Self-Sufficiency Ratings

We all want to kick the proverbial "Man" in the balls. Now we have a road map.

Hi-YAA!

I hi-jacked the following chart from the super-cool pathtofreedom.com website before their site makeover. (Thank you for your amazing work, you samurai homesteaders!)

For all of us whole-to-part learners, we can see the rubric scoring us on how handi-manly we are. It's a report card for self-sufficiency. As we evolve, so does the rubric. When we eventually become fully self-sufficient, we don't need to surf the internet and plagiarize other people's self-sufficiency charts.

I used this chart as a starting point to launch my own measuring stick to fit my slightly-different philosophy and needs. For instance, my FOOD category is a lot simpler-- it doesn't have Baking or Butter/Yogurt/Cheese Making. My AGRICULTURE category doesn't include Staples: Wheat, Beans, Rice, Sweeteners. My SKILLS/CRAFTS category doesn't include Knitting or Leathermaking.

Perhaps my only 100% fulfilled category is Hair Cutting...which my chart refers to as Hair Styling or course. I've been enjoying doing hair exchanges with my brothers for the last 10 years. It's a fun ritual, like a black barbershop or even a movie about a black barbershop, but lately the quality is hit or miss. (Sorry, John). So, I'm actually considering getting back on the hair-cutting grid. Or else, I may just either grow my hair out again or learn to cut it myself.

Stickin-it-to-the-man and kicking him in the balls is definitely fun and exciting, but simplified living has had it's own deeper reward. Remember when that one anti-establishment kick-the-man-in-the-balls guy said this?

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?  Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

O man, it gives me goose bumps.