Reclaiming agency, rebuilding sovereignty
Why we created Rancho de la Libertad, and why it matters
You were not born to consume shit and die. You were not born to profit another, especially when that profit creates the untold suffering of living beings, the untold destruction of ecosystems. And yet, you have been trained that this is your purpose. Your whole life, you have viewed yourself as a sentient, individual Self that oscillates between two distinct identites: that of your “work” self, and that of your “consumer” or “free time” self. It seeps into your personality, your actions, the language you use to talk about your day. You aren’t stupid, or gullible, and you probably know on some level that the way that we live is unbearable, that it’s harmful to others, that our consumption is directly creating the destruction we see around us. But there is no way out, it seems. We rely on the existence of the structures that be for our food, our water, our housing, our social connections. And so because it seems so impossible, we must continue living this way, steeped in a nihilism that tells us that if nothing matters we may as well just have a good time because we only have one life and why should we be the ones to make the ultimate sacrifice of our own pleasure if no one else will? Right?
This is the almost-unspoken dilemma of our age, of our activism. There appears to be no way out, and so we consume what we must to get by, we work for the company we work for not because we truly believe they’re doing something worthwhile but simply because we must in order to survive, we sell our creative passions (if we are lucky enough to make a living this way) and turn this medium of radical change—art--into castrated product. Who can blame us? Perhaps we try to make small choices that make a difference, but at bottom we feel like there truly is no way to make a difference. And so we accept the seeming end of our world with a kind of indignant resignation.
We, too, have stared down into the void of this nihilism that insists that not only does nothing have any intrinsic meaning, but that we are helpless against the current, and so we might as well enjoy ourselves. We tried. To enjoy ourselves, I mean. Parties, substances, hedonistic consumption of expensive food and entertainment when we could afford it. It never lasted long enough, and we were always left empty. We both went through our own activist phases also, signing petitions and waving signs and shouting on the streets or online about the ills of this or that, thinking that if only our platform were large enough or our voice loud enough something might change. Oscillating between not just work and consumption time, but enraged activism and desperate hopelessness, oh yes, we tried. Nothing quelled the emptiness, the urgency, the sense that this time was being wasted, that there was something else to do. We tried productivity, too. Perhaps the answer lies in technological advancement, in career advancement, we thought, in the accumulation of wealth, of the ability to consume more parties, more substances, more hedonistic experiences. But it didn’t work. The emptiness followed like a shadow, annoyingly pulling on our heels and darkening even our most passionate endeavors.
Rancho de la Libertad is ultimately the child of this disatisfaction, of the knowing that the lives we lead are destructive at their core, that despite the fact that we ourselves did not build this empire from scratch that we are critical in aiding and abetting its existence. That we have built our own prison, and we are proud of this prison, and we are both the guards and the prisoners, existing in a kind of schizophrenic existence, unable to leave and enforcing the behavior of others1.
In 2021, we were about to move back to Los Angeles from Oakland to start all over again when we asked: “what if we did just leave?”
This question in turn created more questions, and most of them had no satisfactory resolution. We could leave the city, but would that just give us the illusion of some kind of liberation? Would it be worth the major shift in our social life? Would our friends still come see us? Would we still go see them? Would our careers suffer? Do we care about our careers? How else could we make money? Would we need money? How much would we need, and for how long? Could we accept that we wouldn’t be perceived the same way by our peers? That it would be harder to relate to them? What would we gain? What would our life be?
We hesitated at the precipice of a great shift in the way that we were perceived and the way that we perceived ourselves, and in every material aspect of our lives. The truth is, we didn’t know the answers to most of these questions. Three years in, we know the answer to most of them, and we have working theories for the rest, but ultimately the actual act of establishing this place was almost unbearably uncomfortable at first. Three years in, though, it’s become the most fulfilling thing we could have done.
You weren’t born to consume shit and die, or to profit another, on this most of us would agree. So what were we born to do? What is your purpose, your passion?
We knew that our ancestors, while their lives were no panacea, lived in a way where despite the daily labors of staying alive—shelter, food, water, warmth—art was central. They did not simply weave baskets or textiles, they wove them with intricate patterns. They tattooed their bodies, not just tallies of great acts or names, but beautiful designs rich in symbolism and magickally charged. They did not simply go about their days, laboring, but instead they danced, drummed and sang, ecstatic endeavors which today are reserved for either the elite or the underpaid performers of their delights. For our ancestors, community was central. Isolation was reserved by and large for spiritual acts of connection with one’s personal guides or totems, all other time was spent deeply intertwined with others and with purposeful action.
With this knowledge we asked: “what does it really mean to live?” And then we asked “what would it take to divest from the oppressive structures under which we live? To create a life that is fully a life?”
We are still trying to answer these questions, little by little. Each and every day, we consider how our actions are answering these questions for us and others. What does it take to divest from the oppressive structures under which we live? Perhaps the answer is only apocalypse, as so many of us seem to believe. And yet, it is not satisfactory to us to simply accept that answer without providing alternatives. Alternatives which are both radical acts of divestment in the here and now and preparatory acts for potential apocalypse. Sometimes, a thing is many things at once.
There was a time where our only goal was to create a space to make art. Yet, when we dug deeper into the truths at the heart of our existence, we found that there are so many prerequisites to the creation of real art: liberty, interdependence with context and community, resource availability, time, and sovereignty. That which exists outside of dependence on oppressive structures for profit exists in acknowledgement of its true place in the rhizomatic whole, and therefore has the potential for true and meaningful action, for true and meaningful change.
We have spent three years building infrastructure in order to create resource availability as a core mechanism for solidarity and sovereignty. We have spent three years building a community, both centrally here on our ranch and in the regional community we are a part of and abroad, as visitors take moments and lessons with them and integrate them in their own actions. As a part of this, we have had to accept the loss of certain opportunities that could make our more immediate material reality easier with the knowledge that these small sacrifices enable great potential change.
If you are reading this, and you feel also as though the conditions of your life, or the structures that make it possible, are unbearable, ask yourself: what are you willing to sacrifice for sovereignty, for liberty, for eventual change?
We hope to provide some answers to some of these questions, and some practical “advice” (if you can call our own lessons and musings advice) in future posts, but for now we simply leave you with a question, because that is the very first step.
Notes:
- This final sentence is paraphrased from the film "My Dinner with Andre"