If you had an emergency (or heck, even got arrested) with no cell phone or no Internet, what number would you call?
Growing up, you likely remembered all of the important phone numbers of family and friends. They rattled off immediately when you picked up the phone. But after 15-20 years of auto-dial home phones and one touch dial cell phones, you forget. Your spouse’s office number, your best friend would all be out of touch if you lost connection.
This should remind you of a concept that is central to resilience.
It’s called “disconnection.”
Here’s an explanation in simple terms.
We live in a complex global network. We’re hopelessly dependent on it.
What happens when that complex network breaks down or stop working correctly? The network breaks down.
Smaller, more simple network clusters are forced to replace the complex network that used to exist. These networks become the foundation for future interactions within the network.
But often, in between, there is chaos. That’s where you see runs on a grocery store, banks, and anything that resembles fuel.
It’s these things that frighten us the most. Not having the basic items that we have become accustomed to every day makes us lose confidence in the system.
That’s when you realize that you aren’t producing your own food, energy and water. Nor have you connected with a small group of resilient minded folks that can quickly become a smaller network.
The jobs disappear, the ATM stops working, the fuel stops arriving, the supermarket shelves are empty, the electricity doesn’t turn on, the water tap is dry…. Or, what is available is so expensive that nobody can afford it.
Do you know a farmer who can supply food, or at least land, to allow you to bounce back quicker?
Do you have a supply of energy that can sustain you until you can respond and plan a better situation?
Most people don’t. So you’re not alone.
But you’re seeing the wake up call. You see a movement gathering around you of people who are interested in being able to bounce back quickly. That’s what resilience is all about.
People are beginning to “vote with their hands.”
Vote with their hands? They’ll begin to use those hands to produce locally. To live resiliently. To build communities that produce most of what they need and network with other communities for solutions for what they can’t do locally.
What will the long term result of this be?
It could result in creative destruction. A situation where a new, better system destroys an older, less vital system. In this case, the new resilient community network could begin to increasingly out-compete and displace the global industrial disaster that is breaking down. And with each new community that forms, our global network will become stronger, richer, and more dynamic while the old system becomes less valuable.
Those of us that are already resilient will be at the ground floor of an historic opportunity.
