This is the most profound and important book I have read aside from the Bible. While the Bible exposes our slavery to our sin nature and our need to be saved from the eternal consequences of our sins, Survival Off Off-Grid (SOOG) exposes the oh-so-subtle slavery to our sin nature (our desire for the "luxuries" and "comforts" we had in Egypt) that has imperceptibly crept back into us and our society and our need to be free of it. Michael Bunker brings into crystal clear focus just how this happened and shines a harsh light on how precarious your and my very lives are--how close each of us is to finding ourselves helpless and unable to just survive another day.
Yes, SOOG has strong Christian overtones. Do you have a right to not be offended in this life? No, so man up and deal with it.
The movie, "The Matrix," provides a striking analogy to the premise of SOOG. To many, the idea that you are a slave will strike you as absurd. This, however, is a case of, as Morpheus said to Neo, "You take the red pill,... and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes." In The Matrix, slaves were likened to "batteries." In the real world, as unlikely as it seems, it's the consumers who are the slaves--consumers of debt, consumers of electrical gadgets, consumers of things in general--while being pigeon-holed into a highly specialized field of work that offers zero viability for our survival, both individually and as a culture/society.
As I read through this book, the following exchange from "The Matrix" kept coming to mind:
Morpheus: You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life; that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The [Grid]?
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? The [Grid] is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch, a prison for your mind.
While this may seem bleak, Bunker, after opening your eyes to see your chains that you never knew were there, offers motivation and ideas for freeing yourself from this slavery. As a Christian, I have often wondered where that abundant life is that Yeshua talks about at John 10:10. Bunker has solved half of this riddle for me (the other half comes in devoting your life to serving God and others). Freeing yourself from the Grid does not mean living in abject poverty.
I have known, or at least strongly suspected, that there must be better, more important, and more interesting--more viable--things to do with my life than sit in an office staring at a monitor for 8 hours a day, knowing that I'll wake up one day looking back on my life and realizing that I wasted it. What's worse, in my ignorance I would have prepared my children to follow suit. What's the snare? The snare is that you have to provide for yourself and, if you're fortunate enough to have one, your family. And this we do, dutifully, without recognizing that we are doing it within a construct that is a lie, that has been deliberately erected to keep us producing--actually consuming.
I have known that, while taking solid steps toward self sufficiency ("God sufficiency") in the past year or so, I was way behind and not fully understanding the context of my desire for it. I just knew that a proverbial train wreck was coming and some form of preparation would be better than none. This book is an answer to my un-uttered prayers.
Never have I felt as much a sheep as when I read this book. Never have I been more free as when I read this book. The first step in getting free is to realize that you're a slave and to recognize what it is that enslaves you. Take the first step. Take the red pill. Read SOOG as soon as humanly possible.
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free."
-Goethe
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Reviews with images
Easily one of the most profound books I have ever ...
Easily one of the most profound books I have ever read in my life. If someone cannot look past the religious aspects to the fact that our society has been used to control us, they have bigger problems than this book can address. Society has built a mechanism that takes happy curious children and churns them into miserable adults and finally discards them into a old folks home where they are forgotten when they are no longer of use. Thank you Mr. Bunker for making this so plain for me to see. We need more fresh air, more freedom, less stress, more open spaces, less debt, more family, more love. Picture from Serenbe, GA added for emphasis.
Top reviews from other countries
Neil Creamer
A tough read, but worth the effort
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 12, 2012Amazon Customer
Powerful and Profound
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 14, 2011Kindle Customer
Don't be put off by the Bible verses, listen to what he is saying...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 18, 2015