All photos by Greg Preston I leave San Francisco for five months in just five weeks, and I have way more shit to do before then than I can hope to accomplish. I am, however, realizing more and more the extent to which this job is a seriously badass form prepping. I almost wish we were required to hunt and gather our own food - but then again spending 8 hours hiking with a 60 pound backpack and then 3 hours hauling rocks, handling chainsaws, and beating the fuck out of my body every day for five months is probably enough for me to take on right now. Additionally, any time a shitbag likes me decides to pull a Bear Grylls / replicate the book “Hatchet,” it makes national news when they finally find the body in a ravine somewhere. Not on that level. One of the more fun parts of me getting ready to leave is buying new gear to replace the very old, very crappy junk that makes up my current camping supplies… much of which are also a part of my Bug Out Bag, as more often than not me camping has involved going to the woods for a weekend with a bunch of shitbags and beer. A good portion of my gear I inherited from my dad, who bought some of it in the 70s, and as durable as some of it is, most of it is also heavy as fuck. So this is a perfect excuse to build the basis for an epic Bug Out Bag, then field test everything, then return with money to spend on guns and a crossbow… Just in time for people to potentially freak out on December 21st.  … It’s really sad that this is how my brain works, but I really believe that the most important / generally underrated part of prepping is getting your brain comfortable with thinking about things in terms of “how can I use this to survive” - “is this edible” / “can this be used as a weapon” / etc. Knowing how to fix a car > Having a stocked Bug Out Vehicle that becomes useless the moment it breaks down. This is why I read books about tying knots and butchering livestock, and very possibly why I love a lot of embarrassing historical fiction and sci fi - you learn a lot from reading about the world before (or after) modern technology… so what if the world you read about has dragons. HEY MAN, WHO KNOWS WHAT’S IN STORE. This doesn’t mean I’m not stoked on being able to validate purchasing all the expensive sleeping bags and tents and camp stoves I’ve been lusting over, but hey, I need all that junk to save the planet and shit. And the fact that I don’t have to worry about paying rent for the next five months makes spending $350 on a tent seem perfectly reasonable, especially because that tent is going to be my literal home for those five months. It’s funny to think about how much I’ve changed in the last couple of years - I went from being a dedicated student fixated on saving the planet, to a deadbeat living on someone’s floor in Oakland, to a lush who promoted nightlife events, to a social media coordinator for an upscale clothing brand, to literary curator at a tech startup incubation space, to a full-time shitbag server and barback / part-time blogger and farmer… and now I’m about to move to a National Park for 5 months and dedicate myself to service work.  In some sense, I’ve come full circle… And a huge part of that was becoming a Prepper. Sounds strange, but when I think about it I haven’t spent extra money on shit like clothing or useless gadgets in over a year and my mindset has totally shifted from being polished and stylish, networking, and working elitist jobs, to learning how to be self-sufficient, focusing on the state of the world around me, and challenging myself to try things that are outside my comfort level. I buy hiking boots instead of heels. I research peak oil instead of creating event invites. And instead of buying into all the bullshit vanity projects of the people around me, I focus on things that are important to me - things that I think are positive and meaningful outside the standards of the people around me, or the scope of the city where I live or the people I hang out with. I don’t censor myself online to appease uptight employers who are fixated on their image, I don’t buy into the bullshit consumerism that I once used to gauge my value and talent, and I don’t give fucks to people who don’t deserve them. I’ve reached a strange, enlightened state where I like my life and appreciate it more because I’m convinced that at some point it will change drastically. I am in survival mode - and not just because my closets are fully of knives and canned goods, but because death seems like an inevitability that I’m capable of dodging for awhile by means of tenacity and a prepared mind. I have taken a long, hard look at the world around me, accepted that I’ve done my part to ruin it, and now hold myself accountable for paying the price. I am never a victim, I am not afraid, and I am resigned to getting by… by any means possible.  That, to me, is the point of prepping - the dedication to being responsible for your life and livelihood regardless of how much shit hits the fan. It isn’t about stockpiling crap or having detailed, meticulous plans for a particular disaster, it’s about how you approach life in general and the obstacles it throws you way… such as zombies, or a nuclear holocaust, or a government collapse. Now, that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to invest in a four year supply of freeze dried food at some point if I have the money, or that any of you get to forget about putting together a fucking 72-hour kit with some survival basics, but I think it’s important that people also begin to look at themselves and the world around them and take some goddamn accountability for how fucked up shit has become. And instead of just investing in a stash of precious metals or throwing a pity party with plenty of liquor and white drugs to numb the pain, let’s stare down death by having some goddamn guts. I don’t know if we can fix all the messes we’ve made, but restoring hiking trails in the backwoods for five months will sure as hell help to build up the skills and fortitude needed for survival in not only a post-apocalyptic world, but the world we live in now. I think it’s time for prepping to become less about buying crap to throw in our basements, and more about moxie. A backpack full of guns won’t do shit if you run out of ammo, and a head full of good intentions won’t save your skin if you don’t have the courage needed to act on them.  … At least this is what I tell myself when I look at the miserable state of my Bug Out Bag and realize it probably won’t do shit to keep me alive when the world ends.
