I went to a business seminar today. While we were waiting to get started we were introducing ourselves around and discussing what we did. One gentleman I was speaking with pressed far enough to find out I am launching a website centered around self-reliance. From the expression on his face I couldn’t quite tell if he had no idea what I was talking about or he merely found the topic about as interesting as he would a doctoral thesis on differentiation in lichens of the American Northwest.

Some people are perhaps fortunate enough to have never been faced with a situation where self-reliance comes in handy. In the training room of a company where I used to work was a poster that said something along the lines of, “A system backup is an activity religiously practiced only by those who have previously experienced a system crash.” However true, the implication is that people don’t appreciate the need for something until they experience a situation in which that something would have helped had they done it.

Those of us who have already seen the benefits of self-reliance tend to view people like that as “whistling past the graveyard,” or perhaps being like children who believe they are invisible if they close their eyes. But then they probably view people like me as paranoid, tin foil beanie-wearing survivalist nut-jobs. I guess it goes both ways.

Just for the record, I did not rush out and buy duct tape and plastic wrap during the anthrax scares after 9/11. I did not buy surgical masks or refuse to go out in public during the various super-flu scares of the last decade. I am not a reactionary. I merely believe in risk management. Having been through three periods of unemployment in the past eleven years, I see the need to mitigate the risk of extended unemployment through financial planning, food storage, and learning to do some of the things I would rather not have to pay someone else for during low-income periods.

So let me just reiterate. This is not a site for conspiracy theorists, apocalyptic harbingers, or survivalist loners. If those people find something of value on this site, great. They’re certainly welcome if they behave themselves, but they’re not my audience. This is a site for people who, whether or not they choose to live a self-reliant lifestyle during good times, want to be prepared for the inevitable hard times and be able to do for themselves as much as possible. It’s for people who see that there are certain risks in life worth preparing against.

It’s for people who have found that certain things work well for them and want to share what they have found with others who might find it useful also. Welcome! Come on in, pull up a chair, and tell us what you’ve found. Or feel free to pull up a chair and just listen. That’s fine, too.