그 전 에 물 을 길어다 먹 던 시절 을 지낸 적 이 잇 다면 그 분 은 지금 나이 오 십 세 는 넘 었 을 것 이 라 생각 됩니다 . 제 가 강원도 에서 나 서 자랄 때 그랬 는데요 거기 가 소도시 였 기 에 우물 에서 길어다 먹 은 것 은 아니 고 동네 에 수도 가 하나 설치 되 어 있 었 기 에 거기 에 물통 을 갖 고 가 길 어 오 는 일 이 제 일 이 었 지요 . 그러 다가 수년 후 에 수도 공사 를 집 에 해 주 니 그런 수고 를 덜 면서 날 듯이 기뻐했 던 기억 이 납니다 . 그 보다 전 에 는 저희 집 에 작 은 텃밭 이 있 어서 채소 를 길러 먹 기 도 했 고요 . 물론 그 당시 나 지금 이나 시골 에선 그렇게 길러 먹 는 일 은 당연 한 것 이 었 죠 . 비 가 오 면 텃밭 에 물 이 흘러넘치 지 않 게 물고랑 을 살피 러 나갈 정도 의 보잘것없 는 밭 이 었 지만 거기 에 갖 은 채소 가 열려서 밥상 에 오르 곤 했었 지요 . 그런데 이런 생활 은 그 당시 잠간 이 었 을 뿐 이후 에 자영 해서 농사 를 하 고 펌프 를 땅 에 박 아서 물 을 길러 먹 고 양식 창고 에 겨울 을 날 식량 을 저장 하 는 일 은 사라지 게 되 었 습니다 . 그런 것 을 도시 당국 에서 저 들 이 알 아서 해 주 거나 아님 마트 에 가 면 뭐 든지 다 공급 이 되 었 기 때문 입니다 . 서울 이 란 대 도시 는 사 는데 필요 한 모든 물자 와 편 의 시설 이 집중 되 어 있 는데요 저 는 가끔 이곳 에 전력 이 중단 된다든지 연료 공급 이 끊긴다 든가 수돗물 이 단수 가 되 면 그 많 은 사람 들 이 어떻 게 그런 것 없이 살아갈 수 있 을는지 생각 할 때 답 이 묘연 합니다 . 다 들 흩어져 찾 아 나서 야 겠지만 그렇 다 해도 며칠 못 가 서 지쳐버릴 것 같 아서 걱정 스럽 습니다 . 왜냐하면 다 들 받 아서 먹 고 누리 는 데 만 익숙 해 있 는 것 이 지 정작 무엇 이 자기 에게 필요 한 것 인지 분별 해 내 기 가 어렵 고 이 를 지속 적 으로 공급 하 도록 하 는 것 도 아주 어려운 일 이 기 때문 입니다 . 현대 생활 은 스스로 생존 해 나갈 능력 을 퇴화 시켰 다는 탄식 을 하 지 않 을 수 없 습니다 . 이 에 대해 어떤 대안 이 있 으신 가요 ? 아래 의 글 은 마이크애덤스 가 미국 생활 을 접 고 에쿠 아 도르 에 가 서 자영 생활 을 하 며 얻 은 노하우 를 기록 하 고 있 습니다 . ************* http : / / abundanthope . net / pages / article _ 4193 . shtml How fragile we are : Why the complexity of modern civilization threatens us allBy Mike AdamsDec 15 , 2009 , 07 : 21 Email this article Printer friendly pageHow fragile we are : Why the complexity of modern civilization threatens us allWednesday , December 09 , 2009 by Mike Adams , http : / / www . naturalnews . com / 027694 _ complex _ societies _ civilization . html ( NaturalNews ) The fragility of our modern human civilization did not become clear to me until I began living full - time in South America . As a resident of Vilcabamba , Ecuador , I ' ve grown accustomed to the idea of knowing where the things I consume come from . The water I drink , for example , comes from a hole in the ground that taps into a water table replenished by the clouds hanging over the Podocarpus National Forest to the East . I can make a logical connection between the clouds , the rainfall , and the water in my glass . And if the well pump fails , I know I can always carry a bucket to the river a few hundred meters away and scoop up virtually unlimited quantities of water that recently fell out of the sky . During a recent trip to Tucson , however , I found myself hesitating when I turned on the kitchen faucet . I paused , marveling at the magic of this water which apparently appears from nowhere . And it ' s always there , reliable and uninterrupted . That ' s when I noticed myself asking the commonsense question : " Where does the water come from around here ? " I had no idea . The realization astonished me . I lived in Tucson for over five years and yet the thought suddenly occurred to me that if the water stopped magically flowing out of these pipes , I had absolutely no idea where to physically find water beyond the bottled water in the grocery stores , and that wouldn ' t last very long . Sure , I know where the rivers are in Tucson , but these desert rivers are bone dry river beds for all but a few days of the year . And yes , I know how to get water out of cactus , but it ' s hard work , and the water isn ' t pure water . Try to live off cactus juice for a few days and you ' ll end up with severe diarrhea ( which is dehydrating ) . This thought never hit me when I lived in America , but now it struck me hard : Life in many U . S . cities is extremely fragile . Much of the abundance and convenience of city life is pure illusion , conjured up by a system of underground pipes that deliver water to your home and another set of pipes that magically dispose of your flushed liquid waste . A set of wires brings electricity that makes your home livable ( at the great expenditure of energy for heat or cooling ) , and cheap gasoline makes it possible for fresh produce to magically appear in the grocery stores that feed us all with food from who - knows - where . Take away any one of these -- electricity , water , sewers , fuel , food -- and virtually every U . S . city becomes an urban death trap for all its citizens . It ' s not just Tucson , either : The entire American Southwest is extremely fragile when it comes to supporting life . The same story holds true with Phoenix , Los Angeles , Las Vegas , San Diego and many other cities and towns of all sizes . The population currently living in the Southwest USA is far greater than what those geographic regions could support on their own : It is the mass - importation of water , electricity , food and fuel that makes life possible there . And all those mass imports are extremely fragile . The flipside of this problem exists across Northern USA and Canada , where extremely cold winters make these regions unlivable without the steady importation of heating fuel . Most Americans and Canadians would freeze to death in less than a week if left without some ability to heat their homes during a severe winter freeze . Very few people ( in the cities especially ) still have free - standing , non - electric wood - burning stoves or effective fireplaces that can keep them warm and alive during such an outage . Most of the younger generation has never even chopped wood ! ( And wouldn ' t know where to start if they had to . ..) The illusion of progress hides the frailty of complex civilizationsAs U . S . cities have become increasingly complex and population dense , they have simultaneously become alarmingly fragile . Just one small break in the supply lines -- or one severe disruption in a single essential input -- can ripple through the entire system , causing widespread catastrophe . I found this difficult to see when living in the USA . Everything seems fine on the surface . The water always appears when you turn on the faucet . Electricity seems ever - present . Food is magically replaced on store shelves each night ( apparently by sleepless Elves of some kind ) and no matter how much gasoline you pump out of the gas station , it always seems to have more ! But what if these essentials stopped ? Could YOU survive for even one weekend without store - bought food , water pressure in your home , fuel , electricity and internet access ? Increasingly , the honest answer is simply " No ".( This isn ' t an article about survival , by the way . But if you ' re interested in the concept of " surviving and thriving , " then check out the " surthrival " website of Daniel Vitalis at www . Surthrival . com ) Our modern world lacks redundancyIn the quest for complexity , specialization and profit , our modern civilization has completely forgotten about redundancy . There is almost no slack in the systems that deliver your food , fuel , electricity , water or consumer products . That means if something goes wrong , even for a little while , you ' ll need to depend on yourself to provide these things . Yet how many people have the ability to provide all these essentials for themselves -- disconnected from the grid -- for even as little as one weekend ? Very few , it turns out . And that leads to one giant , disturbing realization : When the next great disruption occurs , the vast majority of the population will panic . That ' s because they ' re unprepared . They have unknowingly bet their lives on the reliability of just - in - time delivery systems and complex infrastructure interdependencies . When the water stops flowing , or the electricity goes off , or the gasoline runs out , they literally will have no idea what to do . The very idea that such a thing could happen will be entirely foreign to them . It ' s as if they ' ve all been living in The Truman Show ( a Jim Carey film , one of my favorites ) then suddenly the veil is lifted and they ' re shown the real world . In the real world , water doesn ' t just automatically flow through your pipes . Fuel doesn ' t materialize into existence out of nowhere . Food isn ' t mysteriously teleported to your local store each night while you sleep . In the real world , food , fuel , energy and water all depend on a long , intricate web of interdependent processes , and there isn ' t a person living today who truly understands the complexity of those dependencies . In essence , we are all living a civilization experiment . It ' s an experiment that asks the question , " What happens if we all become specialists and give up our redundancies in the pursuit of higher specialized production ? " The cost of specializationLet me rephrase it more simply : A hundred years ago , almost everybody was a farmer . If your neighbor ' s garden crop failed , that was no big deal because you had some extra garden food to share with them . But as society became more " advanced " and complex , people became specialists : Forklift operators , grocery store checkout clerks , bank paper pushers , auto alarm installers , and so on . Importantly , in this process they all lost the knowledge of how to grow their own food , or fetch their own water , or heat their own homes . Instead , they pursued their own narrow specialized skills and traded their time ( and money ) for bits and pieces of other peoples ' special skills , some of which include delivering the essentials we all need to survive . A newspaper journalist , for example , doesn ' t need to grow her own food . She writes stories that farmers want to read , and in exchange , she eats some of the food they grow . The medium of exchange for all this is called " money , " of course . As you can see , however , this specialization results in the mass loss of basic living knowledge such as how to raise chickens , how to prune fruit trees or how to plant garden seeds . I ' m actually forcing myself to re - learn many of these basic skills now in Ecuador , and I ' m finding myself astonished at how little I really knew about living off the land . .. This loss of practical knowledge sets up precisely the kind of situation I hinted at earlier , where a disruption in the complex systems that deliver our essentials results in the masses panicking because they have no clue what to do . They ' ve never had to use live - off - the - land skills , so they don ' t even know where to begin . Where can you find water within walking distance ? How to build a water filter out of a plastic barrel , some sand and some old tree stumps ? How do you repair a flat tire on a bicycle without changing the inner tube ? How do you protect your garden veggies from insects or rodents without using chemical pesticides ? These are the kinds of things that most people just don ' t know , and yet in a breakdown emergency , these are precisely the kinds of skills that are desperately needed . ( They ' re the skills your parents or grandparents probably knew very well , but have since been largely abandoned . ..) Skills matterThe upshot of all this is that it ' s a good idea to acquire some essential preparedness skills so that you don ' t find yourself a complete noob when the lights go out . And this isn ' t about acquiring just stuff ( gadgets and the like ) , it ' s about developing skills and know - how . Skills beat stuff any day . For example , by working alongside some of the locals I ' ve hired in Ecuador , I ' ve learned how to cut wire without a wire cutter . I ' ve learned how to repair irrigation pipes without pipe clamps ( just using bailing wire and a nail ) . I ' ve learned how to build water troughs out of bamboo and how to make a decent roof covering out of dried sugar cane leaves . It ' s all the more curious given that I came to Ecuador from what people call an " advanced nation " ( the USA ) and yet found myself clueless in so many areas that are considered common knowledge by the people of this " developing nation " ( Ecuador ) . I can tell you this : In a prolonged crisis , rural Ecuadorians will out - live USA city - dwellers by a hundred to one . Many skills that we might consider " advanced preparedness skills " in the USA are everyday knowledge to the Ecuadorians I know . There is much to learn from these knowledgeable people . Come visit Southern Ecuador some time if you ' d like to learn more for yourself . In cooperation with the local tourism bureaus , I plan to cover several tourist events and destinations throughout Ecuador in 2010 . Watch for those announcements here on NaturalNews . For starters , the primary cities / towns to visit in Southern Ecuador include Loja , Zamora , Cuenca and Vilcabamba , where I live .