At the risk of sounding like a broken record—Record? What's a record?—I'd like to send you a Stalking the Wild Dik-Dik postcard if you don't already have one.Drop me a line with your mailing address and I'll send you a postcard. marie -at symbol- mariejavins -dot-com. (I am not organized enough to keep all your addresses so you won't get any more junk mail from me.)
New people stumble over this blog every day. Some of them hang around. Most of them stumble off.
A blog is a strange way to talk to people. I do it for the discipline, so that I'm writing something every day. And also for the material--some of you may have noticed the blog items that sneaked off this blog and into the Dik-Dik story of being in Africa. But blogging also gives me a stilted e-life, where most people are reading what I have to say and I don't know what they have to say or who they are.
I like to think that I've interacted with most regular readers here, but I know there are a few who I haven't e-talked to. So if you don't want a postcard, but still read, please drop me a hello or salaam or shalom anyway.
8 comments:
As a financial advisor I think in terms of pesion plans and saving for retirement. I am curious about different lifestyles and points of view, such as those of yourself and Ed Ward. Do you think of the distant future? Does footloose flexibility include the idea of a Kibble diet, and do youz not find that frightening? As one of the salarymen "piners for retirement", as Ed would say, I'd value your insights.
Me again. I am now reading Dark Star Safari by Theroux. Why do y'all travel up and/or down the East coast of Africa. How about a trip up or down the West coast?
I cannot speak for Mr. Theroux, though perhaps it had to do with wanting to revisit Uganda where he'd lived as a Peace Corps vounteer many years ago, but for me, this was one leg of a romp around the world. And in 2001, there were a few big white-out areas across West Africa that you could not go through due to wars or visa issues. If you view itineraries of commercial overland trucks, you'll see that they too have to overfly huge sections in the west and center of Africa.
Keep reading, and you'll find that I'm planning to go from London to Cape Town by West Africa next time. There are still a few tricky bits--but Congo is no longer off-limits, and I hope that I can get an Angolan visa. I might be able to sail around areas that I can't get a visa for.
The life of a freelancer is not without sacrifices, and one of those sacrifices is financial security. I know people my age and older who are horrified because they are still squeaking by, barely able to pay their rent much less plan for retirement. What will they do? How will they pay their bills?
Freedom, as they say, is another word for nothing left to lose.
But this isn't my discussion, because while I started out with nothing, I rolled my $401k over into an IRA, I have the condo proceeds in a high-interest account and I come out ahead by renting. I have health insurance.
Let's hear from the freelancers in the "Look Ma, No hands" department on the game of chicken involved in life on the edge. Not from me. I have too many backup plans to speak sincerely. Yeah, I earned the backup plans fair and square. But they are in place, so it would be BS for me to pretend I'm living quite as dangerously as it seems.
Thanks for the info x 2. You are living smart, and sometimes with some danger too. Better that than the alternative of living dumb and dangerous. There is a book in there should you choose to explore it. I salute you!
Wait... there's a book in how to live on the edge without giving up things like the ability to retire one day?
Hadn't ever thought of that...
I'll buy that book! I'm a poster child for the invested-and-insured freelancing lifestyle. The living on the edge stuff? Not so much. Teach us, sensei.
Loved your original "around the world" blog and recently got the book. Good luck on next trip. Don't get out of the states much, but I'm enjoying living vicariously through your's and other's travels.
CB
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