Survival

Somebody linked to this post on the subject, specifically the way people just don't think about the fact that nature doesn't give a damn and will kill you without a care. Just because you didn't check on something/learn the area/keep your eyes open/think.

There was a book written a couple of years ago called Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies and Why. Very good book with many examples. The people who walk into a national forest in Hawaii and disappear. The searchers who go looking for them and disappear. The swimmers who vanish, the mountain climbers who die in avalanches, slides and falls. Boaters who drown or are eaten or taken by storms. People who get lost in a relatively small area and die of exposure. The post noted above mentions a place in that book:
I read in a survival book, of a rock that's over here, a popular photo site, where the waves crash against it majestically, Tourists stop here as it's a remarkable photo opportunity, the breakers breaking up past them and showering them with drops of the sea. A man will pause to adjust a setting on his digital camera, and look up to find his lover gone, never to be seen again.

Gone. Because you were standing on a rock at just the wrong time. He wrote of a similar story to hers of going out to the beach and, just in passing, asking a lifeguard about the water today. The guy looked out and just stood there for a couple of minutes, and as the writer had about decided this guy was stoned or something the guy came out of the trance and gave him a complete rundown of where was safe, where wasn't and what would happen if you went into the wrong area. Today. Might be different tomorrow. Which probably kept the writer from being one of the disappeared.

I occurs to me that taking note of the hazards of nature before going out into it is very similar thing to the people who decide to carry for self-defense. They're not looking for a fight, they don't want a fight, they just want to go through their daily hike through life. But they've taken note that there are predators out there, some of whom will hurt or kill anyone who strikes their fancy; that "it CAN happen to me". So they decide to be more careful of where they go, of how they keep an eye out, and decide to carry the means of defense in case it's needed. Which means practicing, and running things through your mind: "What would I have to do if that guy pulled a knife? What would happen if a robbery started while I'm having dinner?" and so on.

Mind you, society can make it difficult for people in both cases. The most obvious is the carrying of arms: some places it's flat not legal, most you have to jump through some legal hoops to get a permit to carry. And even when you have the permit there are usually a bunch of places you're not allowed to carry. Including a lot of national forests and other such places. Different kind of predator(usually) to worry about than in the city, but just as dangerous. And a lot of people just as certain that you, the common peasantcivilian, cannot be trusted to carry there(and, like that idiot Biden, don't think you should be allowed to own guns or sharp objects at all).

Survival very often boils down to, on the most basic level, recognizing that there are risks, and that things can happen to you, so you at the least should be watchful. In the woods or in town.