I grew up in an area where disasters of one flavor or another were a fairly common occurrence. This sparked my interest in disaster response and preparedness at a pretty young age. An unfortunate run in with an immovable object left me with an interest in emergency medicine. Adding some years of amateur then professional experience in both arenas prepared me to… well, be more prepared. And now I want to share that information with others.
While I wholeheartedly think that preparedness is for everyone, many people in the space tend to lean right, at the minimum, and often emphasize the more extreme stereotypes of “preppers.” I belong to the LGBT+ community and am in a non-monogamous relationship. One of my goals is to connect to people in my communities. People that might have some trepidation about people stereotypically associated with prepping. Marginalized people are often left behind when it comes to the impacts on disasters, in whatever form they may come.
Even if the response is perfect, it can often take days for the professional response to arrive. It’s also important to think smaller. We often face personal disasters, or at least things that could be disasters, for which there’s no one to rely on but our own resources and the communities we build. A costly car repair. A sudden sickness in the family. An otherwise mild snowstorm that keeps you stuck at home.
And that’s how I landed on, “Blessed are the barely prepared.” It often doesn’t take much to make our households more resilient. Making connections with the community where everyone has a variety of skills and resources to support each other goes far further than a bunker full of food and guns in 99.999% of cases. You don’t have to be perfect. Even mediocre is fine. The hard part is just showing up or taking the first steps.
Thank you for taking to time to engage with this material. I wish you the best on your journey for knowledge!
Mediocre Samaritan
P.S. While the name and tag line are parodies of traditionally Christian stories, my spiritual leaning is elsewhere. I just thought it was a funny name that doesn’t take itself too seriously.