Key Vocabulary: Resilience

           Resilience is the capacity of a system (or a person) to maintain its core integrity in the face of dramatically changed circumstances.  (Zolli and Healy, 2012)

           Resilience requires that there be resources available to accommodate the demands of differing contexts.  It is the ability to spring back, to rebound.

           Resilience can be an enemy of efficiency and optimization.  To the extent that one assumes ceteris paribus, then "excess" resources can be best used rather than retained in reserve.  But, like the parable of Joseph and the Pharaoh, to not retain resources so as to maintain a capacity for resilience is to run the risk of premature death.

        
           The simple perceptions on which common sense is based seem to be inadequate to generate an understanding of the trade-offs between resilience and efficiency.