Resilience

Resilience is ancient wisdom and modern science.  It is design, technology, integration, and action, that enables people and communities to absorb change and bounce back from shocks and hard times.
Optimization for the everyday leads to fragility in the face of the unexpected.  Without resilience, highly ordered social structures are reduced to chaos and crisis in the face of adversity.  With resilience, we create abundance in good times and security in bad.
Resilience means being able to call upon resources we prepared beforehand.  Our social capital gives us good information and communication, and our community shares and helps.  Our design and preparedness strengthen us, and the diversity and creativity of our solutions respond to local circumstances.
Humans and nature make up social-ecological systems — an ecosystem of interdependent elements.  Our systems are complex, unpredictable, in constant flux.  There is no blueprint for being resilient, but a toolkit of solutions and a sourcebook and laboratory of ideas.  Resilience is created through diversity, preparedness, wisdom and abundance.
Diversity.  Each element in the system performs multiple functions, and each function is served by multiple elements.  Diversity of action and design gives us choices and backups.  In our gardens it gives us a variety of flavors, a longer harvest, and resistance to disease.  In our living environment it gives us richness of experience.
Preparedness.  Thinking ahead, conserving, studying and planning for our future.

Wisdom.  Globally shared solutions to local challenges, a commons of tools and ideas, an understanding of context.
Abundance.  Creating more than we need, a buffer against harsh times.  Resilience is joyful, abundant living, creating more than we need — preparing for hard times whenever they come, and creating a thrivable future whatever may come.