“I think one of the most fundamental things that humans have lost in promoting and supporting and empowering the concept of ownership is connection and relationship with the rest of the living world," says Antonia Malchik—Montana-based writer, mother of two, daughter of a Soviet exile, and old-school well-rounded thinker—in this nineteenth episode of Kinward podcast (the final episode of season one).
Antonia’s lens on our foundational loneliness—the hungry ghost which I believe drives so many of our culture’s maladaptive expressions—is the rich and seemingly omnipresent lens of private property. In her telling, “water, women and seeds,” were the first and most drastic instances of our life sources, our foundational relationships, being forcefully enclosed: converted into “property.” Belonging became belongings—and this fundamental rupture from our “life-givers” ushered in the estrangement that has left us hungry, lonely, and ashamed.
And, on the flip side, our acknowledgement of that loneliness, that rupture, is a first step toward the good work of remembering and reclaiming the commons: re-investing our bodies and our care and labor in all that we (still) share. Claiming and tending our commons is a homecoming to a vital and enchanted belonging among our fellow humans and the wider web of life.
Antonia Malchik has written essays and articles for Aeon, The Atlantic, Orion, High Country News, and a variety of other publications. Her first book, A Walking Life, is about the past and future of walking’s role in our shared humanity. She currently writes On the Commons, a newsletter about ownership, private property, the loss of the commons, and being human amidst all of it, and is working on No Trespassing, a book on private property and the commons. She was born and raised in Montana, and lives in her hometown with her family.
I hope you love this wide-ranging, curious and nourishing conversation with Antonia Malchik, a kinward spirit. If you do, please share it. And definitely check out Antonia’s Substack, On the Commons, which is a wonderful place to land any time, and maybe especially right now.
