Prepping Won't Solve Your Problems

You don't have to do it all. Do what you enjoy, and build collective resilience and power with others.

I originally started this newsletter because I had a dream to buy land and live on it with my friends.

Alex Wagner (26/100 newsletters) @alexdw5

If you were going to buy land with a small group of friends, how would you do it?

I still want to do that. I’m slowly working my way through writing a book called, “How to Buy Land with Your Friends (and Live Together Peacefully)”. Here’s my outline for it.

I’ve been meaning to get a presale link up on Amazon but in the meantime here are drafts I’ve completed so far.

1. Chapter One: Why Buy Land With Your Friends?

2. Chapter Two: Why Do You Want to Buy Land with Your Friends? (parts A and B)

3. Chapter Three: Gathering Your People

I used to have this desperate sense of urgency to realize this dream.

I often tend to think catastrophically, especially when I’m depressed. For the last, 5-6 years, I stressed myself out on a near-daily basis on figuring out how to buy a rural property to become self-sufficient and resilient to the rising cost of living in this country.

I hoped that maybe I could convince friends and comrades to come live there with me, at least part time.

Alex Wagner (26/100 newsletters) @alexdw5

Would you ever consider buying land with someone that’s not your spouse/partner, for the purpose of living on that land at least part-time?

My dream is that we could live together in harmony and autonomy. Some folks could live their part-time, some full-time.

For those that wanted to garden and farm, they could do that. For those that wanted to build their own house, great! For those that wanted to take time to be lazy and practice other non-monetizable pursuits like art and so on, wonderful.

People could pay what they want to live there, pending an approval/joining process from the core folks involved.

I was emboldened by discovering that places like this do exist.

This is a dream that could become reality.

I just needed to find a full-time job to secure a mortgage, and then I could move up there and start the process of outreach, of extending invitations to friends, and getting to know my neighbors.

Last year, I had a well-paying, full-time remote tech job. I was starting to look at properties online and IRL.

I was ready to become a prepper, albeit, one that wanted to live communally with friends and neighbors.

However, I hated that job. A few months after I began to hate the job, I was laid off, in June of 2022.

I received a severance payment, and signed up for unemployment via New York state.

I was bummed, because it felt like taking a massive step back.

I was exhausted and disillusioned with Web3/crypto. I was disillusioned with working full-time and living in New York City.

But Then I Realized That I Was Wrong

I sat with these feelings for the rest of the year. I ended one relationship in October, and started another in November. I made plans to go down to Austin for a couple of months, to escape Winter in NYC, and to clear my head.

In that span of time, I realized a few things:

• I don’t want to work a full-time job just to be able to afford a mortgage.

• I can’t/won’t move to a rural place by myself. The prospect of doing so makes me sad, feels catastrophically lonely.

• If I have to work for a living(and I do), I would much rather work less, and work on things that feel meaningful, than take a full-time job just because it pays well and would allow me to buy a property somewhere.

I feel like I’m talking about myself a lot here, and boring myself, and possibly you too–but bear with me for just a little bit longer.

I’ve Always Wanted to Be in a Tribe

My own family of origin is dysfunctional.

What I mean by this, is that it’s impossible to have open and honest conversations in my family origin, and the connection between myself and others in my family origin has deteriorated to where we don’t really talk much anymore.

It’s taken me a while to accept this, but I’ve found peace with it.

When I was a kid, we went to big family gatherings with 20-30+ people for most major holidays. The older I got, the less this happened.

I’ve watched the extended families on both of my parents’ sides break down and disintegrate.

I tell you this because I think it’s why I dream of living on some land with my friends. (thanks to desirepaths for pointing this out).

desirepaths @desirepaths_

@alexdw5 and before you start, do some inner work to try to truly understand where this dream comes from. In my experience, many people who are interested in these ideas, intentional communities, etc, are seeking alternative or new notions of home, village, family

What’s funny is that I’ve been looking for surrogate families to join for most of my adult life, and I’ve found them, if only for short periods or 1-2 years at a time.

Some examples:

• Two bands I’ve been in

• Working in the film and video industry

• Living at a retreat center in Upstate, NY, for a year

• Being a part of activist spaces in Austin and NYC

• Skateboarding

And various other communities.

Each of these have kind of run their course. Like, when my engagement with these communities/spaces began, I always had the feeling, “Maybe this is it, maybe this is the place where I’ll feel at home.”

I’m still friends with people that I’ve made music with, and skateboard with. I still keep in touch with some of the folks I’ve met through activist spaces, and the retreat center.

It’s been tough. Both continually joining new communities, and leaving them, or watching them fall apart–like the retreat center I was evicted from then closed down a couple years after.

I’m starting to suspect I’m somewhere on the spectrum. Social difficulty, difficulty making eye contact, noise sensitivity, being fixated on a certain topic and memorizing facts about it, and anxiety are all hallmarks of being on the spectrum that I identify with.

I learned today that people with autism are four times more likely to experience depression than neurotypical folks.

I plan to get tested in a clinical setting for being on the spectrum, both out of curiosity, and to maybe get some sort of treatment? I feel like these tendencies have been part of this journey of wanting to find belonging and mostly failing, wrt employment, friend groups, communities, etc.

I’m curious about that problem: how do you build community when being social, and being in social spaces makes you really uncomfortable? I plan to write a post about it soon.

What are your thoughts?

Prepping Is the Wrong Solution–Figure Out What You Enjoy and Do That

You could say I’m “being a doomer” by talking about what I see as the inevitable and unevenly-distributed societal collapses of the near-future.

I’m not the only one, but I’m also not trying to convince you.

Maybe you’ve seen the material conditions of your life decrease, too.

Maybe you’ve felt the increasing alienation and isolation that living in America begets, has become in the last decade.

And even the preppers are starting to doubt that hoarding supplies and holing up in a rural fortress is the way to go.

Okay maybe, I am trying to persuade. But what to do, if not go full-prepper and stash copious amounts of guns, cash, and food and water?

I came across this tweet by Poor Proles Almanac recently, and this sums up where I’m at.

While I still want to buy land with my friends, or even just a house in the country, I think my work is building community with the people that are around me, and participating in systems for collective care.

I’m including this podcast in which Andy C. from Poor Proles speaks with The Response podcast. I haven’t listened to it yet, but have been listening to the Poor Proles podcast for a while, and I trust that this episode will be interesting, as it’s on the topics discussed in this post, and is philosophically, even politically(gasp!)-aligned.

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