> TEOTWAWKI Blog: The Fallacy of the Lone Survivor

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12/13/10

The Fallacy of the Lone Survivor

You're not Rambo.
Survival fiction very often glamorizes the lone hero, wandering through post-apocalyptic wastelands, righting wrongs and slaying baddies. In our own personal thoughts about TEOTWAWKI, how many of us think about going it on our own  and surviving solo? Just you, your guns and your bug out bag versus the world, right?

Really?

Think about it for a moment. Here's a few possible scenarios for you:

What happens if you get injured or fall ill and are unable to move? It's tough to be a hardcore Rambo-type when you've shattered your femur. You'll either die of exposure or need to get help from whoever passes by.

What happens when you need to sleep? You pretty much need to hide yourself as best you can and then cross your fingers and hope no one comes across you.

What happens when something needs to be done, but you don't have the skills or ability to do it by yourself?

What happens when you get lonely? The world's done, most everyone you know is dead, and you're all on your own, living day-to-day and scraping by like an animal. What is keeping you going?

Planning to solo it through TEOTWAWKI is generally not a good idea. Almost always, your odds will be better off with a team of capable people. Cohesive and functional teams outperform individuals every time--there's a greater pool of skills, knowledge, experience, resources, thinking and manpower to draw from. In matters of life or death, you want that on your side.

Of course, capable individuals outperform crappy, dysfunctional teams, so if that's your only option, then you're better off solo'ing it. But a good team of like-minded survivalists should be amongst your highest priority preparations. It's free, it'll pay off before the apocalypse--friendship, moral support--and after the apocalypse, you will have a group of people there to watch your back and help in the important matters of survival.