The Resiliency of a Ghost Town
High in the rugged Sierra Nevadas of Northern California lies the ghost town of Bodie. Bodie is a town that time has all but forgotten. The majority of its population abandoned it a century ago.
In the late 1800s, Bodie was the third largest populated city in the state of California. At an elevation of 8,376 feet, nothing but tumbleweeds and grass can survive its harsh winters. Outside of the gold mine, there was nothing in Bodie that would sustain an economy, let alone life. Everything in Bodie had to be carried in, even the firewood!
Today Bodie is a State Historic Park that operates on the philosophy of “arrested decay.” The Park purposefully maintains the town and its 170 buildings by keeping them at their current state of decay. There are no plans to rebuild it, expand it, or embellish it — only to keep it frozen in time.
You might be thinking, “So what does Bodie have to do with resiliency?” After all, the town has been dead for almost 100 years now — doesn’t Bodie depict the antithesis of resiliency? Well, yes and no.
To evaluate resilience, you have to understand the economics of loss, and how it relates to the economics of change. In loss, we find discomfort; and that discomfort awakens our desire for relief. Powerful desire for relief is the primary reason that people seek change and explore options.
We’ll start to explore the options and recourses we can see, and consider how and whether they align with what we want. We will then look at what has to happen, and in what order sequentially, in order to marshal the needed resources to move us back into a state of comfort. Through that process, people will move from the place of discomfort into a new place of comfort. That’s resiliency.
Bodie represents resiliency because Bodie represents the economy of loss that ushers in change. When the goldmine shut down, it shut down the entire town of Bodie and forced change. At that elevation and with no other resources to live from, Bodie was unable to support life on its own.
When the economy of Bodie died, the residents had no other choice but to take their hopes and dreams elsewhere. Many of them left the only home and the only identity they knew in life. They had two choices: move and live, or stay and die. What makes Bodie a great study of resilience is that it was a clear, black-and-white decision.
For many of us, our natural resilience is often masked by shades of grey because we’re unable to see our situation for what it truly is. Another common problem is that we grow used to our discomfort over time. When that happens, we fail to fully explore our options, let alone execute a workable plan to bring about the change we so long for. We can also, at times, become lost in misplaced loyalties that keep us tied to the past and unable to move forward. We can even keep living in a place of physical discomfort, fully aware of its effects, having the resources to change, and yet held by the fear of what others will feel or think, or some other self-punishing logic. Survival is not a privilege: it’s our God-given right. Yet we are often not able to own it as such.
If you are dealing with a life transition and are in need of help, please contact me today.
-Joel Walton