Thanks for the input everyone; this is highly relevant to what I’m facing, and it’s been valuable. I left Google in March and I’ve been romancing with a few companies but I’m increasingly realizing that I don’t want another job. Savings are decent so we could entirely abandon income but we’d have to scale back the lifestyle a bit. Which might not be bad. I’ve actually been working like a madman these last few months on nifty privacy and crypto stuff, and plan to keep on doing it; just need to find someone who’ll pay me for doing this… How much I care about that, and how much about not scaling back the lifestyle; well, we’ll find about that.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 3:45 AM, Kingsley Jegan Joseph <k...@kingsley2.com> wrote: > What a great thread. I pretty much agree with Udhay's definition of > retirement, as primarily freedom to do what you want, without intolerable > financial consequences. Some thoughts: > > *Freedom vs Spontaneity*: Since my teens, I've done whatever I felt like > doing (and been lucky enough to make a living from it). That's led me on a > fun ride through fashion, sociology, online & social media marketing, game > design and now cupcake retail. But the granularity of freedom determines > how spontaneous you can be. Building a company or a consulting practice may > be exactly what you want to do, but that basically kills your day-to-day > spontaneity. Want to go skydiving tomorrow? Tough luck, you have a client > and a deadline. I think it's important to acknowledge that the granularity > of your freedom affects the capacity for spontaneity. If you choose > spontaneity, you have to deal with the fact you may not be able to truly > build anything of value, lasting or otherwise (unless you're Banksy, I > guess). > > It's pretty important to decide if you want freedom or > spontaneity/serendipity. It seems to me that spontaneity is more expensive > than freedom, so you'd have to be pretty sure you want that. > > > *Boredom & Flow*: I've post-hoc realised that almost all the things I've > chosen to do are capable of producing flow states (Flow, by Mihaly > Csikszentmihalyi, good read). Essentially, it should be something that > needs escalating levels of skills matched to escalating levels of > challenge. Activities that are conducive to flow states also tend to be > things that require a time commitment (since increasing skill levels are > important), which again impacts spontaneity. I've seen many people choose > something they think they're passionate about, and either get very bored of > it, or turn it into a job that is all about the money. I believe that this > happens because, for a beginning writer or a photographer, there isn't a > clear way of telling if you're really getting better at something or not. > One of the reasons I like business, which I treat as a creative endeavour, > is that you know how you're doing very quickly. > > > *Financials*:My theory is that *rent* is a very good cost-of-living & > inflation-adjusted source of cashflow, especially if it comes from the kind > of apt/home you want to live in. We've managed to work & invest ourselves > into a position where we own 2 small apartments. Living in one and renting > the other out gives us an adequate base level of freedom. A combination of > downsizing lifestyle, healthy retirement savings that we can't touch till > we're 60 (401k), insurance and some liquid cash provide for the future and > some emergency buffer. Not enough to travel much yet, but we're working on > it :) > > > PS Re Silk Smitha: When my wife, Divya, met Udhay Shankar for the first > time, her first question was "I've been waiting to ask you this, but is > there a Smita on Silklist?" and it flew right over him. Tch tch. > > Kingsley Joseph > -- - Tim Bray (If you’d like to send me a private message, see https://keybase.io/timbray)
