Won't lie, my main motivation is personal satisfaction. However, being "ready" is in the back of my mind. Here are some things I do:

1. I try to cook every meal and prepare every part of eating myself as much as possible. No short cuts. No pre-packaged, pre-cooked anything. I also try to use simple ingredients: dried beans, fresh produce, and cheap meats. I know how to cook without electricity and gas - using fire and solar. Good food on the cheap can often take time to make but can be scaled to last for days.

2. I work out 2-5 times a week, usually pushing pretty hard for at least 45 minutes. I use a machine designed for body weight exercises for strength and aerobics for endurance. You don't need to go to a gym to be in shape. When I travel or camp, I take two 20lb dumbbells with me to ensure I'm getting a little something in while I'm away.

3. I try to fix anything and everything myself. Everything from soldering electronics to changing my brakes to putting up sheet rock.

4. I buy everything I can, especially for personal enjoyment or luxury items considered unnecessary, used. Surround sound for the living room? I did it for 100 dollars. A complete fitness gym with treadmill, elliptical, and exercise machine? Probably around 200 over the course of a few years. In short, I try not to add anything to the extreme level of consumption already out there. Most everything anyone would ever need has already been made and thrown away.

5. I prefer using open source software wherever possible.

6. I try to teach my daughter skills that are absent in school curriculum, and I try to keep her entertained in off grid activities. She's learning how to build fires in our fire pit. She'd rather play tag with Mommy and Daddy outside versus watching TV. Shit like that.

I wish I had more time to read and be active in the community but the time is just not there. However I do what I can when and where I can. And I'd like to think I'm in a position to be ready if things take a turn for the dark or scary.

I’m trying to be more disciplined in my life, from eating less junk food to making more art. Is there a difference between revolutionary discipline and regular old?

A lot of the standard good advice applies. It's good to eat well, stay fit, keep your spaces clean, take care of your relationships, etc. etc. I think I do an okay job at all that (other than the fact I can't and probably never will be able to fight), and my COVID bubble of six will be going through David Harvey's lectures together starting tomorrow.

I think it's also important to recognize that being a stonewilled no fun workaholic revolutionary isn't going to be good for anyone. We have to remember that organizing can be as emotionally rewarding as draining, and to be honest with ourselves; actions themselves are often very thrilling. Revolutionary practice on a larger scale is only possible if people actually want to carry it out. Be disciplined, but let yourself be reminded of why you're in this. I really do believe that there are glimpses of the next world in this one if you know where to find them, and sometimes that means putting a pause to the grind and stopping to smell the roses. I'm reminded of the Emma Goldman dancing quote.

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I'm running more, educating myself, and I'm going to try and get a more marxist caucus going at my DSA chapter.

I read a tweet or something recently (maybe on here) about how pretty much everything liberal is just an equal and opposite reaction to American conservatism. Not the worth thing to directly oppose, for sure.

However, I do think that one particularly weak point is that the reaction to the rigidity and discipline of conservatism has bred a lazy "live and let live" sort of counterculture that doesn't make any demand of an actual liberationary movement. As a new American Left arises out of American Neoliberalism, people are going to need to realize that some sort of discipline is going to be necessary if they actually want to achieve any sort of success.

Even in the chaposphere, there can be an anti-work culture, which is understandable considering all the alienation and exploitation and such under capitalism. For those of us who are able though, we need to "get our shit together" and get fit, get educated, and position ourselves as best as we can to really fight for working people.

It makes me feel like an old man, but I'm feeling more and more like "kids these days" (including me) need to stop sleeping in, eat healthy, work out, read t h e o r y, network with other comrades, and even take our jobs seriously (if we are in a skilled trade or career). Also I'm semi-unironically into the volcel ideal. Hook-up, sex pest, and dating drama is a cancer on a revolutionary movement, and I think that we should encourage ourselves and our comrades to build healthy committed relationships that are stable and long lasting. It sounds odd because it has some common ground with religious conservatism, but if we want to breed a revolutionary culture (as opposed to liberal counterculture) I do think that this sort of discipline is going to be necessary.

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