How to Build a Village

How To Build a Village is a book about how to regain that physical, in-person support and kinship that our ancestors expected to have by default, but modern life has systematically drained from our lives. Through a mix of first-person narrative and reporting, the book invites the reader to undergo a paradigm shift in how they see themselves and their place in the world: not as an individual actor striving for personal success in harsh world, but as a node in a web of interdependence that stretches back to our very origins.
It's true that most people begin to think about "the village" at a certain pinch point in this social experiment we live in: when they have small children.
But had I never had a child, the lack of village was still affecting me-I just might have never realized it. After a decade of pursuing a journalism career in London, I arrived at my thirties burned out, lonely, and confused about what I was supposed to be doing if not maximizing my own personal ambition. My entire adult life thus far had been centered on taking care of my own economic prospects-extending care to other people would've seemed like a liability. As a result, my life was devoid of reciprocation, real support, and connection. My body knew it, but my brain couldn't place what the problem was. I thought the goal was to become so successful that I wouldn't need help from other people.

But we all need people. Which is why framing "the village" as strictly the terrain of parenting or raising children is part of the problem. With this book, I am intentionally trying to make the topic of caregiving-for children, yes, but also for elders, our neighbors, single people, and non-human living things-urgent and applicable for everyone.