It was warm Friday morning, and the packed snow on the roads was slippery. I fell down on my morning run (no biggie--I fall down a lot and am very good at doing it without injury).
On the way home, I thought of a good definition of reliability vs. resilience, which we rural power people talk about quite a bit: Reliability means you have running shoes with good traction so you are less likely to fall down. Resilience means you can get back up with minimal injury when you do inevitably fall down sometimes!
Resilience is thus more holistic--it's being in good overall shape, being flexible, and being experienced in how to fall and how to land!
The higher reliability you have, the more you lose resilience... you forget how to fall safely, and you also forget that it's okay to fall down. You panic and do all kinds of acrobatics to avoid falling down, when in reality, it's much better to let yourself gently fall down, rather than pull a muscle doing the crazy acrobatics.
This is a very good analog to rural power systems! Delivered electrical power nowadays is so reliable, and the more reliable it gets, the fewer people have backup plans to get through power outages. It used to be common wisdom to keep battery-powered flashlights, candles, and a camp stove handy. Or even a generator! Now, that is becoming less common. :(
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