Standalone Essays · Triad of Stewardship

Sojournism: An Ethic for Agnostic Autistics

I consider myself to be merely a responsible and respectful visitor to this world and life. I try to do as little harm and as much good as possible while here. This idea of being a Sojourner—a temporary resident on a journey—is the foundation of the philosophy I call Sojournism. It is a secular philosophy, centered on striving toward an abstract Ideal of perfection through ethical decision-making, mindfulness, and creative practice. It explicitly rejects metaphysical claims like deities or an afterlife.

Sojourners view their lives as a journey toward the Ideal, an intangible, unnameable concept akin to Daoism’s Dao or Plato’s perfect forms. You cannot see it directly, yet it is present in every small, consistent effort toward ethical living. The Ideal is both transcendent and practical, manifesting in daily acts like keeping promises, striving for excellence, or showing kindness. It is doing your best, every single time. While it is a goal we will never fully reach, every action either advances us toward it or causes us to recede from it.

As a Sojourner, I believe ethics trump religious trappings. What good is it if you attend worship and read a sacred text, but cheat on your taxes or your spouse? Sojournism is about focusing on the ethics themselves, not the dogma. Nevertheless, unlike raw atheism, Sojourners approach religion with openness, sifting through its layers to extract universal ethical principles.

The foundation of our secular ethic is pragmatic altruism. Humans are social animals who thrive through empathy and cooperation. We tend to feel happy when those around us are happy.

To operationalize this, we anchor ourselves in:

The Five Pillars: Compassion, Discernment, Justice (particularly social, economic, and ecological), Contentment, and Endurance (grit).
Core Behaviors: Be ethical; practice reciprocity. Match personal liberty with social responsibility. Prefer the scientific method and choose reason over superstition. Be undogmatic, imposing no creed upon others. Develop universally human values like freedom and hope, maintaining hope that things can be steadily improved.
Lifestyle Values: Voluntary simplicity, community development, personal goodness, and ecological stewardship.

Sojournism borrows two vital attitudes from Buddhism: Right View (the clear vision of a truer thing) and Right Intention (an unyielding commitment to the ongoing development of your ethics).

Part of the Triad of Stewardship’s Standalone Essays. Companion pieces: Forgiveness and Its Limits (forthcoming) · The Mandates of Conflict · Criminal Justice.