Commentary
We’ve lost much of our ability to live in community. Culturally, the goal has become the “I”—the individual. Get a house with a white picket fence, maybe a pool, focus on my family, my stuff.
Personal responsibility is important; I don’t deny that. But for most of human history, we lived tribally, in extended families, in community. The nuclear family was the foundation, yes—but it was the foundation of a greater community.
Most of my life, I’ve lived in some form of intentional community. My parents have too—in Idaho and in Hawaii. But let me be honest: in today’s world, we’re not very good at it.
You see it online all the time—people dreaming: “Let’s buy land with ten of our best friends and grow food together.” It sounds like heaven, and some days here on Sovereignty Ranch I can say, yes, 100 percent it’s possible.
Other days, as the matriarch managing thousands of dollars in repairs that could have been hundreds if equipment had been treated with care, I feel the weight of what’s called the “tragedy of the commons.” People often arrive with a dream of community life—fresh food, nature, simplicity—and very quickly, the reality of money, responsibility, and ego creeps back in.
A long time ago, when people lived communally, there were no mortgages, no car payments, no insurance, no cell phone bills. A roof, steady food, shared childcare, and warmth around a fire were enough. Today, we’re trying to build community while also feeding the matrix—paying the system’s endless bills. The individual’s financial needs constantly clash with the community’s needs.
I want to be clear: when I talk about community, I am not talking about socialism or the government taking care of us. That’s the opposite of what I mean. I’m talking about multi-generational living, friends, family, loved ones, and people with shared values choosing to live in community—sharing resources in order to lessen the burden on the individual.
And I also want to be clear that what I am speaking of is distinctly different from the idea of “15-minute cities.” Those are about corralling people into a managed environment where all needs are supposedly met, but only by surrendering freedom and being cut off from nature. That’s not community—that’s control.
What I’m talking about is the opposite: living with nature, doing the work to provide what you need right where you are.
In fact, I already live in a kind of 15-minute city—but ours runs on sunlight, water, and sweat. At Sovereignty Ranch we almost never need to leave. We have a restaurant, greenhouses, livestock, my home, a brewery under construction, a conference center, tiny houses, my podcast studio, offices, and our farm store. Everything is here—but it’s here because of the hard work of the people who live on this land.
It’s not sterile, it’s not imposed from above, and it’s not a false sense of security. It’s messy, alive, and beautiful—if we can put our egos aside long enough to really engage in it.
And let me also say this, as someone who studies resiliency: self-sufficiency is a lie. Resilient community is the only answer. Those of us who think we can live without community must remember that we depend on one every single day—we just pay its members. You pay someone to bring you your food, to cook your food, to grow your food, to fix your pipes. That’s a community too. It’s just not one you’ve built equity in. It’s one you rent by the hour.
I don’t have a neat answer. We’ve had people leave our community because they wanted to start a family in a bigger space than a bus conversion. That makes sense. We’ve had people leave because they needed more money. That makes sense too. Others come excited and leave within a day when they realize living in community is harder than the dream. And some move back after leaving, realizing that a roof, high-quality food, well water, sunlight, and people who love you can matter more than Zoom calls and cubicles—even if Zoom calls and cubicles pay better than farm work.
But let me be clear: even in community, one must carry the mindset of personal responsibility and ownership—or it will not work. That’s the trick. How do we treat the whole as if it were ourselves?
Still, for communities to thrive, we must rediscover and honor traditional skills. We are raising children who can swipe a phone but not mend a dress, start a garden, fix a tractor, or butcher an animal. If we don’t teach these basics, what exactly are we teaching them? Get a car, a job, a house, stare at blue light all day?
When I fly into Los Angeles or San Antonio, I see rows and rows of little houses—each with their own backyard, their own pool, their own maintenance bills. How many days do those pools even get used? How many people share in their upkeep? Our “individual ownership” lifestyle is resource-intensive and often lonely.
We all struggle with wanting to do something important in the world—to be seen, to be loved, to make enough money. But in the few moments each day when I can remember that I am enough, that I am blessed, I see what truly matters.
It’s not how many books I sell, how many people come to the conference, how many articles I publish, how many vegetables we move, or how many restaurant customers we serve. It’s whether my children and husband feel seen. Whether my community knows I appreciate them. Whether I’ve checked in on my parents.
I still believe—deeply—that extended family living, tribal living, community living is the way humans are meant to live. But it is at odds with the system we are in, a system built not just to elevate the ego and the “I,” but to feed our addiction to comfort and to always having things our way. When you live alone, you don’t have to compromise—and there’s comfort in that. But when you live in community, compromise is the cost of belonging.
So how do we build real community in a society that glorifies individualism on one side and tempts us with sterile convenience on the other? I believe we must be willing to embrace the “inconvenience” of the old ways while wisely using the tools of the future. The future has to be grounded in something greater than ourselves.
