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The sipping of Antifragile by Nassim Taleb is percolating through my brain. I can't stop thinking about the fragility and antifragility of everything as I go about my day, each day.

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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\n\nThe Chair, from The Raven by Édouard Manet

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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1. What is fragility?

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Most of us intuitively understand fragility. Nassim Taleb puts it as

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...fragility was simply vulnerability to the volatality of things that affect it

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That is,

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Here is how I understand it: My self-worth(Thing 1) depends on the feedback-response-opinion-mood(Thing 2) from my friend-peer-boss-partner-child--network...

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When the feedback is positive, I feel really good about myself. When the feedback is meh, my feelings about myself don't really change. And when the feedback is negative, I feel that I am a pile of dung.

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Here, my self-worth is fragile to feedback.

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And, Nassim says

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fragile is what is hurt a lot more by extreme events than by a succession of intermediate ones

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A really scathing put-down has me immobile in self-pity for a long time, and affects everything else - causing a downward spiral - much much more than a bunch of slightly insulting remarks.

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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2. What is Antifragile?

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Fragility and it's opposite Antifragility lie on a spectrum - the middle point being Resilience.

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When I am Resilient, the feedback from the society does not make a difference either way. I take the positive feedback, and the negative feedback, let them wash over me and let them go.

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And when I am Antifragile, the volatility acutally helps me, makes me better, gives me super powers.

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So in the case of self-worth and feedback, what may Antifragile look like?

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I see the range of feedback I get, the glowing positive ones and the crush-my-soul negative ones and everything in between. I can try to figure out the pattern in the feedback. Might this feedback be valid? Is everyone giving me the same feedback? If so, I can consider making a change to address that feedback.

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If there is no pattern, then I can think about why this particular feedback comes from this person/type of person? Are there any other dynamics, other variables which are affecting this? (Like the person was hungry when they said this? Or associates from a certain part of life feel this way?) I can then decide to pay attention to it or not.

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In other words, when the feedback ranges from positive to negative, my self-worth always improves - either because of the positive nature of the feedback or because I know that I am improving and will be better because of this negative feedback.

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That's being Antifragile.

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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\n\nTen Thousand Acres of Lotus by Li Huasheng

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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3. How do you detect fragility?

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One of my favorite parts! Nassim plots how the fragile and antifragile react differently to volatility.

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You know which one you want.

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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4. How to create antifragility?

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So how to become antifragile? This also, we all seem to know intuitively - give yourself more options. Optionality might also be familiar to you as redundancies, buffers, fail-safes, spaces, pauses, diversification... depending on the field you look at.

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You look at the above analogy of self-worth -- when being antifragile, what you are doing is creating multiple options, multiple ways of reacting on receiving feedback.

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In the realm of productivity, there is the importance of pause in productivity, saying 'Hell Yeah!' or 'No', and nothing in between

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In the economic world, you see the impact of the COVID-19 on the super-efficient supply-chains of the world - making the economy fragile.Here's the article from marketplace

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You see this in the criticism of the nuclear family and the rise of alloparenting - adding optionality in caregivers (in form of the extended family)

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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\n\nBird, from the book of poems “Milestones of the Season” by Onchi Koshiro

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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5. What would antifragility look like?

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I have been constantly thinking about all the ways things are fragile/anti-fragile.

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Some things that are antifragile:

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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6. Woman plays violin while undergoing brain surgery

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> This is the most metal shit ever: the doctors removing violinist Dagmar Turner’s brain tumor woke her up during the procedure to play the violin to make sure that she didn’t lose any parts of her brain vital to her playing.
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From kottke.org

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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\n\nBirds flying over Forest by Azechi Umetaro

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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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7.

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Here's a nerdy one for the devs.

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I use the KonMari method for code organisation

✨ Does this code spark joy? ✨

YES -> /src

NO -> /util

— Kadi Kraman (@kadikraman) February 10, 2020
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༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

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Art from The Art Institute of Chicago

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ASCII divider art from here

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The font used here is Gimlet XRay - January's delivery from the David Jonathan Ross' Font of the Month Club.

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