuable.
If there is a “golden age,” then we are prepared. And if it is just mere gilding leading to grime, then we are also prepared. In 2019, few people realized that was the time to be able to walk into stores buying whatever you could afford with plenty of availability and many survival items were on sale. The people lining up in 2020 to buy food being queued in a few at a time, being rationed to certain limits, staring at empty shelves, and often paying higher prices could have had everything they could purchase just a few short months earlier.
John Paul Jones said upon request for a surrender of his ship to the British, “I have not yet begun to fight.” If you believe in preparedness, then your motto should be “I have not yet begun to prep.” My family and I are praying for this truly to be the start of a long golden age for you, your family, and our country. Please continue preparing as you might need it sooner than later — if this turns out to be a mere gilded age instead of a golden age before we enter the grimy age.
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