The house is finally quiet. Just the soft breathing of the kids sleeping down the hall, and the two of us, sitting here together. The noise of the day feels a world away. I was reading an article earlier about how much we all depend on a handful of giant tech companies, and it made me think of that day. You remember the one—when the internet just… stopped. When nothing worked. At the time, it just felt like a massive, frustrating inconvenience. But watching you tonight, I realize there was something else in our home during that chaos, something I didn’t fully appreciate then. A quiet strength. Your strength.
When We Built Our Whole World on a Single Bridge
We live in such a convenient world, don’t we? One app to message, to pay, to order a ride, to get our groceries. It’s like a single, super-fast bridge into town that everyone uses. But what happens when that bridge suddenly collapses?
Experts have a term for it: putting all our trust in one system makes us fragile—like eggs in a single basket. But it wasn’t just a problem for the wider world; it was right here in our home. I’ll admit, when my usual tools didn’t work—you know that feeling when your phone dies right when you need maps? Multiply that by ten—that was us that day. I felt a wave of panic; I’d never really considered a plan B. But you… you were different. In the middle of all that frustration, you seemed so calm.
You Always Knew About the Other Paths
Then I noticed something beautiful. While I fumbled with routers, you—calm as morning coffee—already had the recipe box open. Tucked in the back, behind cards for lasagna and apple crumble, were index cards with phone numbers scribbled on them—neighbors, the kids’ school, the local pizza place.
You knew exactly where to find the backup paths hidden beside the main road.
And when the kids were getting antsy because their shows wouldn’t stream, you didn’t hesitate. You just smiled and pulled that dusty box of board games from the top of the closet. This is what you’ve been teaching the kids all along, isn’t it? ‘If this app isn’t working, let’s try reading the book. If we can’t look it up online, let’s try to figure it out together.’
How Small Preparations Build an Unshakeable Home
That article I read talked about big solutions for building societal resilience—diversifying systems, creating data backups, all these large-scale strategies. It all sounded so complex. But thinking of you, I see how those big ideas are built from small, everyday actions right here.
It’s your patience when teaching the kids screen-free skills—how to read a map on a hike or cook by following a recipe card instead of a video. All those little things are our own resilient home tech strategies. Because of you, we’ll never truly be lost.
Source: Seven CEOs in Trump’s AI dinner shape America’s tech destiny, LSE Business Review, 2025-09-14 23:01:00