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Phillosoph

My Left Pocket

A common piece of advice is to re-lace your boots with paracord. The more thoughtful of you may have wondered about the wisdom of being in a survival situation with unlaced boots!
What is usually omitted is that in an emergency you are supposed to take the cores out of the cord, then re-lace your boots with the empty outer or some of the core cords. This assumes you did not buy the budget cord that doesn’t have particularly good cores!
Re-lacing your boots with paracord isn’t a bad idea. It cannot hurt. One day you may find yourself cold, tired and wet, your numb hands trying to unlace your boots, gut the paracord and then re-lace your boots. That sounds like something you may want to avoid if possible!
In my post on an EDC shopping list, I suggested that you add about two metres/a fathom/an armspan of paracord to your everyday carry (EDC). Or a pair of long, strong bootlaces, whichever you can acquire more easily.
The utility of this was expanded on in one of the links from my 4-4-4-4 article. In the event you missed it:

I had a quick look in the left front pocket of my trousers. The contents were:
  • One bandanna, various uses.
  • Disposable lighter, for emergencies.
  • Two hanks of paracord, roughly two metres. An arm-span and a bit.
  • A actual length of shoelace. I tend to pick up potentially useful bits of cordage! Useful for stuff that does not require the paracord. There was another shoelace but I used it to make an iPod carrier.
  • A tubular spectacle safety cord. My habit of acquiring cordage paid off here. What I thought was a bit of shoelace turned out to be something very useful to me. If the situation requires, I can retrieve this from my pocket and add it to my glasses.
  • A couple of metres of cotton string. Saves the paracord for important jobs. Potentially could be used as tinder.