“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better”. (Taleb 2014, 3)

I am excited to live a religious life that thrives in partnerships generated by mutuality and concern for the world . . . as I engaged in conversations with other sisters . . . I sensed a unity in our desire to preach through our service. I also experience this unity when we gather as sisters in giving Voice. a grassroots organization for women religious under fifty, giving Voice offers a space for younger sisters to encounter each other in unity of spirit and heart. when we gather in large or small groups formally and informally, we find a common desire to offer ourselves as Jesus’ followers committed to building the kingdom of God. (Mousseau & Kohles 2018, 69)

for more than half a million years, our recent hominid ancestors lived nomadic lives of extreme duress on the plains of East Africa, but the advent of agriculture changed that about 10,000 years ago. That is only 400 generations—not enough to adapt, genetically, to the changes in diet and society that ensued. Privately worked land and the accumulation of capital made humans less oriented toward group welfare, and the Industrial Revolution pushed society further in that direction. (Junger 2015, 17)

A wing is an odd thing, strangely behaved, hard to understand, tricky to handle. In many important respects, a wing’s behavior is exactly contrary to common sense. On wings it is safe to be high, dangerous to be low; safe to go fast, dangerous to go slow. generally speaking, if you want the airplane to go up, you point its nose up; but point its nose up a little too much, and you go down in a stall or a spin. In landing an airplane, to make it sink down on the runway and stay down, you move the controls much as for an extreme upward zoom. (Langewiesche 1944, 3)

At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done—then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. (Hodges 1909, 353)

[Building] community is like simultaneously trying to start a new business and begin a marriage—and is every bit as serious as doing either. It requires many of the same planning and financial skills as launching a successful business enterprise, and the same capacities for rust, good will, and honest, kind interpersonal communication as marrying your sweetheart. (Leafe-Christian 2003, 8)