Man, I know that feeling. Fairly significantly doubt it'll ever change, too, as I'm pretty sure it won't unless I actually manage to achieve physical/fiscal security and, just. I don't see that happening.
Totally have an answer to the prompt, though: Whatever would guarantee food/shelter/health for the rest of my life. Not having to worry about homelessness, starvation, or persistent medical malaise would be amazing. That'd be empowering as fuck.
Don't get that when you're poverty line in the US and approaching disabled, though. Mostly you're just kinda' fucked.
I can attest to this, however-- that knowledge or skill is mostly impotent, due to the obnoxious action of modern society.
This time last year I was flexing those skills and abilities pretty hard by eating the tasty weeds from my yard, in a bid to avoid going to the store. Many a dinner was concocted from purple deadnettle, white clover, and lambsquarters, served with rice and beans.
Later in the year, I ate mushrooms grown in the closet many times, along with shitloads of tomato and hot pepper.
I also happen to know how to make more than 10 kinds of shelter, ranging from temporary to permanent-- and how to produce simple medicinal preparations from local flora... (I stuck with stuff that has some research indicating efficacy. Not hoodoo.)
Part of the unusual childhood I had, I guess-- I have pretty well honed skills from the many "Weeks long" camping trips we did over the summers.
Yes. VERY empowering. I do not actually *NEED* modern society. It merely offers convenience and consistency.
the problem, is that the modern society considers you an aberration if you demonstrate such abilities, or worse still, a proclivity toward exercising them-- Foraging on public lands gets the parks service up your ass, as they worry about you engaging in unsustainable harvesting practices (and for good reason), et al.
That just leaves people who either own their own land to forage on, or people who have close associations with people who have land to forage on. I have a reasonably good sized back yard, but it is not really sufficient. I am able to greatly offset my food needs with a large summer garden, but not 100%. I do not have any close associations that have such large parcels of land either.
So, while such skill is very much an abstract form of empowerment, it is also a source of great internal melancholia, which is the exact opposite of empowerment.
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Topic: Things that made you mildly upset today thread (Read 839524 times)