What Do You Want to Know About Going Off-Grid?
Tell me in the comments, dm me on Twitter, or hmu to videochat 😊
You can support the continued publishing of Things That Should Exist by becoming a paid subscriber. You can sign up to do that here.
First, I want to say hello to the 25 or so new subscribers that joined since my last post!
I write to you from a street-side cafe in sunny, chilly NYC. Ridgewood, Queens to be exact.
Fall in NYC is a pleasant vibe but I am very excited to spend Winter in Texas. As I’ve gotten older, walking long distances in the freezing cold just to run errands or see friends doesn’t hit the same as it did in my 20’s and early 30’s.
Despite the fact that I’m still in NYC, counting down the days until I get to leave, so much has happened since the last post:
Had a talk with Ioan Mitrea, who runs a 125-acre land project in Washington State. You can read more about the project here. He’s looking for others who believe in communal living to possibly join–hit him up on Twitter if you’re interested.
I stopped drinking coffee a couple weeks ago, which has been brutal, but has helped me defeat this feeling of being fatigued and sick, which I’ve felt for the last 2-3 months.
I am single again. If you think I’m cute lmk.
Also, I’ve been packing and getting rid of stuff from my one-bedroom, rent-stabilized apartment. Hard to let that go when rent is so high in NYC, but I am ready to spend some time outside the city, and it’s easier to let it go than to have to juggle subletters.
I’ll miss NYC. Maybe I’ll come back after I spend 2-3 months at Neighborhood Zero.
I still have a month or so to enjoy the city.
It feels like it’s time.
Time to:
Leave the city
Go on an adventure
Begin my transition to a slower, gentler lifestyle (even if there’s a nomadic period of visiting different off-grid communities to find the right one).
I want to know all of your questions about homesteading and going off-grid
Yes, this newsletter is all about me and my journey to find a suitable off-grid community to live in.
However, I am writing weekly Things That Should Exist posts for you. And I am positively burning to know your questions about homesteading and off-grid :)
I am hoping to collect some responses here via the replies and Twitter, and I will do my best to research your questions and to possibly live them (if you’re familiar with the idea of “living the question”)
So please send them to me! Or leave a comment :)
Here are some of my questions, using the “12 Favorite Problems” concept as a guide for my journey to find an off-grid community, and for writing this newsletter.
This is an evolving list:
How do I find my people?
How do I know who to trust, and how do I know if a community is worth joining?
In transitioning to a slower, more self-sufficient lifestyle, how do I get out of making the same mistakes twice(or even once)?
I am sick and tired of working full-time. How do I create a lifestyle where I do little or no work for employers/clients?
How do I build my life around the idea of “living in community”?
How should we care for each other? How can we?
How do we find meaningful and worthwhile communities to join? (I wrote about how I’m going about this in “Friendly Weirdo Homesteaders”)
How can I get people to “buy-in” to creating a homestead with me? (I wrote about this in “What Is Earthseed DAO?”)
What do I do if I get sick while I’m nomad-ing, or living off-grid?
How do I connect more deeply to the people around me?
What is my purpose?
How can I bring people together based on shared affinities, to help and support each other?
This graphic seems to tie a lot of things together for me, and these above 12 questions.
Word On the Street Is…
I keep hearing things like the comment below. Reading comments like this online inspire me to keep posting here.
It seems like a lot of people want to “go off the grid so bad”. Especially younger, Zoomer-aged and Millennial-aged folks.
It’s not necessarily because they want to become a farmer and toil in the soil from sunrise to sunset, though some do express a desire to reconnect to Earth-based rhythms and practices.
No, most people want to go off the grid so bad because the material conditions of life in the United States are so bad that going off the grid is the last viable alternative.
There are many people that have accomplished going off the grid, but it seems like there are many more, that want to, and have no idea where to start.
I, myself, will admit I know very little about going off-grid.
I am an off-grid noob.
While I have spent some time at a rural retreat center, it was only 15-minutes to a pretty large town, and only about two hours from NYC.
And after the retreat center I went back to once again living in an apartment by myself.
As I mentioned in my last newsletter, Things That Should Exist is about my journey to transition to an off-grid, “self-sufficient”, and community-oriented lifestyle.
I put “self-sufficient” in quotes because no land-based community is truly self-sufficient. Living on a farm or a land project necessarily depends on the relationships you have with your neighbors, and friends in your region.
I still have a lot to learn, and I hope to connect with others who are on their own journey to go off-grid, as well as those who have successfully joined or created a land project.
What I’m Reading/Researching This Week
Doomer Optimism – A podcast about self-sufficiency, homesteading, and “the very hard problems coming down the road”. They also have a Discord, and there’s also this Twitter list of “Doomer optimists”, although who knows how long Twitter is going to last.
Anne Helen Petersen – AHP writes about culture and care in her exceptional newsletter, Culture Study. I loved her recent post, “A Shortcut to Caring for Others(and Being Cared for Yourself”). I adore her writing and plan to read more of her work and possibly do a “response post” or two here. Petersen lives on a small island with a pop. of 900, and also lives a homestead-y/small community life.
Adventure Van Life – A van-life channel run by a 25 year-old couple. I liked their recent reel breaking down the cost of living in a camper/truck combo and traveling the Western US. tl;dr: it costs them about $3,200 per month with food, gas, truck maintenance, national park passes, etc. to be nomads. I plan to buy a truck or a van next year to visit different homesteads across the country. I think I could probably do it for cheaper, and it would probably work with my current remote work, part-time income.
In the Near Future for TTSE
In the coming weeks I plan to step up my newsletter-posting here, with a goal to publish 3-4 newsletters per week, with one longer research-driven post, and 2-3 shorter blasts.
My ultimate goal is to generate an income from TTSE. I realize that, to do this, I need to ship a lot of writing and create a newsletter that is truly valuable to you, the reader.
Here’s how I’m currently trying to serve you with TTSE:
Sharing my journey on how to go from city-life to off-grid, and how I’m “finding my people”.
Curating resources to help you in your own journey to go off-grid.
Sharing concepts and ideas around sense-making, care, and community-building.
Ultimately, Things That Should Exist is about finding meaning, safety, and community in a world where those things often seem to be in short supply.
I am seeking to have conversations and create connections with others who share these values. If that’s you, hit me up.
You can support the continued publishing of Things That Should Exist by becoming a paid subscriber. You can sign up to do that here.