Published by Overstory Studio
Overstory
You’re not behind. You’re just seeing the system clearly.
Building A Soft Economy
Why Overstory Exists?
Some questions have stayed with us forever. Why money remains an abstraction, yet quietly shape our daily choices? Why do the same patterns of power keep showing up —in history, in politics, in the workplace?Overstory exists to slow down and trace these patterns to their roots.Sometimes, that means retracting history and systems. Other times, it means pausing with the gentler side of the economy; how people create steadiness in uncertainty, how small choices slowly add up, and how resilience quietly takes root in everyday life.”Not to oversimplify. Not to overwhelm. Maybe to romanticize.Just to show how things fit together. Clearly, gently, and in context. We’re not here to flatten the world.
We’re here to make sense of it, whether through the hard lines of history or the softer textures of lived experience.
Perspective isn’t opinion — it’s structure.
The Lens We Use
The overstory is the canopy — the structure that filters light, defines space, and shapes everything that grows beneath it.That’s the lens we bring.
Not the noise on the ground — but the patterns above it.
The structures filtering down into money, power, history, and culture.We took the name from Richard Powers’ The Overstory — a novel that doesn’t just tell stories, but reveals how they’re connected, rooted, and shaped by systems larger than any one person.That’s what we’re here for:
To connect the dots.
To trace value back to its source.
To show how even in fragile, softer economies, new forms of resilience and meaning take root.
To change how you see the system — and your place in it.
Lean In
This Could Be For You
You think a lot. Probably more than you admit. You notice patterns in conversations, in work, in the world around you, and wonder what they mean for your own life.We made this space for people who:- Work in finance, design, education, policy, media or those who simply feel the weight of money, work, and politics in your everyday choices.- Are researchers, freelancers, product people, analysts, founders, strategists.- Read the footnotes, follow the trails, and still feel like something’s missing- Want history to feel like perspective, not trivia.- Are curious but tired, capable yet stretched thin, hopeful yet sometimes disillusioned- Don’t mind complexity as long as it feels honest, and leaves room for clarity and care.
The Overstory Journey Begins
🛬 Welcome Aboard
Money sits at the center of our lives — shaping choices in ways that often feel invisible.
Familiar, but never fully clear.
Present in every decision, yet wrapped in stories that keep it out of view.That distance isn’t accidental.
It’s part of how economies are designed through policies, markets, and narratives that shape what feels possible.But within those same structures, something softer always emerges.
Even in unstable times, people find rhythms of their own: shared meals, slower days, small acts of care that carry more weight than numbers on a page.
The personal economy begins to take shape — quieter, more deliberate, sometimes even more romantic.Overstory exists to trace both sides: the systems that press down, and the ways people create space beneath them.
Because within the tangle, patterns appear, not only of power and scarcity, but of resilience, meaning, and the lives still being built in spite of it all.
