I live in Europe. About a decade ago, the financial system here nearly collapsed, and it was scarier than we thought it was. Though we didn’t notice at the time, there was a day when the banks told the governments they were going to turn off the cash machines.

Around that time, the word crisis changed its meaning. It used to be one event, a cataclysm that brings relief or death. Then a new meaning arose: Crisis became an ongoing state of anxiety, a sense that everything is going more and more wrong.

Over the last ten years, the crises have been accumulating, encroaching on us, eating away like an acid at the carapace of daily life that protects us from chaos.

At some point, tired and broken-hearted, the carapace had grown too thin. So I went out to prepare, and to learn from those already doing so.