Practical

I’m a very casual gardener, and when a pest eats a seedling I’d just planted or when the lettuce seeds I sowed never sprout because of heavy rains, I think, “thank the gods I don’t need to actually grow enough food to feed us.” My thoughts wander: what practical skills do I have that would help me in an apocalypse? Like, if civilization as we know it collapsed, how would I survive and keep my family alive? Do I know how to start a fire from scratch? I might be able to figure out how to trap one of the rabbits that live in our yard, but then what? I’ve never had to kill or skin or gut an animal. I know the names of only a handful of plants and would not know a poisonous mushroom or berry from an edible one. Growing up, I did not go camping or fishing; I didn’t learn how to fix things like leaky pipes, appliances, and cars. I’m wholly unequipped to “rough it.”

Neither do I have any high tech skills. We recently watched The Martian, the Ridley Scott sci-fi movie with Matt Damon as a botanist who’s stranded on Mars and finds a way to survive using his knowledge of biology, physics, engineering, and math until he can be rescued by his astronaut buddies. And you know how in modern-day heist movies there’s the young, sometimes cocky, sometimes shy and awkward computer whiz who can hack into any security system and remote-control their way into any number of things? Those skills could be very useful for hotwiring a toaster or improvising a solar panel that’s going to charge up any number of gadgets.

But, alas, my specialized skills run more toward in-depth analyses of literary texts and other cultural productions, and I can edit the hell out of any written document. Recognizing patterns of written language and shades of meaning is where I excel, not coding or numbers. Though I may not be the most skilled of practitioners, words are my tools and my raw materials. So, left alone in the woods, I’d be able to write a very nice farewell note.

I’m not completely devoid of other skills, of course. But any chance of surviving an apocalypse would require other people whose competencies could complement my own. With provisions and a flame that others procure, I could cook something edible. I know the rudiments of first aid that could keep infections at bay or basic sewing that could mend clothes or fashion blankets out of rags. These are usually what’s meant by practical skills – working with your hands, producing something concrete and tangible, attending to the bottom layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Who’s to say, though, what abilities will turn out to be the most practical in some future imagined disaster? The ability to problem solve or improvise solutions, to assess risk and weigh options, to organize people into functional groups and de-escalate a tense situation – these may be more essential than knowing how to build a physical thing or kill an animal. Mental flexibility and creativity, the ability to regulate under stress. Who knows which of us will be able to marshal these more contextual skills to meet the unpredictable challenges of the moment? Practical is relative.

Maybe I’m just defensive about my inability to grow my own food. But I am also resisting the myth of self-sufficiency that seems so ingrained in our culture, from Robinson Crusoe to “Castaway” to “Survivor.” So individualistic, so competitive. My resistance to this myth is also my survival instinct kicking in: I won’t make it very far without others. It’s to my advantage to believe that persuading others to help me, knowing how to cooperate and get along with different kinds of people will be the more valuable tools in the long run.

These are the idle thoughts of someone who spends a lot of time in her head, worried about a vaguely ominous future that could unfold in myriad ways. Living through a pandemic, climate change, and fascism will do that to you, I guess.

What useful things do you know how to do? Let’s team up.