Over the past 12-18 months my subconscious has been having an influence on my activities. I am sure that my reading selections over this same time frame has been having an impact as well. As a result, I have found myself returning to an active “sheepdog” mental state, without the honed and polished skills that I use to have. Accordingly, I have found myself actively involved in martial arts and have recently begun visiting the range again (for the first time in 20 years). This mental state has even led me to the point of considering how I can safely store firearms (and sufficient ammo) in the house with three small children. While I do not consider myself crazy, I was beginning to think that maybe I was staying too far out of the mainstream. I mean, what would my suburban neighbors think of the fat man with the armory in the house (not that I really care but, the kids will as they work their way through school).
This morning I ran across this item at Threatswatch. As always someone has thought this through much more thoroughly than I have, and taken my little personal activities and put them in a much broader and more important contexts.
One sentence of the essay that really hit home for me was, “Finally, acquire some new, or practice your old, self-defense and self-reliance skills”.
The bottom line for me, my actions are a definite turn from where my head has been since I left the Marine Corps but, it is a turn in the right direction.