3 Comments
Apr 28, 2021Liked by Michael David Cobb Bowen

My fellow stoic: you are getting into a trap. Self-sufficiency in a modern society it impossible. The book titled "The Pencil" illuminates this problem in the vast network of skills and resources required to make a pencil. You cannot learn all the skills to be self-sufficient and keep your modern society. Even the Amish are not so self sufficient with their 19th century way of life - their use of glass Mason Jars for canning attests to the limits of their self sufficiency.

You are better served by forming a network of family members, relations, and close friends that can be relied upon. Introduced them to an idea of a shared self-sufficiency. Perhaps this can be termed as a form a tribalism, but how can you gainsay the most predominate form of societal organization throughout history, and still prevalent today? It is not without its many issues; African governance is proof. But it is much more time tested than the mythic self-sufficient genius, and humility reminds us the few are geniuses and no one is genius at everything.

Expand full comment

My uncle was an Economics prof with a large interest in history and philosophy. We both agreed that Monty Python and the Holy Grail was very possibly the best Historical Movie ever made.

Expand full comment