Transmission #38

Resilience requires a kind of elasticity, an ability to stretch and reach but then to return, to spring back into a former shape—or perhaps to shapeshift into something new if the circumstances require it. Resilience is stretchy where optimization is brittle; resilience invites change where optimization demands continuity. But whether we’re talking

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"Civilizations with long nows look after things better," says Brian Eno. "In those places you feel a very strong but flexible structure which is built to absorb shocks and in fact incorporate them."1 You can imagine how such a process could evolve—all civilizations suffer shocks; only the ones that absorb the shocks survive. That still doesn't expl... See more

As Diane Coutu so eloquently explains in her luminous “How Resilience Works,” “Resilient people possess three characteristics — a staunch acceptance of reality; a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful; and an uncanny ability to improvise. You can bounce back from hardship with just one or two of these qualit

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