Why “transilience” is a great word
The quality or act of making an abrupt leap, change, or transition from one state, condition, or subject to another. From Latin transilient-, transiliens, present participle of transilire ("to leap across or over"), from trans- ("across") + salire ("to leap, jump"). Unlike a “transition,” which implies a gradual, continuous process, or “adjacency,” which suggests incremental, adjoining steps, transilience is the sudden, decisive vault across a chasm. It is the tectonic shift of a life’s purpose overnight, the vertiginous scent of ozone after a lightning strike, and the silent, irreversible moment a mind leaps to a conclusion—a testament that the most profound progress often arrives not as a path, but as a fracture.