If the World Is Brittle, We Must Stay Connected
In this episode of Walk the Walk, Scott McLarty, Head of School at Providence High School, discusses intentional presence.
There’s a quiet danger in brittle worlds: they look strong right up until they shatter.
Brittleness isn’t the same as fragility. Fragile things bend, crack, and show wear. “A fragile thing is delicate, and can break apart easily. A brittle thing seems solid and strong, but when it hits a certain level of stress it shatters.” What makes our moment especially challenging is not just that systems feel strained, but that people do too. Many contemporary leaders recognize this brittleness not as a catchphrase, but as a real phenomenon that demands attention, not just in systems and strategy, but in the people who lead those systems.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb offers a helpful distinction here. In his book, Antifragility: Things That Gain From Disorder, he explains that fragile things break under stress, robust things merely endure it, but antifragile things actually grow stronger because of stress and disruption. Antifragility is strength built from challenge.
According to Bob Johansen, Jeremy Kirshbaum, and Gabe Cervantes in their 2025 book, Leaders Make the Future: 10 New Skills to Humanize Leadership with Generative AI, 3rd Edition, “Brittle systems do not fail gracefully. Brittle systems don’t just break when they fail – they shatter… Brittleness is illusory strength.”
And this matters deeply for how we live and work together.
When the world is brittle, disconnection accelerates. We retreat into our corners. We protect instead of relate. We harden where we should soften. And in the process, we lose the very thing that helps us endure strain: one another.
If the world is brittle, then as people of Providence, we must stay connected.
Connection is not a luxury. It’s a form of resilience, of antifragility. Research across psychology, medicine, and education is remarkably consistent: people who feel connected cope better with stress, recover more quickly from adversity, and experience greater meaning and hope. Isolation weakens us. Relationship strengthens us.
Taleb reminds us that antifragile systems don’t eliminate stress; they rely on healthy relationships and feedback to adapt. Human communities are no different. Pressure will come. What determines whether we fracture or grow is whether we remain connected when it does.
But staying connected is harder than it sounds, especially in brittle times. Brittleness invites withdrawal. It whispers, “Protect yourself. Pull back. Don’t risk it.” And sometimes boundaries are necessary. Rest matters. But withdrawal, when it becomes our default, costs us dearly.
Connection doesn’t mean constant togetherness. It means intentional presence. It means choosing relationship even when it’s inconvenient, imperfect, or uncomfortable.
At Providence, connection is woven into our DNA. The Sisters of Providence understood that healing love flows through relationship. Their ministry wasn’t abstract. It was personal. They showed up. They stayed close. They built communities where people could belong, especially those who had been pushed to the margins.
Long before economists and systems theorists gave us the language of antifragility, the Sisters lived it. They knew that communities rooted in compassion, dignity, justice, excellence, and integrity don’t just survive hardship, they are strengthened by it.
So what does staying connected look like in a brittle world?
Four Practices for Staying Connected
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Choose presence over performance.
Connection doesn’t require impressive words or perfect solutions. It requires showing up. Put the phone down. Look someone in the eye. Be fully there. -
Strengthen weak ties.
We naturally lean on our closest relationships, and that’s good. But research shows that so-called “weak ties” (neighbors, colleagues, acquaintances) are powerful sources of resilience and belonging. Small connections make systems more antifragile. -
Repair quickly and gently.
Brittle systems fail when small fractures go unaddressed. The same is true in relationships. When things go sideways, name it, apologize when needed, and repair early. Perfection isn’t required. Humility is. -
Create spaces where people feel safe to be human.
Connection grows where people don’t have to pretend. Laughter, vulnerability, disagreement, and grace all belong. Psychological safety isn’t a buzzword, it’s the soil where community takes root.
We cannot control the pressure points of our time. But we can choose how we respond to them. We can harden and put up our armor, or we can hold fast to one another believing that connected people endure, and grow, together.
Thank you for walking the walk with me. See you next time.
—Scott McLarty