A black swan event is an unexpected outlier event, difficult to predict because it is beyond the usual.
But how do you prepare for such an event? The whole point is that you don’t know when it will take place, or what exactly will happen. It could be a financial collapse, a civil war, or an earthquake. The butcher would be bankers, the government,
or mother nature.
The answer is to become antifragile."
Fragile people will be the turkey on the Thanksgiving table. These are the people whose only retirement plan is Social Security, who trade their rights for government security, or who build their homes in a flood zone.
And what’s the opposite of fragile?
Most people say robust, or unbreakable. But this isn’t quite right. Something fragile suffers from chaos. Something robust is unaffected by a bumpy ride.
But something antifragile
benefits from turmoil.
Perhaps one method of becoming antifragile is to be diverse. Diversifying things like investments, skills, even diet and exercise at least makes you robust and could make you antifragile.
One hobby of mine is foraging for wild edible and medicinal plants. I’m also into reading up on food as medicine, and which compounds in herbs show promise in treating particular ailments.
Currently, all this can be found online. It’s just a fun hobby, an extra activity during my frequent hikes in the woods.
But if a certain type of black swan event wreaks havoc on our society,
which has never been more stable…