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!
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.
The difference now is I sit by a fire in a field watching the moon, typically with a mug of tea or a glass of red wine, listening to the deer and the crickets until the baying of the coyotes gets too close, giving deep consideration to questions pertaining to reason and existence. Then I write them as glib comments on HN. I can do anything I want, and yet still I do this. It's really pretty good. I highly recommend it. Stop dreaming and just change.
- 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;
- 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.
Working a job where I make the decisions rather than implementing someone else’s poorly made decisions. Spending time with my friends regularly. Dancing with my kids and showing them all the fun things there are to do.
I have little interest in reading or writing. Rather spend it making something with my hands, playing with kids, or spending time with my wife.
All of these things looked very possible about a year ago. Now they’re looking extremely distant now that I’m divorced, penniless (lost 90% of NW), and generally looking like it’s not going to change anytime soon.
Buy an acre close by to grow vegetables on to eat and share, I'll do this after I pay off my mortgage.
Exercise more, I'm lazy and I'm trying to get up earlier to exercise and play video games before my wife and daughter wake up.
Do a 4 day work week to spend more time growing vegetables.
I'd love to figure out what area of the technology stack I enjoy most, for now I'm a full stack engineer looking into backend engineering as a primary focus. Not systems level, but business logic level, and not frontend I'm a "that's good enough" guy, not a perfectionist. I'm learning Go.
Other than that I'm good I think. My work compensation vs responsibilities are perfect right now, I don't want a promotion. I like where I live, close to both of our families, hospitals, schools, and entertainment. Weather could be better but it's not the worst.
I’d like to be able to work as a computer scientist doing research based on my interests. I’d also like to be able to work on open source projects. I also want to occasionally teach part-time at a university, teaching courses in programming languages, AI, and operating systems. I’d like to do these things in such a way where there are no “publish-or-perish” pressures.
Right now I’m figuring out how to make this happen before I get too old to enjoy it; I’m in my early 30s.
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
I’ve been loving studying Ancient Rome. At the very least I’d like more time just to tear through the growing shelves of books I’ve bought aspirationally. Maybe I’d try to do a D.Phil one day but I suspect that would be stressful and pure vanity.
Ultimately I just want to eliminate stress. I think I still have a couple of startups left in me after this one but I’d love to pursue them as projects in my own time, the primary aim being my own curiosity not other people’s demands.
After getting burnt out in tech startups 3 times I made a change. Sold 95% of our worldly possessions in order to have the flexibility to live anywhere. I get to spend my days drawing, writing, creating info products, and helping people get unstuck.
Sometimes all we need to do is look at what we have, figure out what we want, and get rid of the rest.
That's it, I suppose. I can't really think of anything else.
Nothing against plans and visions but the hollywod-esque "dream" is not good.
Tonight we will feast and be merry! Tomorrow we die!
Less pain is always good to have but that aside I want to do what I want now. I may slip on banana or something and die tomorrow, it isn't guaranteed so why spend time dreaming of it when I am living now and today? The me in the future might want different things than me now as well.
Day dreaming is for children. Life, now, is for adults.
- Geographical autonomy: living in places for 2-3 months (usually when tourist visa expires). Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, Portugal and moving around every quarter. Stay longer if the country allows and it feel incredible there. (I'll never have enough of burrata).
- Working part-time: I still love the sense of community within healthy environments and common goal. I think its an invaluable experience when 10-15 smart people come around and try to achieve a shared goal. The energy is addictive. Unfortunately this has been taken into the extreme and exploited by many companies but I had this experience once, going from 0-1 with a bunch of great people, becoming profitable and never looking back again.
- Tinkering the other half of the time: creative exploration is something that I believe everyone should do. In my case I want to be spending my free time on activities such as learning to code, writing, designing, non-profit activities, volunteering, teaching etc.
- Be close to physical activities: whether its an ocean with surfing waves or a snowy slope for snowboarding and skiing, these environments enable to do other things aside of going to the gym. For instance in Singapore it's common to play basketball/tennis with friends so enables to do more fun physical exercise in groups. Germany has the same with football.
- Be part of a good community: whether its physical exercise, mens health, indiepreneurs or just a supportive network of people all tackling similar issues in life and at the same stage.
- Have one proper home and one summer escape location: if I would every own a home, that would be an emotional purchase and always something to come back to.
- Be close to my folks or at least have an option that doesn't take 16 hours: I live on the other part of the world and after 3 years of covid it made me kind of sick to think that I spent 7 days out of 1000 with my family.
These will obviously change, I noticed that we constantly re-invent ourselves every 6-10 years given that one path closes and another starts based on our interests and curiosities.
I guess thats it, funny when always thinking about it - the above seems quite realistic without the need of a $1B exit outcome. I guess humble beginnings kind of ground the expectations and if it sounds unambitious, it would be amazing enough for me. Different person, different story I guess...
A planet that isn't abused and sucked dry for old fashioned resources. Care given and respected rather than for profit.
Harmony where conflict is low and that those with the riches always don't win.
Where corruption is tackled and the criminals who sought the most extreme crimes are punished to the full extent.
It’s a realistic scenario if we find good income that can be done remotely.
I would love to hear people's stories of successes and failures!
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/