There have always been such groups of people. At the end of the first millennium, the church chastened people who quit working and at around waiting for Christ to come back (It was the year 1000, after all. What date could be more auspicious?)
We do not intend to declare such people, gripped with fear of the apocalypse, are evil themselves (though we are all sinners). Rather, there is no doubt among the knights that over-indulgence in these thoughts often becomes a sort of disaster porn. People satisfy a dark lust when they read articles about these coming events.
First, they imagine revenge on their political enemies as society crumbles. Second, they essentially seek diabolic prescience, just as many semi-pagan early Christians were wont to do when they sought prognostications from shamans or druids. We really are not as different as we might think when we think of our ancestors. The same desires and inclinations are still there in our DNA.
In addition, it bears pointing out that people who think that the events of today are somehow certain signs of the apocalypse simply demonstrate the deficiencies of our educational system. How are the present times any ore brutal or awful than WWI or WWII? Yet the world did not end after either war. People display an ignorance of history due to insufficient focus on the subject in school.
History teaches us that things have always been this bad and they have often been worse.
Nevertheless, a knight should seek to acquire skills and knowledge that have a fundamental value. The preppers of today may be overdoing it when they store guns, ammo and food in their basement but there is much to be commended in their focus on essentials and the way that they teach themselves basic skills of survival.
While it is perfectly good and honorable for a knight to be a computer programmer, teacher, priest or lawyer, he should also seek to cross train himself in some essential, physical skill, if only to retain a connection to our ancestors. It is always good to know how to do something with your hands. Saint Paul was a tent-maker and continued plying his trade from tie to time even after assuming his august role in the early church.
The articles found below address this concern.
The Purpose of Preparedness
The First Steps in Preparedness
