Personally, my aim in life - my dream life - is to live a slow life. Own a small house somewhere in the woods. My days will be filled with writing and reading. What about you?
I want my health back... before Long Covid, I used to dream of not working... and here I am, can't work... scraping by though, so I don't need to.
I want a lab, with a machine shop, and the ability to fabricate anything, like Dan Gelbart. I'd just spend my days making stuff, perhaps trying to build a semiconductor fab fab like Sam Zeloof is doing. (Yes, machines that make fab lines)
I want a personal megawatt, with which I could extract metals from the dirt in the back yard, or whatever.
At this point, however, I'd like to just have a situation where people can ask me questions that they are stuck on, and I can dig back into all the things I've learned and read, and seen, and pull out some answers that can help them. And maybe get paid to do that, so I can buy a few toys.
I live in a small house somewhere in the woods. I have 40 acres, a house, a woodshop, a nice "man shed", and several more small buildings for animals and equipment---and I bought all that for $60,000 in the Ozarks.
The slow life doesn't need much to sustain it after you buy your place; maybe it's time to jump off the cliff.
Things I've been doing lately: enjoying our first snow last night. Doing things by a kerosene lantern (because I like lanterns). Wandering the woods...I found a "deadhead" a couple of days ago in great shape. Baking bread. Planting fig trees in my garden. Watching the sunrise. Drinking warm cups of hot cocoa. Making some holiday gifts in my woodshop, with wood harvested from my land.
I'm missing someone to share it with. Add someone to the above: that's the kind of life I dream about.
How do you protect your fig trees in the winter? I used to pack leaves and straw around them and wrap in plastic, but I didn’t like the resulting mold in the spring.
Last year I just used bubble wrap and plastic, but a lot of the smaller branches died.
Truthfully, I haven't had fig trees before. My neighbor (and uncle) has some that I love the fruit of, so I got some myself.
That said, I don't think he does anything. They need watered the first growing season, if there's not enough rain, and that's it. They grow well here with no insect pressure, climate issues, etc.
Our winters are mild, and we rarely get below-zero temps. Usually a couple overnights each year.
Thanks, and kudos on getting a very nice view of the sky. I'm thinking about maybe getting an agreement to rent a cabin in a dark area for maybe a month and see what happens.
This sounds amazing! I'm not willing to make the necessary trade-offs. Some of the things we might lose if we were to move from San Francisco to somewhere rural:
- my 6yo son's school, which is an amazing fit for him
- proximity to my wife's family
- comfortable weather all year round
- not standing out by being Asian
- easy access to Asian groceries
- 10 mins' drive to Costco
I would love to have a room per hobby/craft. Needing to pack/unpack and setup/teardown stuff like the sewing machine creates a mental barrier to using them. I can't just quickly fix something on a whim. Second order effect: each time I use the sewing machine I need to relearn somewhat.
I hear you, and not to argue with your points, but I have some comments.
- There is a very close school here, as I happen to live in the tiny area that has the school for a pretty big region. They have very few students (graduating classes of 10-20). I'm not sure how good the school is, but I knew a second grader who tested 99.9 percentile on the Iowa standardized test. So it's at least passable? I think schooling is a big rural concern, for sure, but worth the tradeoff of getting to grow up in a place like this. There's much to learn that isn't in a textbook.
- [Comfortable weather] There's other regions, of course. I don't love the summer here, but I like the 3 other seasons. And in summer I just travel and work inside more. It's not even the heat, it's the bugs in this region. Ticks, mostly.
- [Asian] You would stand out here, but wouldn't be receiving any hatred or anything. The man I bought my property from married a Filipino woman, and she had a daughter who went to the little school here. They didn't speak much English when they arrived. Anyway she loved the school, and married locally and had children. They all still live very close; they moved away when I bought this place, and moved back after a couple of years. No groceries in this county for you, though, sorry. No stoplights, either, so you can imagine why niche businesses don't spring up. That goes for all niches. We have farm stores, dollar stores, grocery stores, gas stations, and that's about it. Dry county, too.
- [Costco] That's kinda nice, but then you're 10 minutes from Costco, and for me, that eliminates a lot of why I like to be out here. You can wander all around my property and all you're going to see is trees, wildlife, mountain views...and my stuff. There's no towers, homes, roads, billboards, vehicles, radios, any of it, unless you choose to bring it here. That said, I own a business in town, and I commute usually once per week, so I can do my shopping while I'm there.
- [Room per] My county has no building code, so you can build whatever you like out here. That's cool. I do stuff like this. I have an area for leatherwork, an area with my sewing machine, my woodshop. Fly tying in a spare bedroom. A home gym. Etc. That's one of my favorite things. If I ever have a family out here, maybe I'll stick the kids' bedrooms in a separate building once they're 10 or so.
I visited SF in 2020, right before COVID. I had a great time. Very interesting city. I do love cities, too, but they don't feed me like this place. In another life, I'll be an almost-anonymous resident of a massive city, one unimportant detail. In contrast to out here, where I'm the only one who can affect any change.
What are you sewing? I'm about to make a tipi cover on a Singer model 128 (a treadle machine).
For me, the place I bought reduced my expenses. My rent was more than my mortgage ($625/month). That rate was high because I only took a six-year loan, and paid it off quickly.
That's fair. Not a problem for me, and I am definitely remote.
You can have a very similar setup close to civilization, it just costs a lot more.
For instance, in my region, acreage might go as little as about $2000/acre still. But when you get close to town, you might pay 10k/acre or more, even "out here." Town meaning a county seat or something, not a metropolis.
Anyway, I chose it because it was remote. I can still get USPS and UPS deliveries, though, so Amazon is on the table. I relied on it heavily in the beginning; I find I don't have to buy many things now.
That's what's stopping me. I was effectively retired before I had kids. Unfortunately, I want certain things for the people I love:
- My kids to be close to their grandparents (and my wife to be close to her parents), who live in the most expensive metro area in the country and aren't likely to move because their other child now has a home & job here.
- My kids to have good schools where they'll get the academic & cultural base they need to be successful in STEM or business fields, should they choose to go that route.
- My family to not be an outcast because of their race. (I'm mixed-race and so am not going to fit into racial categories no matter where I go, but my kids basically look Asian and it's important for my wife to be around people near her.)
- My wife and I to be close enough to keep up our old friendships.
- Given that I've got to work to afford #1-4, being able to do so in a field that I'm good at, with people that I enjoy working with and a work culture that respects me.
Community and relationships create entanglements. If you are willing to optimize only for your own happiness, you can often reach a significantly higher happiness bar then if you have to compromise for the people around you. Unfortunately, it also means you are optimizing only for your own happiness, which creates its own form of unhappiness.
I'm also "effectively retired" so that makes being out here for long stretches pretty easy. I own a bar, but I have 4-hour-work-weeked myself out of any steady obligations there. Of course, I'm working way harder out here improving the land than I ever would at the bar.
I'm a bit of a loner so it's easy for me to be out here. I visit my dad about every week, and that's plenty. My mom lives 1200 miles away, so I guess I have to choose. I don't actually have kids yet, so less of a concern at this point. I'd really like to find someone compatible with this lifestyle, but I would be willing to give it up under the right circumstances. My favorite thing out here is the freedom, and I can approximate that in many other places.
[Outcasts] I think the fears of racial tensions are mostly over-hyped. I'm not saying you'd never run into some overt racist out here, but the population density here is 8.8/sq mi. Compared to the 18,635/sq mi in San Francisico and I don't know...the odds seem greatly reduced, even if the racists are 10 times more likely (which they aren't IMO). I've only met good people so far, in my 7 years here. You get to choose where you interact, and so I've chosen places like Scouts, the school, and a volunteer group that protects our national river here. Great people in all 3 places. That said, it's very homogeneous in my particular county. I'm sure there's differences across the country, though.
[Friendships] I've considered moving over friendships. One, actually. I just don't want to move "back home" (Florida). I visit that friend for almost a month per year, though.
[Work] Yeah. I also worked remotely from here for a few years, and that went well. But there's no way I could have an office job & commute here. No way.
Your last paragraph is on the nose, and I'm definitely struggling with that. It winds up making me feel tied to several places and pulled in many directions. I also have diverse interests/hobbies/talents that do the same.
Anyway not trying to change your mind. I like the 8.8. And honestly I agree with all your points. Maybe my life will be wildly different if I meet someone. I better hurry up, I'm about to age-out!
I just need a supporting wife and the basic building blocks would then all be in my hands. Then I could focus on my career, try to accomplish something beneficial for the world, and raise a family who I hope to install with all the wisdom that I collected in life so far.
I'm an adventure seeker on an empty street. Just an alley creeper with light on my feet. A middle age fighter screaming, with no time for doubt. With the pain and anger can't see a way out. "It ain't much I'm asking" you'll hear me say "gotta find me a future, move out of my way".
I'm a man with a one track mind. So much to do in one lifetime, not a man for compromise and where's and why's and living lies. So I'm living it all and I'm giving it all.
I want a boring life, free of drama and conflict. I also dont want to worry about money. To be clear I dont want to be rich nor to have a ton of luxuries, I just want to dedicate to my hobbies and family and somehow always have the minimal amount of money at hand to satisfy whatever need arises.
- Own a cabin and some acre of lands in some not too remote woods (so still accessible to city hospitals)
- Half of time spent on family life such as outing with $wifie and watching sky using telescope with $son; Half of time spent on learning hardware and low level programming and such;
- Maybe also learn some surviving skills, nothing too fancy and physical demanding. And own a couple of dogs and cats;
Peculiar that people would downvote my own subjective wish, that doesn't infringe on anyone else. I thought this was the kind of question that could have no wrong answers and thus no reason to downvote anything.
One with the opportunity to meet different kinds of people (not online), less judgemental and more collaborative. A life with multidisciplinary educated folks who want to share knowledge rather than compartmentalize it. The ability to reach out with creative ideas in different networks of knowledge without being passed over as a non expert. Less algorythmicly automated, or more transparent automation so I can better understand how my data is used/abused. A simpler life, basic and sustainable amenities, a job that feels fulfilling, work is work were not always going to love it, a community built around helping each other thrive. Less touch screen more tactile in every aspect. I have great ideas I want to execute on, but find it so hard to reach people in certain disciplines so I can get the right kinds of feedback. I can't drink due to a past medical procedure and this interestingly narrowed my social life, bolstered my physical health but not my mental health. Overall a more natural life that integrates with technology and progress, less fear mongering, more constructive criticism aimed at learning rather than shaming. Overall a freer experience, it's one thing to be told how free you are yet feel imprisoned by non normative systems that feel vacuous.
I've been diving into linguistics, have always had better aptitude with language than mathematics, especially as a bilingual individual, German being my first language. However studying linguistics and the interconnection with math led to a personal breakthrough specifically physics/calculus related. However I am self teaching and really finding quantum mechanics/theoretical quantum physics fascinating and fairly comprehensible and have been working on some things in that realm, that said I feel like I'm most likely falling into a self bias trap, i.e. self confirmation based on inadequate information and missing fundamentals. I've tried to focus it more into a test project, specifically in the realm of cryptography, I have a fairly high aptitude for patturn recognition. I'm planning on utilizing it in designing both an embedded hardware/software application for security/authentication. It's difficult to articulate via this format, but there are through lines with a number of fields, specifically music synthesis, a hobby of mine for now, as well as circuit design, which I am also teaching myself, building my own eurorack synth modules. I'm still limited in my coding skill so that's kind of my start point right now. Deciding on a language is proving to be difficult especially with the new memory safe parameters, NIST standards etc. I have some experience with C++, planned on working more with python. The logic seems sound but don't have anyone to really sound off to help focus on things I'm inevitably missing. Apologies for the word salad, it's a lot to try and explain. My educational background is in social science research and cs networking. Had a lot of road blocks in the last 2 years which led to some personal hardships (not unique considering) which seem to be resulting in some positive breakthroughs. But I'm scraping 40 and and time certainly flies by, still paying off student loans etc, school really isn't an option unfortunately at this point, academia would be an ideal place/way to meet people. Bottom line is I need to nail down specifics to focus on and produce project results, but not an undertaking I feel I can or should solo. I'm relatively intelligent and might be better suited in a position to promt the smarter folks in the room on some of what I outlined. Hope this was somewhat comprehensible.
Thanks for explaining, it sounds like you have a lot of big ideas and an interest in many different fields, which is cool.
Something worries me though. I've seen before a pattern that happens, when people have big ideas and see a lot of connections between different things, leading to personal breakthroughs in things like physics/math, where it's then hard to find an an expert to look at your ideas. Your post reminds me of that a little.
I can say that for other people in the past, the point where it went wrong is that the devil is in the details, and by connecting many fascinating things together without knowing the math, you can find beauty in things without having the hard fundamental to confirm whether it's real or an illusion.
>I feel like I'm most likely falling into a self bias trap
My instinct is that, in the kindest way possible, this should be a big concern. To be honest I'm someone who likes reading criticism (because I'm far from perfect), so I realize this might come across as criticism, but I mean it positively and constructively.
I think I also share a lot of the fascination that you talk about for things like quantum mechanichs, cryptograhy, complex and deep topics. (I'm also bilingual, another coincidence!) But the more I learn in these deep areas, the more I understand how deep the subject the really is, and how easy it is to think you understand the broad picture of something, without really understand the details (and all the subtlety really is in the details!).
>Bottom line is I need to nail down specifics to focus on and produce project results
I would look at it this way. There's a lot of people in this world, we might pass eight billion today. That's important, because we can look at the kind of patterns people have tried in the past, and we can see where they ended up.
Crucially, it's impossible to know whether a big idea works without diving deep (otherwise everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn't _be_ a big idea). But it _is_ possible to see the more general pattern of people attempting to see connections between many different things, that are hard to precisely articulate.
There's a very dangerous trap in chasing interconnections of fields with a surface understanding (as opposed to deep details-level understanding), because you can spend a lot of years faster than you'd think and wake up at the end with little to show for it. With the feeling that you have found something but without anything very concrete.
If you have something specific and detailed that you have questions about, I'm good at diving into details in a couple of the fields you've listed (though I'm not an expert, and I'm not always entirely immune to overconfidence either.. caveat emptor).
HOWEVER and this is important: I think you could likely avoid a lot of hardships by trying for a while to stick closer to boring ideas than breakthrough ideas, with the goal of growing enough experience to be able to see the flaw in other people's breakthrough ideas. If you can't see the mistakes other people are making, you can't see the mistakes you are (potentially) making, and this is how people fall into the trap.
Cryptographers have an important lesson & rule: anyone can invent cryptography that they can't themselves break.
In cryptography, in quantum-adjacent fields, in high-energy physics, a lot of people come with breakthrough ideas and it is fascinating to see why they went wrong (if they didn't go wrong, we would be using their ideas!).
This is genuinely a pattern that happens a lot, and that you really want to pay attention to. I cannot underscore how important it is to not fall into the same trap. You don't want to be a quantum 'crank', or a cryptography 'crank'. People have spent many years feeling misunderstood, and their ideas were never recognized in the end. Some have grown old with nothing.
You should really ...
Thabks for the response and the feedback. I agree wholly with your observations, and am aware of my own limitations in the field of topics mentioned. This is why I attempt to check my bias as consistently as possible. I realize my shortcomings and the potential to fall into the oroborus of bias and ideology. It's very easy to fall into self affirming traps and self statements, ex. "I KNEW IT!" feeling when I feel I found a confirmation of a conjecture I put forth to myself. I find I learn more from being wrong about certain things and correcting by learning from said mistakes or misconceptions. I rarely post to social media, other than my music sharing. This is really the first time I have put myself out there in this regard.
I do need to focus on a few (grounded and realistic) things at a time, as mentioned these topics are deep, singular topics in each of these fields take lifetimes of learning and espert experience, successes and failures. My primary focus (intruige) in regards to quantum theory has been based around the recent Nobel regarding Bell inequalities and the resulting experiments and the results. It has been something I have pondered for over a decade and have seen some co formations that I have an ability to at least ask some of the right questions with confirmational responses based on foundational and experimental research. Again realizing my own bias in truly knowing I understand these topics fully. My proposal, related to quantum physics/theory, has to do with our current perception of time, biological shortcomings in terms of synaptic delay, observation/experimentation and localization. Specifically around localization of time, i.e. Quantum clocks and superposition, perceived local time is only consciously calculated through and at the time of observation, again I'm being vague in scope, as the topic is very in depth and am limited in articulating my question fully in this format. Clocks in this regard may be extrapolated as interleaved non local waveform functions, hence my question regarding synaptic delay at the time of observation as well as measurement and how we measure, what experimental tools we utilize etc as well as relative field dynamics, elementary interaction, photon, phonon interaction, relevant things we have learned from CERN in regards to Higgs-Boson and the shortcomings of our understanding related to expected mass of particles resulting from those experements. I don't want this to get too tangential, just outlining where my current foci and interest lies in these fields. I am looking into Quiskit as a jumping off point regarding quantum computing.
Passive income (well.. semi-passive), that can be managed remotely. One that would be enough to travel in secure enough countries to try their cuisines and attend some of my fav band concerts.
My friend travels. He doesn’t really have a job or career. He owns a house that he rents out and makes about a thousand a month. That has kept him on the move for a decade and a half. He’s a member of the yacht club when he’s in town so he sails, and dives. He lives cheap and free.
He’s living the retired life of travel and leisure many people dream of but never achieve. He’s an inspiration to me.
I don’t know that I dream of it for myself but it soothes my soul to know he’s out there living free.
He’s currently in Eastern Europe. He’s been gone for five months and doesn’t think he’ll be back till spring.
The lives people dream of are often expressions of fantasies and desires to escape their current situation. Personally everything is the same. I've never found joy from any of them.
Ancient observer here - we all know that history doesn't repeat but it rhymes and people are just hairless (mostly), crazy bonobos at heart. The expectation that things will be different somehow goes away if you pay attention to history.
Environment and way of upbringing has changed _massively_ over the last three generations. It would be weird if everybody stayed the same. Gen Z/A grew up with iPads glued to their hands (or, many of them). Of course they will approach things differently, and communicate differently.
My parents just can’t fathom the idea that I‘d do more with and for my kids than the bare minimum required. And I don’t think that’s entirely an individual change, but rather a generational one, too.
This is a great point, we treat all the dopamine and novelty uptick when escaping our normal life, but we then return and spend 90% of our life in exactly the same rut.
I think the trick is to design the 90% to work based on realities, not fantasies. We think that moving to bali, surfing every day, drinking coconuts and participate in ayahuasca is somewhat extraordinary or can sustain our connection to it long-term, but thats not really the case. Every place, every fantasy has a trade-off and is usually short lived.
So coming back to `present`. Its fixing our daily life that is desperately needed in order not to dream of that 2 weeks bahamas escapism. But I suppose that is what is meant here as slow life and how can we design it... unfortunately still haven't found the answer to this.
They should actually hope they do not ever achieve their dreams. Because they would likely find that the contentment and happiness they were hoping to get does not materialize. In fact, they end up feeling worse. Because not only will they find they do not feel more content or happier, but that they have also lost the illusion that 'if only' they had this or that that their condition would improve. They discover that what they have been experiencing is, in fact, the human condition.
My dream life consists of these activities, fueled by a good deal of money and freedom:
- Extensive travel to urban locations (e.g., Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Rio, HK, Melbourne) and less traveled routes or experiences (e.g., Central Asia, Patagonia, Trans-Siberian Express). Some trips of a few days, some longer stays, 2 weeks to 2 months.
I would prefer to have 3-4 houses in strategic cities, but can do with hotels. I know a journalist, quite famous, but not quite a household name yet, who owns houses in Paris, NYC, Italy, SF.
My main house would be near a big city, maybe NYC, maybe Buenos Aires. A small compound like the one Nicolai Hel, the protagonist of the novel Shibumi, owns in the Basque Country? It's intriguing.
The most intriguing house I have seen in my life was in Havana, Cuba, in the neighborhood of Vedado. Almost all open air, shades of red everywhere, light, flowy curtains separating the spaces.
- I would love to write and have my work published. Mostly not about current events, but short stories, "thoughts" about life, travel and other cultures. In magazines and periodicals, with articles and thoughts sometimes collected in a book
- I can't help but train and practice martial arts, sports or movements. This must be included in my ideal life
- I would like a main partner and a network of companions around the world.
A little more about material stuff. I would not be interested in owning cars, motorcycles, boats, watches. But I do like fine tailored clothes.
Maybe children. But would I spend 11 months at home? I doubt it.
I'm not interested in fame, I like more the idea of reinventing myself every year.
Basically, I would like to live like a nobleman of the 19th century, including the occasional archeological discovery.
Although I appreciate the observation and may agree to some extent, there are confounding factors to consider.
Many people have been born into this life because of well-off parents and families, and their attitude toward this life may, indeed, be boring.
But I am sure I would have a lot of fun, as I myself am living a similar life now, though scaled down in breadth and ambition.
You don’t need much money to be rich in Buenos Aires right now if you have cash. And you can have a pretty nice place 2h from the city, nice in what you want, remote and basic, mild weather, no natural disasters, but you always have some level of crime like breakins if you’re gone for too long or stolen little crap and shit like that
Buenos Aires is a city I know well, I visited quite a few times and I will do it again in a couple of weeks.
But making it my home base would be in the context of the life I am talking about. If I must work, like unfortunately I still have to do, Buenos Aires is a way less attractive destination for me, since not many companies are allowing remote work from down there (my company does not, although I can move freely in the US) and there is the usual visa problem.
And it is also quite far away from everything, it is, geographically, similar to California, which is far away from most locations I am interested in (East Coast, Europe, Far East Asia).
Being a full time fiction writer.
I work in tech and have a comfortable life I'm grateful for but if I could translate my base pay to income generated by writing fiction novels, I would do it yesterday.
I would love to hear people's stories of successes and failures!
I would like to dedicate my life and energy to the field of science that interests me. I would also like the opportunity to achieve something amazing with programming as my medium.
That's it, I suppose. I can't really think of anything else.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] threadI want a lab, with a machine shop, and the ability to fabricate anything, like Dan Gelbart. I'd just spend my days making stuff, perhaps trying to build a semiconductor fab fab like Sam Zeloof is doing. (Yes, machines that make fab lines)
I want a personal megawatt, with which I could extract metals from the dirt in the back yard, or whatever.
At this point, however, I'd like to just have a situation where people can ask me questions that they are stuck on, and I can dig back into all the things I've learned and read, and seen, and pull out some answers that can help them. And maybe get paid to do that, so I can buy a few toys.
Cheers.
Thanks for the pointer. This person is awesome and I just subscribed to their channel.
In one side you seem so smart. but seem like a person that will throw things because they were not "approved".
But as is with everyone and I am sometimes like this too I am replying to you.
If you have long covid -> https://covid19criticalcare.com/treatment-protocols/i-recove...
"But stranger this is fringe/conspiracy/lunatic"
Just follow it. I would add NAC(600mg then 1200 on 3day) and niacin(WITH flush) on first line. but do as you feel like.
worst case scenario you will have a diarrhea for one day and smelly farts.
Do it for two weeks.
I live in a small house somewhere in the woods. I have 40 acres, a house, a woodshop, a nice "man shed", and several more small buildings for animals and equipment---and I bought all that for $60,000 in the Ozarks.
The slow life doesn't need much to sustain it after you buy your place; maybe it's time to jump off the cliff.
Things I've been doing lately: enjoying our first snow last night. Doing things by a kerosene lantern (because I like lanterns). Wandering the woods...I found a "deadhead" a couple of days ago in great shape. Baking bread. Planting fig trees in my garden. Watching the sunrise. Drinking warm cups of hot cocoa. Making some holiday gifts in my woodshop, with wood harvested from my land.
I'm missing someone to share it with. Add someone to the above: that's the kind of life I dream about.
Good luck to you!
Last year I just used bubble wrap and plastic, but a lot of the smaller branches died.
That said, I don't think he does anything. They need watered the first growing season, if there's not enough rain, and that's it. They grow well here with no insect pressure, climate issues, etc.
Our winters are mild, and we rarely get below-zero temps. Usually a couple overnights each year.
Sigh wish I could do that. Going to be next life.
You can always visit the wilderness. No need to live here.
But I sympathize. I have many other lives I'd like to live, as well.
I have a lot of antler already for projects, so I intend to leave it how it is. It's pretty cool looking.
No specific plans, I guess.
- my 6yo son's school, which is an amazing fit for him
- proximity to my wife's family
- comfortable weather all year round
- not standing out by being Asian
- easy access to Asian groceries
- 10 mins' drive to Costco
I would love to have a room per hobby/craft. Needing to pack/unpack and setup/teardown stuff like the sewing machine creates a mental barrier to using them. I can't just quickly fix something on a whim. Second order effect: each time I use the sewing machine I need to relearn somewhat.
- There is a very close school here, as I happen to live in the tiny area that has the school for a pretty big region. They have very few students (graduating classes of 10-20). I'm not sure how good the school is, but I knew a second grader who tested 99.9 percentile on the Iowa standardized test. So it's at least passable? I think schooling is a big rural concern, for sure, but worth the tradeoff of getting to grow up in a place like this. There's much to learn that isn't in a textbook.
- [Comfortable weather] There's other regions, of course. I don't love the summer here, but I like the 3 other seasons. And in summer I just travel and work inside more. It's not even the heat, it's the bugs in this region. Ticks, mostly.
- [Asian] You would stand out here, but wouldn't be receiving any hatred or anything. The man I bought my property from married a Filipino woman, and she had a daughter who went to the little school here. They didn't speak much English when they arrived. Anyway she loved the school, and married locally and had children. They all still live very close; they moved away when I bought this place, and moved back after a couple of years. No groceries in this county for you, though, sorry. No stoplights, either, so you can imagine why niche businesses don't spring up. That goes for all niches. We have farm stores, dollar stores, grocery stores, gas stations, and that's about it. Dry county, too.
- [Costco] That's kinda nice, but then you're 10 minutes from Costco, and for me, that eliminates a lot of why I like to be out here. You can wander all around my property and all you're going to see is trees, wildlife, mountain views...and my stuff. There's no towers, homes, roads, billboards, vehicles, radios, any of it, unless you choose to bring it here. That said, I own a business in town, and I commute usually once per week, so I can do my shopping while I'm there.
- [Room per] My county has no building code, so you can build whatever you like out here. That's cool. I do stuff like this. I have an area for leatherwork, an area with my sewing machine, my woodshop. Fly tying in a spare bedroom. A home gym. Etc. That's one of my favorite things. If I ever have a family out here, maybe I'll stick the kids' bedrooms in a separate building once they're 10 or so.
I visited SF in 2020, right before COVID. I had a great time. Very interesting city. I do love cities, too, but they don't feed me like this place. In another life, I'll be an almost-anonymous resident of a massive city, one unimportant detail. In contrast to out here, where I'm the only one who can affect any change.
What are you sewing? I'm about to make a tipi cover on a Singer model 128 (a treadle machine).
I partivularly liked "You can wander all around my property and all you're going to see is trees, wildlife, mountain views...and my stuff."
I'm not sewing much. I bought the sewing machine to reinforce the knees on all my son's trousers, and haven't used it for much else.
> The slow life doesn't need much to sustain it after you buy your place
That's exactly what it's stopping me, being able to afford a place.
For me, the place I bought reduced my expenses. My rent was more than my mortgage ($625/month). That rate was high because I only took a six-year loan, and paid it off quickly.
I had previously been paying $850 in rent.
You can have a very similar setup close to civilization, it just costs a lot more.
For instance, in my region, acreage might go as little as about $2000/acre still. But when you get close to town, you might pay 10k/acre or more, even "out here." Town meaning a county seat or something, not a metropolis.
Anyway, I chose it because it was remote. I can still get USPS and UPS deliveries, though, so Amazon is on the table. I relied on it heavily in the beginning; I find I don't have to buy many things now.
That's what's stopping me. I was effectively retired before I had kids. Unfortunately, I want certain things for the people I love:
- My kids to be close to their grandparents (and my wife to be close to her parents), who live in the most expensive metro area in the country and aren't likely to move because their other child now has a home & job here.
- My kids to have good schools where they'll get the academic & cultural base they need to be successful in STEM or business fields, should they choose to go that route.
- My family to not be an outcast because of their race. (I'm mixed-race and so am not going to fit into racial categories no matter where I go, but my kids basically look Asian and it's important for my wife to be around people near her.)
- My wife and I to be close enough to keep up our old friendships.
- Given that I've got to work to afford #1-4, being able to do so in a field that I'm good at, with people that I enjoy working with and a work culture that respects me.
Community and relationships create entanglements. If you are willing to optimize only for your own happiness, you can often reach a significantly higher happiness bar then if you have to compromise for the people around you. Unfortunately, it also means you are optimizing only for your own happiness, which creates its own form of unhappiness.
I'm a bit of a loner so it's easy for me to be out here. I visit my dad about every week, and that's plenty. My mom lives 1200 miles away, so I guess I have to choose. I don't actually have kids yet, so less of a concern at this point. I'd really like to find someone compatible with this lifestyle, but I would be willing to give it up under the right circumstances. My favorite thing out here is the freedom, and I can approximate that in many other places.
[Outcasts] I think the fears of racial tensions are mostly over-hyped. I'm not saying you'd never run into some overt racist out here, but the population density here is 8.8/sq mi. Compared to the 18,635/sq mi in San Francisico and I don't know...the odds seem greatly reduced, even if the racists are 10 times more likely (which they aren't IMO). I've only met good people so far, in my 7 years here. You get to choose where you interact, and so I've chosen places like Scouts, the school, and a volunteer group that protects our national river here. Great people in all 3 places. That said, it's very homogeneous in my particular county. I'm sure there's differences across the country, though.
[Friendships] I've considered moving over friendships. One, actually. I just don't want to move "back home" (Florida). I visit that friend for almost a month per year, though.
[Work] Yeah. I also worked remotely from here for a few years, and that went well. But there's no way I could have an office job & commute here. No way.
Your last paragraph is on the nose, and I'm definitely struggling with that. It winds up making me feel tied to several places and pulled in many directions. I also have diverse interests/hobbies/talents that do the same.
Anyway not trying to change your mind. I like the 8.8. And honestly I agree with all your points. Maybe my life will be wildly different if I meet someone. I better hurry up, I'm about to age-out!
I'm a man with a one track mind. So much to do in one lifetime, not a man for compromise and where's and why's and living lies. So I'm living it all and I'm giving it all.
\o/
At this point in my life, I would just like to be a friendly NPC that helps open doors for other people.
- Own a cabin and some acre of lands in some not too remote woods (so still accessible to city hospitals)
- Half of time spent on family life such as outing with $wifie and watching sky using telescope with $son; Half of time spent on learning hardware and low level programming and such;
- Maybe also learn some surviving skills, nothing too fancy and physical demanding. And own a couple of dogs and cats;
Have all my previous debts paid off and in the clear so every paycheck goes towards investments, savings, and likely mortgage for a while
My current 2 year old dog living 10 more years minimum
Find a long term SO at some point. Not interested in kids but marriage would be on the table if they wanted it
Having my current fully remote role actually work out long term
Well, I'm curious now, can you share more about what you're looking for? =)
Something worries me though. I've seen before a pattern that happens, when people have big ideas and see a lot of connections between different things, leading to personal breakthroughs in things like physics/math, where it's then hard to find an an expert to look at your ideas. Your post reminds me of that a little.
I can say that for other people in the past, the point where it went wrong is that the devil is in the details, and by connecting many fascinating things together without knowing the math, you can find beauty in things without having the hard fundamental to confirm whether it's real or an illusion.
>I feel like I'm most likely falling into a self bias trap
My instinct is that, in the kindest way possible, this should be a big concern. To be honest I'm someone who likes reading criticism (because I'm far from perfect), so I realize this might come across as criticism, but I mean it positively and constructively.
I think I also share a lot of the fascination that you talk about for things like quantum mechanichs, cryptograhy, complex and deep topics. (I'm also bilingual, another coincidence!) But the more I learn in these deep areas, the more I understand how deep the subject the really is, and how easy it is to think you understand the broad picture of something, without really understand the details (and all the subtlety really is in the details!).
>Bottom line is I need to nail down specifics to focus on and produce project results
I would look at it this way. There's a lot of people in this world, we might pass eight billion today. That's important, because we can look at the kind of patterns people have tried in the past, and we can see where they ended up.
Crucially, it's impossible to know whether a big idea works without diving deep (otherwise everyone would have done it already, and it wouldn't _be_ a big idea). But it _is_ possible to see the more general pattern of people attempting to see connections between many different things, that are hard to precisely articulate.
There's a very dangerous trap in chasing interconnections of fields with a surface understanding (as opposed to deep details-level understanding), because you can spend a lot of years faster than you'd think and wake up at the end with little to show for it. With the feeling that you have found something but without anything very concrete.
If you have something specific and detailed that you have questions about, I'm good at diving into details in a couple of the fields you've listed (though I'm not an expert, and I'm not always entirely immune to overconfidence either.. caveat emptor).
HOWEVER and this is important: I think you could likely avoid a lot of hardships by trying for a while to stick closer to boring ideas than breakthrough ideas, with the goal of growing enough experience to be able to see the flaw in other people's breakthrough ideas. If you can't see the mistakes other people are making, you can't see the mistakes you are (potentially) making, and this is how people fall into the trap.
Cryptographers have an important lesson & rule: anyone can invent cryptography that they can't themselves break. In cryptography, in quantum-adjacent fields, in high-energy physics, a lot of people come with breakthrough ideas and it is fascinating to see why they went wrong (if they didn't go wrong, we would be using their ideas!). This is genuinely a pattern that happens a lot, and that you really want to pay attention to. I cannot underscore how important it is to not fall into the same trap. You don't want to be a quantum 'crank', or a cryptography 'crank'. People have spent many years feeling misunderstood, and their ideas were never recognized in the end. Some have grown old with nothing. You should really ...
I do need to focus on a few (grounded and realistic) things at a time, as mentioned these topics are deep, singular topics in each of these fields take lifetimes of learning and espert experience, successes and failures. My primary focus (intruige) in regards to quantum theory has been based around the recent Nobel regarding Bell inequalities and the resulting experiments and the results. It has been something I have pondered for over a decade and have seen some co formations that I have an ability to at least ask some of the right questions with confirmational responses based on foundational and experimental research. Again realizing my own bias in truly knowing I understand these topics fully. My proposal, related to quantum physics/theory, has to do with our current perception of time, biological shortcomings in terms of synaptic delay, observation/experimentation and localization. Specifically around localization of time, i.e. Quantum clocks and superposition, perceived local time is only consciously calculated through and at the time of observation, again I'm being vague in scope, as the topic is very in depth and am limited in articulating my question fully in this format. Clocks in this regard may be extrapolated as interleaved non local waveform functions, hence my question regarding synaptic delay at the time of observation as well as measurement and how we measure, what experimental tools we utilize etc as well as relative field dynamics, elementary interaction, photon, phonon interaction, relevant things we have learned from CERN in regards to Higgs-Boson and the shortcomings of our understanding related to expected mass of particles resulting from those experements. I don't want this to get too tangential, just outlining where my current foci and interest lies in these fields. I am looking into Quiskit as a jumping off point regarding quantum computing.
Just like when people say "people are so different now; everyone's so <X>"
What bullshit. Everything is the same, except the observer's ever increasing age with respect to others.
My parents just can’t fathom the idea that I‘d do more with and for my kids than the bare minimum required. And I don’t think that’s entirely an individual change, but rather a generational one, too.
I think the trick is to design the 90% to work based on realities, not fantasies. We think that moving to bali, surfing every day, drinking coconuts and participate in ayahuasca is somewhat extraordinary or can sustain our connection to it long-term, but thats not really the case. Every place, every fantasy has a trade-off and is usually short lived.
So coming back to `present`. Its fixing our daily life that is desperately needed in order not to dream of that 2 weeks bahamas escapism. But I suppose that is what is meant here as slow life and how can we design it... unfortunately still haven't found the answer to this.
- Extensive travel to urban locations (e.g., Paris, New York, Buenos Aires, Rio, HK, Melbourne) and less traveled routes or experiences (e.g., Central Asia, Patagonia, Trans-Siberian Express). Some trips of a few days, some longer stays, 2 weeks to 2 months.
I would prefer to have 3-4 houses in strategic cities, but can do with hotels. I know a journalist, quite famous, but not quite a household name yet, who owns houses in Paris, NYC, Italy, SF.
My main house would be near a big city, maybe NYC, maybe Buenos Aires. A small compound like the one Nicolai Hel, the protagonist of the novel Shibumi, owns in the Basque Country? It's intriguing. The most intriguing house I have seen in my life was in Havana, Cuba, in the neighborhood of Vedado. Almost all open air, shades of red everywhere, light, flowy curtains separating the spaces.
- I would love to write and have my work published. Mostly not about current events, but short stories, "thoughts" about life, travel and other cultures. In magazines and periodicals, with articles and thoughts sometimes collected in a book
- I can't help but train and practice martial arts, sports or movements. This must be included in my ideal life
- I would like a main partner and a network of companions around the world.
A little more about material stuff. I would not be interested in owning cars, motorcycles, boats, watches. But I do like fine tailored clothes.
Maybe children. But would I spend 11 months at home? I doubt it.
I'm not interested in fame, I like more the idea of reinventing myself every year.
Basically, I would like to live like a nobleman of the 19th century, including the occasional archeological discovery.
It's the life of someone who just can't commit. I get the fantasy but I think the reality is hollow.
But I am sure I would have a lot of fun, as I myself am living a similar life now, though scaled down in breadth and ambition.
But making it my home base would be in the context of the life I am talking about. If I must work, like unfortunately I still have to do, Buenos Aires is a way less attractive destination for me, since not many companies are allowing remote work from down there (my company does not, although I can move freely in the US) and there is the usual visa problem. And it is also quite far away from everything, it is, geographically, similar to California, which is far away from most locations I am interested in (East Coast, Europe, Far East Asia).
I would love to hear people's stories of successes and failures!
That's it, I suppose. I can't really think of anything else.