A couple weeks ago we wrote about the different terms we use to talk about this movement we’re creating. If you missed it, you can check it out here. This week, we thought we’d take a closer look at the next buzz word “resilience” and coin a new catchphrase. You can thank us later.
After everyone comes to understand that it’s going to be nearly impossible to take our current lifestyles and make them sustainable, we’re going to focus on making the communities that we live in resilient. A resilient community is one that can survive on its own in the face of extreme challenges. What would happen to your community if the price of oil spiked sharply and the constant caravan of trucks bringing food in suddenly stopped? Where would you get food after the three-day supply in the grocery store ran out? What if an earthquake severed the ancient pipe system bringing fresh water to San Francisco from Hetch Hetchy? Maybe at least then people would stop defecating in fresh water.
Who's got the local adult diaper source?
A resilient community doesn’t have to ask itself these questions because it can provide everything it needs on its own. This is the main focus of the Transition movement and its leader Rob Hopkins, and it’s a noble and achievable goal when you’re talking about a community in rural England. Unfortunately, this goal of resilience is a little bit more difficult to imagine let alone achieve when your scope is a major US city or even a neighborhood like ours is. The fact of the matter is true resilience might be outside of our grasp, and the profound departure from our current way of being that it would require makes it very difficult for us to understand how to even begin to move towards it. Growing a garden, supporting our peri-urban farms, getting our businesses on the right path, setting up a water cistern and learning to sew are all great steps to take, but they won’t solve the problem. Are we urban dwellers doomed to fight a battle we simply can’t win? I don’t think so. Rather, I think we have a leading place in the resilience movement, despite the fact that we will almost certainly fail to make our communities functionally resilient in the near term.
You see, a fully-formed resilient community does feature true foodsheds and watersheds, diverse local energy sources, and a complete array of skills and services amongst the populace. But these things are symptoms of the essence of the resilient community. The actual and original source of a resilient community is the mindset of the individual people who make up that community. Yes, resilience is locally providing for all our needs. But first, resilience is an attitude. And even though we at the Wigg Party will struggle for decades to reach our goal of a functionally resilient community, we can seize the essence of resilience this instant. If we choose to do so, our contribution to the movement will stand with anyone’s.
So what exactly do I mean by “resilience is an attitude?” The immediate answer is that individuals who have resilient attitudes are willing and able to persevere through all challenges and extenuating circumstances. Does the farmer go to her room and curl up in a ball when she discovers a pest infestation? No. She gets out there and finds a solution to the problem because people depend on her food to live. Do you think it’s going to be easy or convenient to take the way our communities currently function and craft something sensible and sustainable? To even sincerely undertake such an effort borders on insanity. To stand in the face of such a challenge, we must be above all resilient. In our lives, it means waking up early Saturday morning to go to Permaculture class or taking the time to look at labels and ask questions when we’re making choices about our food. It is a constant commitment to forging a new way forward, a way we must discover and birth ourselves. We are opposed by naysayers, powerful corporate interests, and, worst of all, our own lifelong habits. It will not be easy, but if we are resilient in mind there is nothing we cannot create.
Which brings me to the other meaning of “resilience is an attitude.” If we begin to find a little success in our efforts – if we learn the twelve principles of Permaculture and apply them to our own beautiful backyard garden that provides all of our produce needs, or if we succeed in creating a “sustainable business practices” domino effect in our neighborhood – then we will come to know the more esoteric meaning of our slogan. For as we begin to move our own communities towards resilience and the new way of being, we will come to recognize that the work we are doing is historic in nature. Actually, historic doesn’t even cut it – our work is sacred. No greater challenge has ever been presented to the human race. If we succeed, our names will be passed down for generations. The great human experiment will continue insofar as our actions allow it. When we recognize that we are the beings birthed through 13.7 billion years of evolution, chosen to exist at this moment, we will be filled with such feelings of overwhelming pride and empowerment that the constant daily challenges of our mission will seem mere minor hurdles. When we see ourselves for who we truly are – sacred beings willing the future existence of our progeny – we will no longer walk around in a constant state of fear and trembling. Rather, we will walk with our heads high and our actions sure and steady, firmly rooted in our faith in our world and our selves. This is the second meaning of “resilience is an attitude.”
So, sure, my neighborhood is not going to be functionally resilient any time soon. The Bay Area probably won’t be resilient for a decade, maybe more. But we have a major role to play right now. One aspect of that role is to take the first steps towards a functionally resilient community – to begin conversations, to be the first to fill the streets, to bring awareness to the suicidal path we are on and the new way forward – and to do it all with a near superhuman perseverance. But the other, more important, aspect is to come to grips with the immense power and responsibility we have been handed, to step into our role as sacred beings, and to broadcast this attitude and inspire the rest of the world. We are the creators of the new tablets. The world is waiting and watching. Let’s show them what we’ve got.
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