I’ve played the violin since age four (although not much in the last ten years). This topic came up the other day on the plane to which my seatmate commented, “violin is a great life skill.” I nodded politely while thinking, “the violin is soooo not a life skill.”
Life skills are abilities and talents that improve your chances of surviving an apocalypse [1]. An example of a life skill might be driving stick shift. This particular skill is critical because the fall of civilization can happen pretty quickly. If you aren’t near your car, you are going to need to jump in the closest one you can find and drive away from the mess [2]. Imagine narrowly escaping an angry mob (or group of zombies), only to find your get away opportunity is a car you can’t drive.
Shooting a gun or bow and arrow is another one. I assume guns will be pretty important when there is no law or order. “Who is in charge here? The guy with the biggest gun over there? I should have known.” My friend Fred once killed a bear with a single arrow. In contrast, I probably can’t pull back the string on his bow, better yet actually hit anything with the arrow. Knowing how to shoot a bow and arrow is even better than a gun because once people run out of bullets (manufactured before fall of civilization), arrows will be the only thing left. In a post apocalyptic world, Fred will be some kind of revered tribal leader, where I will be “that one guy who gets us water from the river.” That is assuming I even survive. I imagine Product Managers will be some of the first people to “get what is coming to them” in an apocalypse. Right after white collar executives and lawyers.
I imagine knowing how to swim could be important in case you have to do any major river crossings (see angry mob or group of zombies escape example above). Knowing how to make your own clothing could be an asset. Not in the “I just bought a pattern from Michael’s and will use the cross hatch stitch on the sewing machine” way, but more in the “I just dried the tendons in the sun of the deer I killed with my bare hands and I will use them to lace up my mountain man moccasins” way. I bet knowing the timing of major eclipse could come in handy as well. Once people won’t be able to learn about events like eclipses on the Internet or Fox News, nobody will know anything. It will be pretty easy to convince them you blotted out the sun using your powers.
What life skills am I missing?
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[1] I don’t mean the biblical kind of apocalypse, more just the complete fall of civilization. I’m constantly amazed we have gotten people to follow a bunch of rules we made up. Certainly there are negative consequences to running a stop light, but not severe consequences. I’m convinced some day people are going to decide they don’t really need to stop at stop lights and everything will go to hell from there. Take my word for it, the fall of civilization is going to start with the stop lights.
[2] Drive away to a mountain hideaway where you can live off the land much like Swiss Family Robinson.
As much as it kills me to whip out my Boy Scout in public, Scouts taught me a ton of life skills. First among these is first aid, which I have used on several frightening occasions. (Everyone should know how to give the Heimlich, how to rescue someone who is drowning, how to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, etc.) The other class of life skills that I happened to have gleaned from Scouts is wilderness survival. For me, it’s not so much the survival stuff (though if a passing aircraft needs to be signaled, I’m your man), but the understanding that the outdoors are nasty, and things can spiral out of control surprisingly quickly. This knowledge informs one’s decision making, and it’s this kind of wisdom that, say, would lead me to never take a shortcut after sundown across a mountain range with my wife and two children as the snow was beginning to fall. (James Kim was heralded for his “survival skills”, but the reality is that the guy was missing the first and most important survival skill: risk assessment.)
Last two important life skills from Scouts: pioneering (a.k.a knot tying) and orienteering (a.k.a. map reading). At one time or another, I have found uses for the clove hitch, the sheepshank, magnetic declination and contour intervals. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think Boy Scouts was actually just training me for your post-apocalyptic dystopia (which presumably isn’t far from the truth given the pseudo-militarism that pervades the organization). I just hope we all won’t have to wear sashes and knee-high socks in whatever totalitarian state emerges from the anarchy…
Invisibility and flying. Really handy in a pinch.
I always forget about invisibility and flying. So handy.
Fire, anyone? I mean, after all the matches are gone, and we run out of butane… Pyromaniacs will probably be shaman-types. Just a thought.
…you know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills… Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills…