"What is Resilience?" makes me think about my grandparents on my mom's side. They lived in a small village on the Italian border in the Southern French Alps. They grew a bountiful garden, made fruits and vegetable preserves, raised chicken for eggs, cooked all their meals, repaired most of everything, and bought very little. They never had a car. They took the train when they wanted to travel and rarely traveled out of France. They knew their neighbors well. They gave each other goods (eggs, vegetables, fruits, jam, and preserves). My Grandpa went to the village on foot every day, a 10-minute walk down and back up.
He often said, "I am a happy man." One of the moments he liked the most was when he woke up and walked around in his garden.
He was an excellent pastry chef. People from the whole valley were ordering wedding cakes at the modest village's bakery. He was happy to make people happy.
My grandparents lived a simple life close to nature in a place they loved. Their way of living is adapted to what we need to do to stop the madness created by the rich countries (infinite growth on a finite planet). We need to slow down, consume less of everything and use way less energy if we want to keep a livable planet. Until recently, I did not realize that my grandparents' way of living was the way to go.
"Regardless of what we as a society do at this point, the remainder of this century will bring severe shocks from climate change, resource depletion, and population pressure. The result will be economic, social, and political instability. Nevertheless, what we do now matters a great deal: we can either intensify those shocks by continuing the individual and collective behaviors that have generated them, or we can change our behavior."
— Richard Heinberg, Think Resilience Course