Prepping Before March

Note: I want to be wrong about all this, but we'll have to wait and see what happens.

My wife and I have finally made the decision to start prepping. During a politics class my wife takes in university, the trade war was discussed. The class discovered through analysis of some of Trump's recent commentary that he's thinking of starting a war with Canada. That scared my wife, not only into us buying into Canadian products like the rest of the shoppers at grocery stores checking labels, but it also got us deciding what kind of canned goods to stock up, what we should pickup from thrift stores or army surplus outlets, and "sailing the high seas" with a VPN while looking into information about natural medicines and making our own bread while checking how many candles and blankets we have in storage incase of a power failure or getting into a situation where we need to sleep outdoors. We discussed how much money to put aside if we need to stay with my inlaws in a cabin north of Toronto. We formulated how we would bring up this discussion in front of family, especially in front of my autistic niece, who has a knack for figuring out adult conversations.

Having listened to the buildup to this moment through podcasts like Conspirituality and Straight White American Jesus, I realized that we're not ready incase tariffs actually go through. My wife and I had our own problems. I continually had a rough time finding a job. She was going to school and didn't want to think about stocking up incase World War 3 goes down, even though I begged her and my parents to get ready at one point in late 2022. I realized how political theatre isn't funny anymore and how the real consequences actually do cost lives and the cost will probably put us into worse circumstances than what we already struggled with when it came to homeless-ness last year.

All I know is that life is going to get harder from here until after I take my last breath. It doesn't matter if we're talking about tarriffs. It doesn't matter if we're talking about Americans going to war with us in Canada. It doesn't matter if I actually do get a job or not. It doesn't matter if we lose our apartment again or find a better one. It doesn't matter if I get sicker than I already am when it comes to the degenerative disc in my back or consistently feeling nauseaus from acid reflux. No amount of toxic positivity is going to help. No advice from cleaning our rooms or taking care of mental health or pulling up imaginary bootstraps is going to solve any systemic problems that will even cripple folks with six-figure incomes.

The only priorities now are either survival or revolution. If you're fortunate and can live a reasonable lifestyle, you're going to have to put traveling, big parties, comic cons, or even entertainment itself aside. If you're a liberal or leftist reading this, there is no point waking people up. Organize if you want, but it's not going to do anything unless actual toppling of parts of this harmful system we live in takes place (we need to do it, because people living in privilege can still rebuild their lives under a new system that puts marginalized people first). We have to either take care of the people we care about or put a stop to this whole capitalism experiment. It has made our lives worse no matter what we do. I know if you're reading this, you're probably scared or laughing at me like I'm some kind of brainwashed uncle, but those are our only options.

Sadly, for me and my wife who are both getting sicker and sicker, we're stuck with the option of survival. She's working part time and schooling to put more resources into our mental health system, while I'm donating plasma (yes one can legitimately do that for money) and selling what we have in order to stock things up. So far, we've got a few living supplies including canned goods and pasta to keep us going incase something ridiculous happens, but at the very least, we're going to need a few extra things like a portable stove, spare can opener and wood utensils, solar phone charging bank, sleeping bags, and a tent. After that, we're planning to tell our extended families to do that same, especially my siblings with 3 kids each.

By March, we'll have a better idea of what to do.