Mentorship & The Patron/Client Relationship
The future of education requires shared principles of ethics | Issue 14 / April 2026
Life is a state of constant learning and progression. The environment we are born into is by no choice of our own, and it may not be the best environment suited to you as an individual who desires to learn and progress.
States of discontent may never be channelled into creating a better life situation if one doesn’t recognise their own agency. You could get stuck in a potentially fatal doom loop if you don’t take action and start creating a better life for yourself.
I was there myself and it is not a good place to be.
Luckily there are people out there who you share a moral basis for existence with. There may not be many of them as a percentage of population, but they do exist.
They have traversed the path that you desire to traverse yourself. If you decide to open yourself up to new knowledge and a path of self-actualisation, it is a very good idea to seek out these people and listen attentively and purposefully to what they have to say.
The ideas that a potential mentor or patron relays to you could have an immensely positive effect on your life.
The first potential mentors we encounter in life are our parents.
Advice and possible coercion coming from your parents should be treated in the same way as if coming from any other person.
You can not choose your parents so it is good to be aware that they can have the same destructive or positive effect on your life as any other person, even if they may love you unconditionally as their child.
For oneself, the benefit and philosophical foundation lies in a shared morality and principles of ethics.
A shared philosophy which informs the development of a strong personal code.
From there, knowledge and wisdom can be passed on and one can self-actualise whilst avoiding unnecessary discord.
Aligning your life to prioritise spending time with these people, either through content or in person, will increase your chances of becoming the man or woman you want to be.
Realisations From The Introduction Of A Novel Virus
I have never lived in a place where any type of genocide has occurred during my lifetime.
I had always wondered about the psychology of individuals that could actively participate in or idly stand by when persecution and genocide takes place around them.
The genocides carried out by Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong and others always somewhat baffled me as to how they could occur.
In the year 2020 when the CV-19 virus was introduced, this changed for me.
Some of the people close to me and the larger society in general were people that suddenly became— in one way— dangerous to me. They could directly affect my individual ability to buy products and services and my ability to freely exchange my labour.
They did not realise the ethical implications of this at all.
We did not share any foundational morality or ethics, and having lived through this I finally understood the psychological mechanism that could allow the ethical atrocities of history to take place.
Very sobering indeed.
My recent visit to the killing fields in Phnom Penh, Cambodia made it all to real for me as well.
Which is why moving into the future I believe people will begin to start associating with like-minded people in communities and in turn seeking mentorship, patron/client relationships and education from people with a shared morality and principles of ethics.
It is probably not a good idea to receive education from someone who hates you and wants you dead, generally speaking.
This may seem hyperbolic and be uncomfortable to hear, but this is reality.
An evolution towards voluntary community membership is happening already to an extent, but perhaps it could evolve to the point where the concept of ‘the nation state’ becomes obsolete.
Although I haven’t read it, this concept is explored in the cyberpunk science fiction novel ‘The Diamond Age’ by Neal Stephenson. Where they refer to these types of communities as ‘Phyles’.
Mentorship And The Patron/Client Model
Thanks to the internet and now artificial intelligence, it is very easy to discover potential mentors and understand their various philosophies on how they approach the world.
You can choose to test and adopt their philosophies to help you become the man or woman you want to be. But remember to choose wisely.
You can meet them in person, via video call or more commonly you can have an indirect or para-social mentorship where you are learning from them via various content formats.
Discovering someone through popular culture— books, magazines, newsletters, podcasts and video is an easy and and often free access point where you can discover the mind, philosophy and wisdom of a potential mentor who you would like to learn from.
Moving up a level, throughout history there have been examples of a patron/client relationship where the client is actively doing something to benefit the patron (mentor) and vice versa.
Instead of the exchange of value being a one way street it becomes a two way street and benefits both parties.
This is the next step after experiencing indirect mentorship.
As an example the patron could benefit by gaining access to a clients network and sphere of influence, and the client could benefit from the knowledge, wisdom and trusted network access of the patron.
In modern times, the relationship between Peter Thiel and J.D Vance is an example of the patron/client relationship. Vance gained resources and connections and Thiel benefitted by having a political ally who shared his views on various issues affecting the future trajectory of America.
Establishing contact with a potential patron and conveying what you can do for them is key here.
The concept is explored in-depth in the book ‘The Preparation’, which I am currently reading. I can recommend that you read it also.
Develop Agency
As will all aspects of self-actualisation you will need to build something in order for any information exchange to become crystallised as knowledge.
In the finance space, this could mean investing capital in certain assets or instruments. To have ‘skin in the game’, in order to fully understand market movements and your personal condition relating to an investing thesis.
In entrepreneurship this could mean building a product or service and directly applying the information you are acquiring to complete a task.
In international lifestyle this could mean putting boots on the ground in a country after reading about its potential and allure.
If you can leverage the use of mentors and patron/client relationships it can only broaden the scope of your understanding of the world and how you can operate in it to achieve your goals.
When you can decide what to pursue and act without permission, the upside is enormous.
If we can do this with like-minded individuals and create community, all the better I think.
Thank-you for reading and have a great day.
-Shernon
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Cover photograph by Shernon Hague | Moscow, Russia 2017 | 35mm film