Why I’m Building A Village Instead Of A Career

It comes from looking at what has been handed to us, this breathtaking creation, the soft warmth of a baby’s smile, spring flowers returning with quiet faithfulness, autumn leaves falling like poetry, and then watching how we have covered so much of it with asphalt, fluorescent lights, concrete, noise, exhaust, and synthetic everything.

Somehow we have been trained to call this progress.

But my body never agreed.

I've always had sensory sensitivities. As a child, my heart would jump every time a car surged past me on the sidewalk. Fluorescent classrooms felt like a hum inside my skull. The desks were hard and cold. The drinking fountain water tasted like chemicals. There was plastic and styrofoam everywhere, and the scratch of polyester clothing. Even the small things felt wrong to me. Not wrong in an abstract, philosophical way, but wrong in a way I could feel in my chest.

Most people didn't think twice about these things. I couldn't stop thinking about them.

And I couldn't stop imagining something else.

I remember noticing the imbalance early.

I was in third grade for the second time because I had failed the first. I couldn't read. I couldn't memorize facts the way other kids did. I couldn't keep my mind on things I found boring. I struggled and struggled, yet at the same time, I had a fierce, clear vision of the life I wanted.

I told my teacher, “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to be an artist and a mommy.”

Even then, I knew what mattered. And I knew what didn't.

I wasn't dreaming of power or recognition. I wasn't trying to win at the world. I was daydreaming about what a home could be if it was designed for joy. What a classroom could be if it was designed for peace. What society could be if it was designed for connection.

That longing didn't come from nowhere.

My mom had a bookshelf full of Mary Cassatt and Norman Rockwell paintings, real human scenes filled with warmth and story. I used to pull those books down and stare into them like windows. Not because the past was perfect, but because something had been lost. And I could feel it.

Then we visited living history museums.

Something inside me settled. Not because I wanted to churn butter for fun, and not because I thought technology was evil, but because life felt human.

Women brought food to the table from their own gardens. Neighbors bartered. Families depended on each other. Tools were made to last. Clothing wasn't synthetic. Homes weren't filled with constant electronic hum. There was a rhythm to life that matched the body, morning and work and rest and conversation and meal and firelight and sleep.

What did we lose when we embraced all this plastic, all this speed, all this dependence?

I remember thinking, what did we lose when we embraced all this plastic, all this speed, all this dependence?

And the question that followed was even sharper.

What choices are we still free to make?

The world didn't get gentler as I grew up. It got more frantic.

More dependent on the automobile. More dependent on computers. More dependent on electricity. Then the smartphone arrived, and something shifted so deeply it still makes my stomach turn if I stay with the thought for too long.

Now you can be in a room full of people and feel completely alone. You can walk through a crowd and watch hundreds of faces staring downward, not at each other.

We have created a society of individuals without connection, each person striving for power, wealth, recognition, satisfaction, and sacrificing the things that make life worth living.

We have created a society of individuals without connection, each person striving for power, wealth, recognition, satisfaction, and sacrificing the things that make life worth living.

It's not just sad. It's destabilizing.

When people don't have children, when they don't have grandchildren, when they don't have legacy, the future becomes abstract. The next generation becomes somebody else’s problem. Beauty becomes optional. Freedom becomes negotiable. Justice becomes a game.

Power gets wasted. Liberty gets chipped away. Justice gets corroded. Influence rises without restraint. And the people who care most about what the world will feel like for children, people building real lives and real homes, are often treated like an inconvenience.

But I didn't want to just complain. So I started choosing.

Over the years, I created a different kind of home for my family, and I filled that home with as many children as possible.

When so many of my friends were saying they didn't want to bring children into this evil world, I was saying the opposite. By having children, I would bring light and joy to this evil world. Because there has never been more hope, abundance, and opportunity than what we have in this moment, in this era, in this present time. If only we can step out in faith to embrace goodness and let go of the things that cause pain and loneliness.

My husband and I have a passion for the next generation and the one after. We want to build a life that's beautiful for them, meaningful, and protective of connection. And we believe it's possible. Not easy, but possible.

We planted a garden. We bought a farm. We created a home with far less plastic than most homes. We warmed ourselves by a fire. We said no to the things that felt like fingernails on a chalkboard, because for someone whose nervous system registers overload quickly, the modern world can feel like a constant assault. We said no to the faster pace, and saw through the fast food culture and rejected it.

But we also said yes. Yes to handmade. Yes to natural rhythms. Yes to beauty. Yes to tradition. Yes to children. Yes to simplicity that nourishes instead of numbs. Yes to living in a way that doesn't require pretending we're fine when everything in our hearts, bodies, minds, and spirits speaks otherwise.

And so we bought our farm. And when we did, we weren't just thinking about a place where we could raise our kids, some sheep, some horses, some chickens. We chose a place with big beautiful trees, lush pastures, enough space to plant orchards and vineyards, and room to build a little neighborhood for all four generations that make us a family, and others too, others with the same yearning for roots and peace.

I'm talking about building a neighborhood.

The Villages That Changed My Imagination

When I was eighteen, I moved to Hungary and traveled around Hungary, Austria, Romania, and Serbia. One thing I noticed was the beautiful walled villages that were built before cars. People were still living there.

I could imagine how some residents might have felt. The roads are narrow. You have to walk everywhere. It's “inconvenient,” at least by modern standards.

But as I looked around and as I lived in a few of these villages, I began to see something I've never been able to unsee.

These places revolved around people instead of cars. They revolved around generations instead of the individual. They revolved around local life instead of a global machine. A life designed for people rather than the automobile could still exist. And it did.

Over time, I developed a passion for visiting old world villages where cars simply don't fit, and just watching life. Watching how people interact. Watching how children move freely and how elders remain woven into the daily fabric of community.

A life designed for people rather than the automobile could still exist. And it did.

And there was another thing I loved about these villages and city centers built before cars. The beauty of the architecture. The beauty of the buildings themselves.

They looked like they belonged there because they did. They were built from the ground they were raised from. Every village had its local stone, local wood, local tile. Local artists carried their unique flair through murals, pottery, embroidery. Farmers markets overflowed with local food, traditions, and recipes.

Coming from the United States, I was amazed that by default, these lifestyles still exist in communities where cars don't fit.

So I started asking the question that has shaped my adulthood.

What if we began to design the future around people, around families, around children instead of cars? What if we created places where the generations could connect again?

I don't think this is outlandish. I'm not envisioning a utopia. I'm envisioning something human. Something quieter. Something built around the reality of how people thrive.

If you look on a map and see how big these villages actually are, a lot of these beautiful, tight-knit places only take up five or six acres. They're surrounded by farms and gardens and beautiful trees.

The heart of these communities is not a parking lot. It's the home-based businesses, the artists, the farmers, the churches, the education spaces. It's people building a life with their hands and passing something down. It doesn't hurt that climbing roses spill over walls and that vineyards and gardens are close enough to walk to.

In places like this, even people who are sensory-sensitive like I am find peace. We find quiet. And in peace and quiet, we find creativity, connection, curiosity. We aren't overwhelmed.

What if we built communities that weren't overwhelming?

I've always believed in starting with my own heart, my own home, my own family, and then reaching out from there. That's how culture is built. Not by arguing online, but by creating a tangible alternative.

And it's my dream and vision that someday, very soon, like-minded families who want to live on a human scale will come and build a beautiful neighborhood where cars are not in the middle of it all, and where multiple generations can stay close.

A Quiet Rebellion That Actually Works

If you've ever felt the anger, the grief, the sense that something sacred has been flattened into convenience and noise, I want you to know you're not overreacting.

You're perceiving reality.

And there are still choices.

You cannot opt out of everything, not all at once. But you can start creating pockets of sanity, sanctuaries where your family’s nervous system can breathe again.

Replace one harsh light. Cook one real meal. Plant one garden bed. Have one phone-free dinner. Host one evening where people sit together and talk until the tension leaves their shoulders. And if that's not enough, move to the country, and if that's not enough, build a community where people come first.

Make one decision that says we are not doing it their way. And then another.

Not because you're trying to be extreme.

Because you're trying to be human.

And because our children and grandchildren deserve a world where the future matters again, where beauty is not a luxury, where connection is not rare, and where liberty still lives.

Our children and grandchildren deserve a world where the future matters again, where beauty is not a luxury, where connection is not rare, and where liberty still lives.

But it's not just for the future generations. I envision a place of beauty and life where I can be a granny with a big garden surrounded by flowers, family, and friends. Still in love with my sweet husband, baking bread in a stone cottage that I designed, filled with murals I painted with my grandchildren. I don't see myself retiring to a condo. I see myself building a tiny town and hosting grandma camp. Because time does not stand still, and I know deep down that the future is what we create. And because I long for a new direction, or maybe an old one, I know I had better do something about it. It's not enough to grieve over the way things are.

Josh and Sarah Brown are currently working on founding a new kind of neighborhood on their Indiana farm, where they imagine a small multifaceted community, a multigenerational village inspired by the old world villages of France and Austria, where homeowners associations don't keep you from having chickens, gardens, cottage industries, and old-fashioned home-based businesses.

Several of their adult children are excited to build homes in the community and have dreams of opening small businesses on the first floor of their homes. They're dreaming of things like a spa, art gallery, music studio, tea room, yarn shop, and a cat café, because why not? I have 15 creative children. Many are in their mid-twenties, starting families and growing their careers, and all longing for a place to put down roots and build a future that looks like a storybook and feels like home.

But this dream is not for everyone, just for those willing to park and walk, because you cannot have all this in a space designed around cars.

It's time to turn our grief and angst into passion and vision. Turn your vision into reality, and never forget, it takes a village.

If you're interested in following our story, or if you want to be part of it, connect with us by following @Sarah.Janisse.Brown for updates and opportunities.

We're looking for like-minded families to build a future with us.