Letters to the Sovereign
Direct address. Practical wisdom for the person building a sovereign life.
On What We Owe
There is a version of sovereignty that ends in a fortress. One person, well-supplied, well-armed, well-prepared, behind a gate they built themselves.
On Uncertainty
We want to know what is coming. This is not a flaw; it is a feature of being the kind of animal that plans, that stores grain and builds shelters and
On Starting
I have been writing about sovereignty for long enough now to notice a pattern. The people who read the most about it are often the people who do the l
On Simplicity
"Our life is frittered away by detail," Thoreau wrote from his cabin at Walden Pond. "Simplify, simplify." He wrote those words in 1854, when the deta
On Patience
There is a particular kind of impatience that afflicts people who have just discovered what they want to build. The vision arrives fully formed — the
On Neighbors
I live near people I have never spoken to. You probably do too. We share walls, fences, streets, water systems, and power grids with people whose name
On Institutions We Loved
I remember the moment I stopped trusting the university. Not the moment I became skeptical — that had been building for years, in the usual way, throu
On Fear and Preparation
I keep two weeks of food in my pantry, a month of expenses in cash, and six months of expenses in a savings account I do not touch. I have a water fil
On Enough
There is a moment in the sovereign project — and I do not know exactly when it arrives, because it arrives differently for everyone — when the buildin
On the Dignity of Doing It Yourself
The first time I fixed something in my home without calling anyone, the thing I fixed was trivial — a running toilet. The repair took twenty minutes a