I used to think of resourcefulness as a kind of practical intelligence, but I’ve recently started thinking of it as a combination of an energy state, an attitude, and an unexamined philosophy. A lived and embodied, but rarely articulated, Weltenschauung. Rarely articulated because the people living and embodying it are too busy being alive to indulge in the (let’s face it) slightly acting-dead game of articulating things. It is the philosopher’s conceit that the unexamined life is not worth living. The resourceful person, by simply existing, gives the lie to that self-congratulatory belief.

So what is resourcefulness? Resourcefulness is steady, patient, problem-solving persistence. A seemingly infinite capacity for a kind of trial-and-error that non-resourceful people would find impossibly draining and exhausting.

Resourcefulness is a positive syndrome combining patience, conscientiousness, curiosity, attentiveness, and most of all energy. The adjective indefatigable comes to mind. Not only do resourceful people never run out of things to try, they seem to never run out of energy to actually try them. Again and again, often racking up dozens of failed trials before hitting upon a successful one.

When you consider that as a revealed Weltenschauung, a life-scale worldview and attitude, you could say that the resourceful person is one who has a remarkable level of faith in the idea that of course life is worth living. Unlike the philosopher who has to examine life to make it worth living, for the resourceful person, the answer is clear without any need for self-examination. The fully lived life is not worth examining.

In a sufficiently complex world, only the unreasonable people for whom all bridges are by default burned are going to get anywhere. Everyone else will always find a reason to quit, and never get to any of the weirdly worthwhile outcomes that defy philosophical cost-benefit analysis.

— Venkatesh Rao, The Resourceful Life, Ribbon Farm, 2023