320. anti-fragile
Imagine a champagne glass being shipped in a wooden box, during shipping if you shake the box too much it will shatter; that’s fragility. Now imagine the opposite of a champagne glass, something that doesn’t break under stress, perhaps you’ll think of a rock in the box. If you shake it during shipping, nothing happens; it doesn’t break. But the strange thing is, the opposite of fragility isn’t sturdiness or resistance to the surrounding pressures, it’s gaining strength under volatile conditions.
What gains from stress? Things like the muscular system, good relationships, immune systems, emotional health, and connected communities are all examples of things that grow under stressful situations. In fact, they need stress in order to change in a positive way, and a lack of imposed stress can even be detrimental over time.
The only way our muscles can grow is through the stress of resistance training (no matter how much anabolics you’re on). The bond between two people in a healthy relationship only grows stronger when confronted with challenges together. The immune system is only bolstered by coming in to contact with and fighting off things that cause to make us sick. Our emotional health can only develop in response to the full spectrum of emotions that we all have. Likewise, communities only seem to thrive under the shared experience of collected stress; just look at how the country, and much of the world, came together post 9/11.
So don’t run from stressful situations (unless it’s a bear, of course). Lean in. Endure. Make it through. Learn and grow from your experience as it will only serve to make you more anti-fragile.
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Side note: The world we’re quickly fitting into isn’t one that tests our limits, strengthens our resolve, or seeks to promote an anti-fragile version of ourselves. Everything we push for — from technological innovations to “healthcare” directives — only make our lives easier. But nowhere in nature does this encourage growth. It simply creates dependence on those who create the comfort. Continuing to infuse ever-greater ease into a system that is already disproportionately skewed away from anything uncomfortable and toward ultimate comfort will never allow us the resiliency we need to withstand our box being rattled, much less creating a situation where we can gain from our foundations being shaken.
the opposite of humanity isn’t technology, it’s comfort
Modern society is a relative paradise, developed for us, by us, to consume our desires, at the detriment of our evolutionary needs. We no longer need to adapt to the environment, as we have adapted the environment to us. We don’t need to grow or kill or own food, build our dwellings, or defend ourselves from wild animals. We can order almost anything we want, and in as little as 2 hours it will arrive at our front door. In one day, we can travel around the world by plane, or across the country in a self-driving car. When we’re in pain, whether physically or mentally, we have medications to make ourselves numb.
We understand enough about the universe to create a world that is both the most advanced we’ve ever known, and also as far away from the world that made us who we are today. The socially poorest among us are able to enjoy a level of physical comfort that was unimaginable 1000 years ago, and the richest people are literally able to live as the gods were thought to have.
AND YET WE ARE SO FUCKING FRAGILE.
Modernity’s double punishment has served to make our health suffer, yet allow us to live longer at the same time. This comfort has come at a cost. Suffering can be seen through epidemic rates of obesity, heart disease, depression, T2 diabetes, reality television, social unrest, Zoom drinking parties, and an actual epidemic.
What will we learn from this?
Hopefully, we can finally learn the error of our ways. That with each successive generation we are competing with weaker and weaker versions of ourselves. Our children’s generation are the first to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. This doesn’t bode well for the future of humanity. It is said that the best horses lose when they compete with slower one, and win against better rivals. Undercompensation, combined with the absence of challenging the status quo is a sure fire way to degrade the best of the best.
To end my rant for the day, I will paraphrase the author of Antifragile, Nasim Taleb by saying that just as wind extinguishes a candle, it can also energize a fire. Likewise, the challenges we face are indicative of a crisis, we need to use the clues, not hide from them.