I absolutely agree with you. I am all for self-reliance and independence. Ideally I would like to be able to do everything myself, but obviously there are limits imposed by scales of economy and my own ability to learn. But still, one should be as self-sufficient as possible and should try to plan for the more foreseeable contingencies.

For example: a have many MANY tools. I've been slowly building up my tool collection since I was a kid. If something breaks, I try to fix it. I might not succeed, but I will at least learn something. Often I do succeed - and save myself a lot of money in the process. It also gives you the ability to create things from new, last week I spent my lockdown time building my wife a sewing cupboard.

Since water is such an absolutely essential requirement, I have a few water contingency plans in place (apart from the option of buying water). I always keep a few litres in the fridge to start with, but I also store a few more litres in long-term storage. I change that water every few months to prevent bacterial growth. I also installed a rainwater collection system: it can't give drinking quality water, but you can use it to shower/wash clothes (which I do regularly) and in emergencies you could filter and boil it.

If you live close to the ocean you could also look at desalination (by condensation) in an emergency, and a similar method could be used to sterilise water from dams/rivers etc.

At the moment I'm also planting tomato plants like crazy, because they are one of the few things I can successfully grow (I'm not a great gardener!)

I would love to see a world where we are more self-sufficient and where we support small, local businesses as opposed to the big shopping chains. Maybe at the end of this Covid mess we will see something more like that...