What movies and books inspired you to be Self Sufficient?

[Dirk Chesterfield]

The Bible. Everybody in the bible was SS

Amen! #1 for SS inspiration.
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Robert A. Heinlein's book Time Enough for Love especially the Story of Dora.
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Love that book. it's one of my favorites. Along with "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress".

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Books:
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank - Post-nuclear war
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart - Post-biological plague
Wolf and Iron by Gordon R. Dickson - Post-economic collapse.
Anthem by Ayn Rand - Post-totalitarian collectivist ascension

As for movies:
Jeremiah Johnson
The Omega Man
Metropolis
Silent Running
Soylent Green
The Postman
Idiocracy (Yes, I said Idiocracy - A society too ignorant to grow it's own food. It's rather prophetic)

But I must say that I gained the majority of inspiration from non-fiction sources. Historians, documentarians, essayists and article writers.
Foxfire book series was really inspirational as is Backwoods Home and other publications.

 

[savingdogs]

Oh, I have not read some of those.....perhaps I need to add some books to my reading list!

Silent running is a great flick....

 

[rebecca100]

Whoo-hoo Bible for SS!

Some things just reinforced the desire to be SS, but I was born with the desire. I was in elementary school trying to grow my own garden and begging for laying hens. As a child I used to wish that we were Amish. They still inspire me.

 

[hoosier]

My husband was influenced by the book "Alas, Babylon", but I pretty much grew up this way. We both watched the series Good Neighbors/The Good Life depending on where you live.

 

[big brown horse]

Every black and white spaghetti western I could find on my grandma's colored tv. (The only one in the house growing up, it only had two or three chanels and get this...you had to get up to change them!)

As soon as the show was over I went outside, grabbed my pony and off I rode off barback pretending I was an indian...a Native American Indian.

The Box Car Children series, Little House etc. I read that novella "The Postman" too.

I've been drawn towards this lifestyle like a moth to a flame since before I could remember.

I started collecting "The Foxfire" series when I was a freshman in college.

Oh, I can't think of any more right now...I'm tired.

 

[freemotion]

Always loved the old ways, and making things myself. It was in our family culture, with a dad who grew up on a working farm before they had a flush toilet and he remembers his dad plowing fields with a team of horses. We probably had every extension service pamphlet, booklet, and flyer every published! And many visits to very elderly people who loved to tell stories of the old ways ("When I first saw a car, I said that one day cars would run horses right off the road! And they did!" said our friend, John....)

More recently it was a series of visits to a new naturopathic doctor who encouraged me to find "clean" food as much as possible and told me about www. westonapricefoundation.org and Nourishing Traditions. That book really pushed me forward into what we are doing here now. I also enjoyed The Encyclopedia of Country Living and have completed almost all the lists in the task list in the back of the book.

I bought a boxed Laura Ingalls Wilder set and have re-read them all 2-3 times in the past few years, each time with more understanding....and some sadness, as the old ways were gradually dropped in favor of store-bought food items as the years went by.

The food documentaries "Food, Inc" and "The World According to Monsanto" really got me to expand my gardens and foraging and kitchen projects even more. I still have others on my list to watch.

 

[Denim Deb]

It wasn't a book that inspired me, but my mom. We always had a big vegetable garden when I was a kid, and I loved to go out and work in it. We'd go looking for blackberries and elderberries to make jelly. When she was a kid, they had goats. And, I always enjoyed reading stories about people doing for themselves.

About the only thing I didn't enjoy was my clothes. My mom made almost all of my clothing, and I hated it! Basically, she made what she thought I should be wearing, and I had to wear it whether it fit well or not. I finally got so tired of being picked on at school because of my clothes that I pulled my pants up to my armpits, made sure my shirt covered the waistband, walked into her room and said, these pants are too short. Do I have to wear them anymore? She said no, and let me get jeans. And, this is why I don't know how to sew. But, I plan on learning.

 

[Marianne]

I started out on the SS journey because it was cheaper to live. I can't stand living under somebody's thumb - for the cost of eating, having heat in my home, etc, etc. Reading on the internet opened up a new world for me.

Then it became the right thing to do. A more simple (hard work!) kind of lifestyle that's kinder to the earth, so my grandson would have clean air, water, etc. when he grew up and had kids of his own.

Our oldest son lives and travels all over the world. Hearing how 3/4 of the world lives made me aware of how glutoneous we are. That had a huge impact on me.

Then I saw "No Impact Man". Holy cow, and here I thought I was doing a lot. That inspired me to do more, a lot more.

 

[BarredBuff]

SD, I meant the movie "The Horse Whisperer".