While global complexity collapses, local complexity is resilient.

I’ve recently been thinking about how society gets more and more complex in order to solve its problems, until the complexity collapses upon itself. My friend Mary Anne recommended the book “I Eat the Stars” by Sarah Wilson, about complex systems collapse.

Given the complexity of our farm, with at least thirty five different systems, I’ve wondered how the complexity that sinks civilisations relates to the complexity at the micro-level of our farm. We have more than a hundred and forty connections between systems, between greywater and black soldier fly, seed saving, people who visit.

I’ve written before about complex problems versus complicated ones, where complicated problems are solvable and complex problems only lived. What I realised recently was that there are at least two kinds of complexity.

The complexity of a machine is optimised, centralised, and built around efficiency. Our global food system is a really good example of this, relying on cheap fossil fuels and fertiliser from Russia. It’s super complex, and very brittle. For example, a few years ago I remember collectively selling tons of blueberries because a port strike meant the blueberries destined for the export market had no way to leave. When one thread gets pulled, the whole fabric starts to fall apart. I think that’s the type of complexity that Sarah Wilson describes in I Eat the Stars. Complexity that collapses in on itself.

Complexity that can be lived

On the other hand, the complexity of an ecosystem is just as intricate, or even more so, but it’s decentralised, diverse, has lots of redundancies, and it’s not designed for efficiency. If one thread gets pulled, there are many others that hold. Rather than being optimised, a complex system is buffered. The complexity of nature has persisted and been resilient for much longer than humans.

So in this case the question is less about how much complexity and more about what kind.

Complex systems that offer immediate feedback

Our kind of complexity is resilient, I think, because there’s immediate, human-scale, feedback. We can see when a plant is looking dry or diseased, and do something immediately. A global supply chain can’t really be lived because it’s just too vast and distant. It has to be managed, by spreadsheets and emails. Managed complexity masks fragility, whereas lived complexity keeps mending itself.

Externalised costs versus planning for the long haul.

Whereas complex global systems are externalising and avoiding the environment costs of their approach, a small farm builds from the bottom up. Each season of layered complexity is a season of more resilience and rootedness. Our soil improves, more neighbours get connected to us, more waste gets integrated into our growth.

We may not be able to save civilisation, but we can all nurture lived complexity.

We can nurture a resilient type of complexity by zooming in and growing one seed, seedling, tree, having one conversation with a neighbour, or spending an hour prepping cuttings.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on resilience, where you feel your systems are strong and robust, and where you see fragility. Sometimes just writing out some thoughts helps to make your next step clearer, and I love collating the experiences of different people to see patterns!

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