A Working Philosophy

Future Folkways is a cultural studio exploring how we live, create, and relate to one another in a digitally commoditized world. This includes the ubiquitous influence of algorithms and AI in shaping our attention, behavior, and what we perceive as our very reality.

The way I’m thinking about this begins from a simple premise: many of the forces shaping modern life—technological acceleration, passive consumption, and extreme individualism—are not neutral. They are systems intentionally designed for extraction, not human flourishing. The wealthy and powerful intentionally foment conflict, confusion, and exhaustion so that they may hoard the rewards while the rest of use fight amongst ourselves for the scraps.

Future Folkways is an attempt to respond to that reality without retreating into nostalgia or rejecting some beneficial or enjoyable digital technologies outright. I envision a future that is human-centered, intentional, and sensory-rich. I want to help re-instill confidence in our collective capacity to create, to learn new skills, to sustain community, and to stand in our own power against domineering systems that would seek to control us for their own ends. I want to reimagine traditional modes of living and combine them with the useful, life-affirming, and joyous aspects of our contemporary lives.

I believe there are ways of living from the past that we would do well to remember. There are also things from the past that we should never forget and never repeat. The same can be said of our modern moment.

I focus on practices that are embodied, intellectual, and shared: making, gathering, reading, thinking, and creating together. I draw on the traditions of craft, history, and letters as tools for understanding and shaping the present.

The “future” in Future Folkways is about adaptation—repairing and protecting what should be saved, discarding what is destructive, and creating systems that are more human, more reciprocal, and more empowered.

“Folkways” points to bottom-up culture: practices, skills, and ways of living that emerge from people and communities rather than institutions or platforms. It honors the past while reimagining it.

This is a space for exploring how to resist passivity with creativity, isolation with connection, and extraction with reciprocity—and how to live lives that are more collaborative, creative, and of our own making.