sans oil

 The kiddie-wank the other day got me thinking.

Yeah, I know. You saw the smoke and wondered.

Anyway, could a modern human live in line with kiddie (and communist) wankery? Could they live without oil or killing anything - the two big wokery no-nos (although killing Jews seems to be fine).

For an "easy" start let's say you live just outside of a New Zealand village, near, but not in, the mountains.

You wake in the morning and greet the sun, then get up.

You must undress and stay naked because every item of clothing relies on oil in some way. You think of the woolen jersey Aunt Mary knitted you for xmas but even that is made from wool taken from the sheeps back with oil-lubricated tools.

The natural oil in wool you think, but no, first you have no way of extricating it and second, the oil in lanolin breaks down too quickly under pressure to be useful for lubrication (at least according to a Lincoln University fellow I asked that question of while he was trying to figure out a way of cleaning the wool and extracting the lanolin that would comply with EEC (at the time) standards.)

Shoes are also out, barefoot you go.

Electricity relies on oil to be made and stored and your wood-burning stove was made using oil in the process. Cold grass and shrubs for brekkie

Food not grown from your own seed gathered from the wild is also out, oil-burners delivered it and you probably used oil to bring it home. Even the seed packets are made, filled and transported using oil.

You go out to eat natural plants and berries. Of course you must first find them while naked and barefoot.

If there'e a chill in the air or if the ground is devoid of trees or large bushes that will protect you from sunburn, forget it until a warm dusk.

You find enough natural food to keep you going and now must address the clothing issue.

Small animals the die tend to be torn to bits, either while dying or soon after so you must find an animal as large as you who is unhappy. (A wild one will kill you first if you follow it.) You must follow that animal until it dies, beat the hawks, eagles, rats, pigs etc. to it's carcass and then skin it - without the oil-reliant knife you have at home.

At this point you will need flint - but how to identify it?

If you can you will then need to learn to shape it and cause sparks (fire) with it.

Trial and experimentation are your only methods of learning.

About now I figure you are dead but, maybe, not.

You get a fire going, dry the skin and survive the night - but where are you?

Tomorrow at sunrise you must start again.

First you have to find a dead animal you can get the skin of to enable you to carry flints etc. To fashion this you will need to make a needle and a knife. there goes a day and you've not had time to find food, drink or shelter.

Dead again.

Assuming you actually get through this you then need to find another dying animal, survive until it dies then start again.

No, just removing oil will kill you.

We won't notice the absence.