Note: It’s okay if you think that I’m nuts preparing for a major solar flare. Just ignore that part and keep reading the stuff you can use. But there are at least a few of us who take this seriously and those are the folks I’m writing for in this post. I’m not going to be embarrassed if nothing ever happens. The notion that a big CME is coming is just how I organize and make sense of what my convictions demand of me.
The foundation is that you will live by your own convictions first and foremost. What works for me may not work for you. It’s not a question of being right or wrong, but of being obedient regardless how it turns out.
I stand firmly in the conviction that Iain is correct, that a big CME is coming our way in the near future. The Lord is granting us some advanced notice, some time to prepare. Here are some things that cross my mind, arising from my convictions.
Generalities: I expect the electrical grid here will survive. Most older cars will, too. However, a lot of electronic stuff, especially the more recent ultra-thin chip products, will fry. I’m counting on not having a cellphone or any computer devices. So I’m trying to unwind myself from dependence on them. Aside from trying to take advantage of the time I have left to print things that I have currently saved on computers and devices, there are other practical considerations.
I never gave much thought to how much work it would be to put all my books on paper. For me, the most important stuff is the Bible commentaries. I’m rereading all of that as I reformat for printing. It’s not just typos and grammar glitches, but there are places where I’ve changed my mind about things that matter. So, I’m investing a lot of hours in revising the Ancient Truth series of books. The rest I’ll hold off until later.
I need to get a mechanical wristwatch, maybe one with a date window, because I get lost regarding date and time a lot. I need lots of writing materials, and I need to see if I can recover a decent penmanship. I plan to start putting more stuff on paper tomorrow. It means rearranging a lot of my habits and assumptions about daily activities. I am quite serious about getting a typewriter, but the Lord says I have some time; good ones cost roughly $200 used. Oh, and I was surprised to find that the best quality typewriters are all portable.
I’m not sure if our cars will make it. I know that my bike will suddenly become very valuable, and I’ll be using it like most people use a car. I managed to get the front rack back on and I think I solved the problems I had with it before. I can’t estimate if the bicycle lights I have will survive (and whether batteries react to a CME), but I’ll try to shield things like that as a matter of storage habit.
I need to keep a rotating stock of canned goods. The issue here is that banking will suddenly come to a screeching halt for a while as the panic hits and everyone has to shift back to technology from the 1970s or earlier. I don’t think the Internet will be completely gone, but there will be a sudden paucity of machines able to connect. I’m just guessing, but I suspect some older hardware in protected places could survive. Most radios and TVs will be toast. Printed media will make a sudden comeback.
I’m going to hunt for Bible reference books locally, and download/print everything I decide I can’t afford to lose. I have a smattering of DIY stuff, and I’ll try to get more, but only what I know how to use. I’m unsure if any of my power tools will survive, but I do have a manual backup for most of them. Oddly, the hardest thing to replace is electric drills.
I gotta remember to create something like my own Rollodex, and put important dates on a paper planner. I’m expecting to have very little phone access for a long time to come. I need to develop mental habits that account for all of this.
What seems really amusing to me is that my convictions led me to move in this direction before I was aware this kind of disaster was in our future. I’ve long felt the need to prepare to do without computers and the Internet, I just couldn’t picture it happening until now. Suddenly, it all makes sense. The CME is the thing that holds it all together. My convictions were already pushing me there from other angles.
Suddenly all my computer technology experience is approaching irrelevance. Think about how significant that is for me. I’ve been drifting that way for a while, but now it’s a clear mandate. The way I see it, we have only a few years at most, and it’s now almost humorous how my reading habits have changed.
Feel free to share in the comments how you see it.
“What seems really amusing to me is that my convictions led me to move in this direction before I was aware this kind of disaster was in our future.”
Same here. Even if the CME thing doesn’t happen in our lifetime, there’s still practical value in what we’re doing, besides the obedience part. Maybe the biggest thing was the library I have going, but there’s plenty of other things I could point to that I’d view as preparation.
Yeah, what if we simply decided we wanted to leave the Internet, dead or alive? I’m leaning that way already.