by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds
Our control is what’s irreplaceable. Wealth, status and the illusory security of dependency chains cannot replace control.
What’s our personal strategy for navigating tumultuous times? I’ve long advocated controlling as much as you can. We don’t control the availability of fuel and food from far away, or the government’s policies. But that doesn’t mean we’re powerless to affect our destiny.
From the point of view of systems, the way to understand control is to examine each chain of dependency in our lives: how many links are there between you and the source of what you need?
The greater the number of links, the greater the vulnerability of the chain, as once one link is broken, the entire chain fails.