Antifragility

In which we try to grow in the face of adversity

Post-traumatic growth

The idea of antifragility was launched into public consciousness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2012 book Antifragile. The subtitle says it all: Things that gain from disorder. What better way to explain it than let Taleb do it himself:

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.

This concept has since been explored in many fields of science. Economics, molecular biology, physics, you name it.

What about our human selves? Let’s get a bit anthropocentric; we’re only human after all. In a physical way, think of muscles. They grow stronger when subjected to stress from exercise. If they function well, they’re not just resilient (aka they can bear the pressure of training - up to a point), but antifragile (they actually grow in response to that pressure).

Psychologically, we can link antifragility to post-traumatic growth. Some people who go through major trauma somehow come out stronger. (Of course, this is never merely an individual responsibility; support systems, physical health, and so on all contribute to this.)

But I don’t think we require big trauma for post-traumatic growth. In my more cynical moments (shocker, I know), daily life can feel like a sequence of tiny traumas. Death by a thousand cuts.

French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said it like this in his 1944 play Huis Clos (translated as No Exit) about - no spoilers - three people trapped in a mysterious room:

Hell is the others.

(For the francophones: L’enfer c’est les autres.)

He didn’t mean that other people are evil or even that they want to make your life harder than it needs to be. What he wanted to say is that we can’t help but judge ourselves through the judgment of others. We can’t help but compare ourselves to, feel better or worse than, aspire to be like, and so on, the ‘other’. Being a social species is a blessing in many ways; it can also be a curse.

Is there a way then, to pursue personal antifragility in the face of daily life’s relentless onslaught of micro-traumas?

Metastability

Our journey begins with sports psychology. This paper, for example, looks at antifragility in sports. Or, how do some athletes or teams perform their best when the odds are stacked against them?

The key, the authors propose, is metastability. Again, this is a concept with many guises in many fields. In their words:

Metastable dynamics are the result of the system remaining poised on the edge of criticality.

*enter translation mode*

Roughly, metastability means a situation where you have multiple ‘stable states’. In the sports psychology context, this is a situation in which an athlete can shift between states (attack or defense, for example) rapidly and flexibly without sacrificing performance. In a team context, think of training different plays. One where you’re ahead, one where you’re behind, one where your star player is injured, etc. An athlete who, through training and talent, instinctively learns to recognize those states and acts accordingly, has built metastability.

*enter translation mode, part 2*

How do we transplant this to general, non-sporty psychology? When facing adversity, we want to crawl away in a dark, little corner until the storm passes. Understandable. I am a skilled corner-seeker, if I’m honest. But metastability suggests that focusing only on this ultimate stable state of rest, peace, sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows is not a very antifragile state of mind. It only takes a little nudge to make you crumble. In a metastable state, that same nudge might simply land you in another stable state.

A lot of productivity and self-help gurus who (often) mindlessly parrot each other are fond of saying “you have to get comfortable being a little uncomfortable”. What they may not know or tell you is that the reason this can work (under the right conditions) is metastability.

The pursuit of happiness

For the final part of our journey, we head to the paradox that rests within the pursuit of happiness. Happiness is a good thing, whether in and of itself or as a means to other ends. At the same time, people who (over)value happiness and desperately pursue it are less likely to be happy and more likely to experience depression.

Let’s tie all the above together. By focusing on the single, stable state of ideal happiness, you’re not being metastable. And because you’re likely to have an unrealistic expectation of what true happiness feels/looks like, you won’t get to that single unique state. Oh, our fragile souls. The paradox, then, can be resolved by pursuing happiness indirectly, breaking it down into its elements. Metastability. This, in turn, gives us more and different ‘states’ where we can feel realistically happy, which can help us face - and maybe even thrive in the face of - adversity, both the serious and the smaller daily kind.

How do we embark on this indirect pursuit of many small ‘happinesses’? I am very much still figuring that out for myself, but here are some ideas:

• Instead of trying to avoid or suppress painful emotions, try to understand and accept them as a normal part of life. (In a more explicit form this is known as affect labeling, which can help with emotional regulation and - anecdotally - depression.)

• Instead of trying to directly achieve happiness as a goal in itself, focus on the experiences that have happiness as a byproduct and enjoy the process of pursuing those. Stop pursuing happiness and let it come to you.

• Instead of tying your self-worth and well-being to a large, far-away goal, appreciate the small stuff. Celebrate intermittent victories and dance on the stepping stones on the way to whatever goals you set for yourself.

• Instead of forcing yourself (sometimes you’ll still have to, such is life) learn to find flow states. That is, challenge yourself just enough to find those fleeting moments where your mind and body have no choice but to ‘make everything click’. (Flow is an interesting phenomenon; I might do an entire post on it after doing some more reading.)

Tips for becoming more psychologically antifragile are, of course, always welcome in the comments.

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