CONTEMPLATING THE SURVIAL SITUATION

It’s true that most survival books out there, and any television show you watch nowadays are geared more towards temporary survival situations. Basically, how fast and efficient can you get yourself out of danger or what they so call a “hostile” environment. I think that sometimes we are taught the wrong thing. That nature is something to fear, and someplace where we might get lost, starve, or even die.

Most books will often even go so far to breakdown the word “SURVIVAL” and try to assign cliché statements to each letter of the word, thus making it into some sort of acronym. Of course, obtaining water, procuring fire, and building shelter are all essential elements of survival. But what about your own mental attitude and thoughts on survival? Basically it all boils down to how tough you are mentally and what you are willing sacrifice, wants verses needs.

I in particular am a very big fan of survivalists such as Matt Graham, Ed Stafford, and John McPherson whose approach to survival is for the long term. Because of this, their attitude toward survival skills is more geared to progressing as a person rather than developing an attitude that is against nature. I don’t believe that any survivalist or human being for that matter should go against nature, mentally or physically. The purpose is the journey, not the destination. The Native Americans adopted this attitude and were always thankful toward what they called the “Great Spirit.” In more modern times, we often hear a different term, “Mother Nature” or “Mother Earth.”

CHRISTIAN BELIEF AND THE GREAT MOTHER EARTH

Okay, so before I begin writing this section, I want to state that I am by no means trying to cause a religious debate, but I just want to share with others my ideas about what I think “God” really is. If there is such a thing as trying to figure out what or who God is. The most important thing is to have that relationship.

First of all, I am a Christian. I go to church and pray and give thanks to what I believe to be an all-powerful and omnipotent God. But, I think most Christians view God as an all-powerful male entity that controls and pre-determines everyone’s destiny. I don’t necessarily believe this mainstream model view of what God is. Even in the Bible, God is often referred to as “Him” or “He” in the male gender. So then, what is God? And what does my personal belief of God have to do with survival skills?

Personally, I believe that God is more than just a deity, personified by tiny human thought. There really is no way to put a belief in a jar and call it God. To me God is the Universe, God is the ultimate computer controlling and knowing everything, and God is nature and our surroundings. If you ask me, I really do believe that the Native Americans got it right the first time. And before God was attributed the masculine gender, ancient religions and pagan cultures were more concerned with worshiping the sacred feminine as being the most prominent. Only within the last few hundred years have people started to uphold God as a male authority. And so the Bible was translated into English adopting that mindset. So, if you ask me, I feel as if “Mother Nature” is not far from the actual truth of what God is, and of course, beyond what a human mind can comprehend. Do you ever try to explain yourself to a cockroach?

So, what does all this have to do with survival? Survival is a mindset. We should never go out thinking that we are going to kick Mother Nature in the teeth. We should never look at survival as being something to overcome. These beliefs are all based on misunderstanding. We should look at survival as something to embrace and a journey to enjoy. Nature is your “mother” who provides, feeds you when you’re hungry, and gives you warmth when you’re cold. If we develop a negative attitude, we will never get what we need to survive. God puts before every living being, life and death. Which will you choose? If we adopt an attitude that everything will be provided, we have the chance to succeed.

CHILDLIKE BEING

I choose to go out and practice mental toughness, to not complain and do something about what un-comforts I am experiencing. I choose to be curious and harmonious. To be proactive about getting what is needed, and never ever give up. To be childlike in my endeavors. I think that being childlike even as an adult in my middle ages is one of the most important attitudes I can embrace. As a child, I often explored the environment around where I grew up, practiced making shelters, and hiking further and further into new areas that I knew nothing about. I never even became worried if I was on someone else’s property because I was so overwhelmed with exploring something new. I enjoyed the solitude and oneness I had with nature. Getting lost in the wild I felt was the epitome of ultimate bliss. A challenge that I lived for!

My advice to everyone or anyone reading this is to get out there and practice. Not only survival skills, but practice being in harmony with everything around you. Practice learning everything you can about a particular plant or animal. Be curious. I intend to practice as often as I can, and to bring myself beyond what my current capabilities as a survivalist are. Lately, I have tried two attempts at making fire via bow drill (more on this later), but I failed both times. I will be taking a 2 day class in September that will cover the basics of survival, so I hope to learn more about what I did wrong, and I will be eager to share what I have learned with anyone who wants to read.

NOW LIVING

At the beginning of 2014, I read an interesting book by author Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now. It was one of the most interesting books I have ever read, and it had a definite impact on my life. While the book is too elaborate to explain everything here, I will just mention a few strong points as it pertains to survival. Many of the beliefs and opinions stressed in the book coincide with what I believe about God or “Great Mother Earth” as I like to call Her.

One major thing that Jesus ever said in the Gospel of Matthew is this: “And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?” Has anyone reading ever experienced how your mind goes crazy with thought when you all of a sudden find you are faced with some problem or difficulty? Or sometimes it’s like your mind keeps changing the channel, spinning stories about yourself or others. This is what Eckhart Tolle calls “The Ego.” The egocentric mind makes up an identity that you come to believe yourself to be. This is simply not the truth, and the “story” is not your true self.

Going back to what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew is what He was referring to as the egocentric mind. Now, putting that into the context of survival breeds a recipe for disaster. Losing yourself in the wilderness in such a way will waste precious time and energy. Instead, try to embrace what Eckhart Tolle refers to as the “Now.” This moment here and now is the most important, and it is the only true happiness that one can experience in this daily life. Listen to your surroundings, watch every detail of what your hands are doing, and concentrate on seeing every moment unfold before your eyes. Block out thoughts and anything the mind conjures up, and become the silent watcher. Be as if you are a cat (your true self) watching the mouse hole (the mind). When a though pops out of the hole, dismiss it immediately and keep living in the moment.

The ancients called this way of living true enlightenment, and fortunately in our modern times there are various ways to access it such as exercise, meditation, prayer and relaxation techniques. Whatever you can do to access the “now,” do it. It will help you not only in survival situations, but also in any life endeavors. Keep working, be diligent, and just live for every moment. It is okay to have goals and dreams, but don’t dwell on them. You will find by thoughtless effort in the present time, you will enjoy every moment of life and before you know it, goals and milestones will be reached.

For me personally, I would like to share that I will be trying to perform meditation every evening before bed as a way to get in touch with the present moment. For that purpose, I would like to share this YouTube link which I think best explains how to go about meditation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0rSmxsVHPE

At first I will see if I can do this for a few minutes every day, and then gradually fold it in to my daily routine for well-being. If it works and benefits me, I will keep my readers posted. What I really like about the video is that the narrator explains that meditation is the way to access “cosmic energy,” which in turn is what I believe to be energy and healing from God.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Your mental capabilities and attitude can be exercised anytime and anywhere. In conclusion, I would like to share a few exercises from another survivalist that I admire, Tom Brown Jr. These are all summarized and put into my own words, but coincide with what I have written herein.

1. Surviving Difficulties – The next time you have a problem or a concern, try to watch yourself and how you react to them. Become the “silent watcher” and don’t try to make any judgments on how you respond. If your reactions are negative, slowly try to change and become stronger by overcoming the difficulty through positive thought and perseverance. Enjoy the challenge and be in the moment when you are in the middle of solving the hardship. You will slowly develop a better attitude when problems arise, and over time, problems will become easier and easier to overcome.
2. Constant Exploration – As mentioned before, be childlike in your endeavors. Be curious! Not only read books about survival, but pick up and read fiction and non-fiction books. Read like a “beast” devouring anything you can. Subscribe to a magazine you find interesting and read every issue cover to cover. Spend more time outside, especially at night. Study the stars and how they move throughout the seasons. Look at the plants and the birds and observe how they live and worry about nothing.
3. Be In The “Now” – Notice how your energy level plummets when you jump from thought to thought. Instead, learn how to harness your concentration. Imagine yourself unable to worry about past or future. Be in the present moment. Observe and feel every moment and feel the connection between the trees, the rocks, the animals, and all the universe. Feel how they will feed your energy and invigorate your life.

 Well that’s all I have for now. Hopefully it was helpful and inspiring. I will be adding new pages soon with projects and goals that I am working on. Stay tuned, until next time!

Please add any comments you have below, and I will try to respond to them as often as I can. Thank you!

GREETINGS!

Hello there everyone! So here it goes. It’s my first blog, so I apologize in advance for any kind of mishaps that may occur with technology and any other things, such as grammar. After all, I am learning this as we go, so please don’t be too hard on me. I promise, I will get better. And without further ado, I’d like to explain a bit about who I am and why I started this blog/project.

WHO AM I?

I guess the answer to that question is that I really don’t know. But, it all depends on how you look at it. It could be good or it could be bad. I prefer to look at this concept in a positive light. Not really knowing who you are often translates into simply, “what do you want?” So I understand that it’s not really who I am that’s the question, but “What do I want out of life? That is the big question a lot of us are striving to get answered.

Having said that, I don’t want this new blog to be solely about me posting up my goals and accomplishments for everyone in the world to see, but rather what I want people to see is how my goals are to bring about change and enrich other people’s lives. I have goals in mind that deal with an eclectic mixture of my skillsets, culture, health, hobbies, writing, art, and architecture. I hope that the material I present over the course of this blog will be helpful and insightful. I will start by posting information once a week to see if I enjoy it. And, if I like it enough to keep going, I will start posting twice per week, eventually adding more content.

A BIT ABOUT ME

I was born and raised on the outskirts of a rural town in South Louisiana, and from there I became very interested in the outdoors and the environment. My father would often take me on camping trips that involved hunting wild animals, and on boating excursions where he taught me the ways of the rod and reel. With such a naturalistic upbringing and being exposed to the beauty of the earth at a young age, I often dreamed about incorporating nature into my life’s work.

Today, I am a 33 year old man with a constant search on how to get more out of life. I currently live with my beautiful significant other, and up until recent events I was working as a registered architect in the State of Texas. I have worked in the architectural industry for about ten years. Upon graduation from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, I moved to Houston to pursue a career in the architecture, and I’ve been here ever since.

While it may sound like a good thing that I’ve been successful in my architecture career, I had often sat at my cubicle wondering, “Isn’t there more to life than this?” I often asked myself, “What could I do to help others, and what could I do to make the world a better place?” I obviously wasn’t getting my questions answered sitting in a cubicle helping my boss get richer, so one day at work I got up from my desk and walked out of the building. I quit. I won’t say that I hate architecture or anything like that, and that I’ll never return to it because I’m still very much interested in it. It’s just that, I want to be interested in it on my own terms, and not on someone else’s. And definitely not for the sake of making money.

MY GOALS (THE GOAL FOR THIS BLOG)

In about my third year of architecture school, I once had this wise professor explain what architecture is. “Buildings are my hobby, but architecture is my profession,” he said. I knew exactly what his statement meant at the time, which was why I got my architecture degree in the first place. But, in school, we were allowed to dream and design. We were allowed to take the profession where we wanted and experiment. Budgets and politics were a non-issue. Somewhere in 10 years, I missed that. I feel that it’s high time to for me to bring it back, which leads me to the next obvious question: Why would you name a blog “Conservative Survival” if all you’re going to do is talk about architecture?

Well the answer is, buildings are my hobby, and architecture is just my profession. I don’t plan to talk about architecture, well, not all the time anyway. What I keep coming back to in my life is the need for peace in this world, the need for harmony, the need for true-self and the need for all of this to converge. The need for ultimate freedom. By convergence, I mean that this should be a place where what my beliefs and what I’m interested in come together in such a way that help others. And, in turn, I’m hoping will help the environment. I don’t plan to solely talk about survival skills or how to do certain things in a wilderness setting, but I want to show those things in such a way that is not destructive.

What do I mean by destructive? There are so many ways to be destructive, and there are so many examples out there that are just absurd. I will cover some of those examples in later articles, but for right now, for the sake of writing, I will just make the argument here. There are so many television programs and books written about survival that for the most part teach people to be destructive when they are in a survival situation. There is one episode of “Dual Survival” where I specifically remember the survivalist saying to the camera, “To survive, you have to kick Mother Nature in Her ass.” I said to myself, “Really? You sound like a winner (*sarcasm).”

Other examples of survival blogs and TV programs out there try to convey or pressure a sense of fear into people. One in particular is called “Doomsday Preppers.” Sometimes I just shake my head and say to myself, “Seriously, get a f***ing grip. We’re not paranoid much, are we? (*more sarcasm).” On the other hand, I think the show does have a few good tips on how to prepare for a disaster, but I’m guessing just for the sake of ratings, National Geographic has to put some drama in it to make it into a typical reality show.

So the point I’m trying to make is this: My goal with this blog is to teach people survival skills, but how to handle nature and the environment in a more positive way. I don’t wish to convey a sense of doom and gloom, but to show people that they too can become one with nature in a harmonious sort of way. We never take too much, and we always give back more. In other words, we give back more than what we take. I believe that our great Earth Mother will take care of us if we take care of Her. Therefore, we must treat Her with respect and gratitude. This site is about survival for “Life.”

IT DOESN’T END WITH SURVIVAL SKILLS

At first, when I thought of this blog, I thought that this project should only be about survival skills, but as I’ve been listening, watching, and reading from various sources, I felt it should be about so much more. At the end of the day, I didn’t just want to be good at survival. I wanted to help others and make the world a better place.

As I mentioned above, I quit my architecture job because I felt I had no purpose and that my job was the anti-me. I felt like I was just making a small living to make millionaires more millions. Most of the profession of architecture consists of building buildings, which, let’s face it, are for the most part destructive. Contractors are hired to cut down trees, move earth, and pour concrete onto what once was hallowed earth. How insensitive is that? And coupled with the fact that I’m living in Houston, the capital of oil and the automobile, boy did I pick the wrong place to settle.

But despite the destructive nature and dysfunctional consciousness of the city, there are still people here that are open to new ideas and innovative approaches. But my goal is to not only reach the people of Houston, TX, but to extend that reach to faraway places in the world, such as Africa, South America, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean and parts of rural Asia. I name those places because there seems to be a need for architectural harmony in those parts of the world, and there is also much to be learned from them.

I wish to learn more and grow this little blog into an experience that will lead me to help others around the world experience free electricity, hot and cold running water, passive lighting, passive heating and cooling, and to enjoy the concept of totally sustainable architecture in their habitat. I want to study, visit, and acclimatize to these places in a life-long project that will not only teach you and I survival skills but will help others around the world live comfortable within their own ecosystems.

In conclusion to this message, I want to provide my readers with a short list to sum up and quantify the goals of this project. I plan to accomplish what I call “Conservative Survival” through a number of different delivery methods.

1. I will study survival skills simply because I love nature and Mother Earth, and I will teach it to other people who want to read and learn about how to make peace with their environment.
2. I will study the indigenous architecture of different cultures around the world, and show/demonstrate how their methods can be utilized or combined with traditional methods of sustainability in architecture.
3. I will convey the message of harmony and equilibrium with our environment through artwork, photography, crafts, travel experiences, and other skills/adventures.
4. I will share my ideas about health, fitness, and spirituality with those who are interested in what it takes to thrive in their ecosystem.

FINAL THOUGHTS

What I want to get out of this blog is to ultimately find a way to help people around the world. To help them find ways to build and create for a better future, for our children and the human race to come. A future that is not bent on destruction and dysfunction. A world that brings life, freedom, value, and happiness.

Perhaps, with this little drop in an ocean of blogs, I will start a charity to reach other people in need. Who knows what will come of it, but what I do know is that I am going to learn a little bit and have a hell of a lot of fun doing it.

Stay tuned, until next time!

Please add any comments you have below, and I will try to respond to them as often as I can. Thank you!