Notes on resilience
This is a personal page (my professional page can be found here) where I intend to write about things related to resilience and preparedness. I’m starting out by providing my own short summaries of some of the episodes of the podcast Building Up: Resilience by Kory and Kellan (K&K). The podcast revolves around how to improve individual and community resilience (with an emphasis on the latter) in face of increasing disruption, uncertainty and breakdown (refer for example to K&K’s previous podcast Breaking Down: Collapse for more on the latter). Note that this is not a “prepper” podcast, of which there exist many, so the mentality of the show is not “How do I survive as long as possible, at all costs, no matter what may come?” Rather, the podcast carefully lays out a resilience framework which explicitly asks the listener to ask what is important to them. In particular, note that many people may not consider individual survival at all costs to be their true purpose.
In Episode 3: Principles, K&K lay out the following principles for their resilience framework:
Principle 1: Non-aggression. Harm and violence shall not be enacted on others merely to fulfill the needs of oneself or of one’s family or community (e.g. inflicting harm on others to get food or water). Self-defence is however allowed. I interpret this principle as being about non-aggression against other humans; I would assume the principle still allows for killing e.g. wild animals in order to eat them. Also, note that the principle of non-aggression essentially makes the “at all costs” part of the question “How do I survive as long as possible, at all costs, no matter what may come?” irrelevant.
Principle 2: Cooperation. One cannot become truly resilient by only focusing on oneself; one has to also include a cooperation / community aspect to one’s preparedness. Individual resilience is also important, but one should strive to build this “outwards” towards larger networks as well.
Principle 3: Effort. This principle provides guidance on how to think about effort when it comes to resilience and preparedness. (1) No effort that you put in is going to be wasted. (2) Any effort is better than no effort. (3) Everyone is somewhere on a “resilience spectrum”; we can never become “fully resilient” in an absolute sense, only move up or down the spectrum. (4) When at the low end of this resilience spectrum, small efforts can increase resilience very quickly (one can sort of think about it something like “20% of the work goes into moving from 0% to 80% resilience, while 80% of the work is required for the remaining 20%”). (5) Focus on what is in your control and what you aim for; you don’t need to prepare for every possible scenario. Prioritize covering things based on risks that are relevant to you and your community, as well as your goals.
Principle 4: Emotional and mental resilience. When thinking about resilience and preparedness, many (most?) people first think about physical resilience (such as ensuring access to food, water, shelter, and so on). However, a robust emotional and mental resilience is crucial also for long-term physical resilience. One can think of it as the oxygen that keeps everything else going. Note that being mentally resilient does not mean that one cannot simultaneously suffer from things such as mental health problems or anxiety. Rather, it’s a mindset that revolves around various ways to cope with what may come, both from internal and external stresses.
Principle 5: Quality trumps quantity. A well thought-out, tailored ‘resilience knapsack’ is much better than a large but un-organized knapsack. Focus on what you need for your circumstances and goals.
Principle 6: Diversity and redundancy. Don’t put all your eggs into one basket. When storing food, for example, don’t store all your food in a single type of container (e.g. glass, since then an Earth quake would destroy your whole food supply, as opposed to if some of the food was stored in plastic containers).
Principle 7: Specialization vs generalization. Our complex civilization has enabled an enormous amount of specialization among skills, types of work, and so on. It goes the other way around as well; this civilization is dependent on this specialization among individuals, companies, nations etcetera. This all works as long as society remains somewhat stable, since commodoties, labour etcetera can be efficiently ‘transfered’ among various actors. The downside is that, as individuals, our specializations also make us vulnerable to crises, especially such crises which require us to be able to do more things ourselves (as opposed to outsourcing it to various specialists). The principle of specialization vs generalization recognizes the value of specialization (especially in combination with Principle 2: Cooperation, where a community can have individuals specializing in different things to create a good synergy), but emphasizes the importance of also trying to acquire a diverse set of skills, to become a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, in order to be more ready for a more turbulent and uncertain future. Note that this principle is somewhat similar to the previous Principle 6: Diversity and redundancy. I also think this principle has an interesting synergy with Principle 5: Quality trumps quantity. More specifically, I think that specializing in just a few relevant skills can be the best way to go at times, rather than knowing a bit of everything.
Principle 8: Adaptability. One must be ready to change one’s plans, no matter how well-crafted those plans seemed originally. This principle is related to some of the previous ones, e.g. Principle 7: Specialization vs generalization; being more of a generalist than a specialist makes it easier to be adaptable to whatever circumstances one my face. Note, however, that this principle does not say one should not come up with plans, just that we must be able to adapt those plans depending on what comes our way.
Having laid out the principles above, in Episode 4: The Framework, the overall resilience framework is introduced. The idea of the proposed framework is to be broad and general enough so that anyone can leverage it, independent of their previous knowledge, experience, circumstances and goals. The seven steps of the framework are as follows:
(1) Establish a desired outcome. It’s important to lay out one’s goals and hopes for what one wants to achieve when following the steps in this resilience framework. Not everyone has the goal of surviving as long as possible no matter how rough things get. Some people may for example wish to focus more on enjoying life as much as possible while they still can, and not think as much about future difficulties (perhaps being OK with not being alive anymore given sufficiently bad circumstances). Thus this first step of the framework ensures that the overall framework is not prescriptive, and instead that the important decisions are left to each one who follows it. Also note that this step makes it possible to adapt one’s plan depending on one’s views of the future (i.e., it doesn’t have to be only about resilience during / in anticipation of collapse). This topic of establishing ones desired outcome is discussed in detail in Episode 5. In that episode, K&K each summarize what conclusions they have respectively reached regarding their desired outcomes.
(2) Consider the pillars. Becoming resilient is like building a house. The load bearing walls, or pillars, are essential for everything else. Otherwise it’s like laying bricks on a house without any structural frame to put them against. The 12 pillars are: (i) food, (ii) water, (iii) shelter, (iv) physical health, (v) mental health, (vi) security, (vii) finances, (viii) hygiene and sanitization, (ix) relationships and community, (x) energy, (xi) communication and information, and (xii) specialization. Pillars (i)-(iii) are considered the most fundamental ones (and note that (iii) includes things like how to keep sufficiently warm and cool, e.g. during heatwaves and/or blackouts), while the remaining nine pillars come in no particular order of importance. Note that the first step of establishing a desired outcome lays the blueprint for how to look at the “load bearing walls” which are the 12 pillars (e.g. how to prioritize among them). This topic of considering the pillars is discussed in detail in Episode 6. Finally, note that pillar (xi) is just called ‘communication’ in the podcast, but I like to add ‘information’ under this pillar as well. Here, information refers to ways in which one keeps track of important information (e.g. the location of nearby shelters in one’s municipality) before and during crises.
(3) Consider your variables. This step influences how one emphasizes the various pillars in the previous step, and is used to tackle the questions “How should I prepare?” and “What should I prepare for?”. Questions such as “How much time do I have to work on my resilience?”, “How much finances do I have for it?”, “What is my location (e.g. urban vs rural area) and local circumstances?” will help guide this. See more in Episode 7 and in my extended description of this step.
(4) Threat modeling. Very related to the previous step about the variables, but here with an emphasis on the risk landscape. “How will climate change affect my area?”, “How is the political landscape?”, “How dependent is my region on energy / materials from other regions in the world?”, etcetera. See more in Episode 8 and in my extended description of this step.
(5) Create a plan of action. Taking into account all the previous things, at this step one creates a plan of action. This helps us understand and prioritize what steps to take, what skills to learn, etcetera. Note that a plan of action does not have to (and often does not) cover all aspects of resilience, but it can also be a “sub-plan” towards moving upwards along the resilience spectrum. See more in Episode 9, where a plan of action is exemplified.
(6) Gain knowledge, skills and assets. This is the step that takes the most time, executing the plan of action and adapting it as needed. All the previous steps are important so that time is spent well at this step! See more in Episode 10.
(7) Build community. According to K&K, this is the most important step. It’s about finding a way to make this about more than just oneself. It’s an inescapable necessity to be able to rely on, trust and give to others. Not a skill that everyone has, but a skill that everyone can improve. See more in Episode 11.