Calling all travelers: making money on the road

[AH]

Florida is a great state. I have fond memories of Bahia Honda and some extended stays in the Glades. Seeing a gator in the wild had been one of those bucket list things, and I was lucky enough to watch one up close on an old service road bridge that crossed a creek, just watching this 12-footer lazily chase some minnows. Amazing.

The panhandle and gulf coast is underrated too, the national seashores and white sand. Probably the only place where I’ve had a beach to myself as far as the eye can see.

I’d wholeheartedly recommend spending time in Ireland. I had an almost psychedelic experience on the shores of Dingle looking out across the Atlantic. Not to mention the people. Probably the first place I visited where I felt as though I belonged.

If your ancestry is tied to a place, and you venture back there— especially as an American, it can awaken something in the blood.

Check out John Ford’s The Quiet Man. It’s a classic.

[onthebannedwagon]

@AH

had an almost psychedelic experience on the shores of Dingle

I had such a magical evening at a pub in Dingle with my Mom. Felt like it was the only place in town and I was in an episode of Ballykissangel. What an amazing place, hope it hasn’t suffered from over development since.

[thermionic]

@Not_DIV1N

I may be from Florida but I will admit one of my favorite things here is seeing the bright blinding sun fade away, eclipsed by dark clouds to bring life sustaining rains.

As someone who got quite far away from FL, you should probably also visit Washington, very lovely in the summertime.

[RhythmDroid]

Greetings. Thank you for sharing so vulnerably and honestly.

I’m going to offer you some advice that won’t answer your immediate question, but hopefully will answer a bigger one.

Nobody has explained my inner turmoil for 2 decades as good as you just have above–and I desperately wish I had been able to explain it to the right people back when I was your age.

Here’s what I can tell you: the “discipline” you seek comes less from what it is that you’re doing, but more from developing a ROUTINE which allows you the peace of mind to not get lost in your (obviously powerful) ability to fantasize about all the other things you have the capacity to excel at.

For some people - probably quite a few here in this forum - doing something with your hands is not merely “more interesting”, but actually a method of survival. If I didn’t have the ability to regularly escape my thinking mind by creating something with my hands, I wouldn’t be here today. I would have self-cancelled long ago.

I have to leave for work so I’ll have to be a bit brief. It’s not what you do, it’s that you design your day so that you maintain a state of peace as you transition into what you’re doing. For me, getting in my little car and going to the same outdoor cafe and with only pencil and watercolors saved my life - it created a momentum that propelled me past the all-destroying tsunami of “what should I be doing with my life” thoughts.

I would say keep life as simple as you can while you begin to start putting the magnifying glass of routine and sequence to the paper of your time and burning in some growth in your skills and competence. Make it more complex only after you’ve got a SOLID rhythm of doing something every day that brings value in the marketplace. You don’t necessarily need to “live out in the country” but just recognize what the secret utility of it is for you (apart from the fact that nature is grounding, healing, and nourishing, and anchoring).

And a bit about your original question:

I would cap-off the seasonal job thing at around age 32–UNLESS you’ve got a couple years of hard evidence by that point that it is a viable way to earn a good living and you can integrate it into a bigger plan. I didn’t want a family at age 25, but now I’m 41 and lonely+broke because I didn’t take the steps early on to realistically project how my professional choices now would impact my financial future.

Anyway good luck. It IS possible to live outside “the system”…but you have to commit to being somewhat systematic in your experiments in doing so.

[RhythmDroid]

@brisket

I’d avoid the English teaching route unless you’re prepared to get a proper qualification. It’s a crappy industry.

1000% true.

[onthebannedwagon]

I’m in my 40s and lived “outside the system” for the vast majority of my adult life. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone especially in 2023.

[Not_DIV1N]

The internet is the prime tool for this these days.

[RhythmDroid]

@Not_DIV1N

I’d prefer a world where success is not getting a college degree and working at Twitter doing 30 minutes of work per week and having 4 hour coffee breaks on expensive rooftops and then getting a massage. If that’s modern success, I don’t want it.

hahahah exactly! I love all the following things individually, but in a workplace context, the endless massages, kombucha on tap, matcha breaks, yoga classes and quiet rooms are all morality massages–delicious distractions to keep employees so comfortable that they remain far from considering to consider the sheer havoc their abstract little social media job is actually doing, on an aggregate level, to society, our institutions, and mental health. Our collective Jiminy Cricket is hooked on the opioid of workplace comforts.

[RhythmDroid]

@Not_DIV1N

We’ve ancient brains disconnected from ancient tradition, work, and now liberals are canceling people on the platforms they control, quieting voices, shoving ideologies down our throats if we don’t conform to how they want us, telling consumers they’re the problem for buying something instead of holding the producers accountable, are willing to sacrifice the poor of today by squeezing them off the cliffs of economic disparity to “save the planet”, so they can save a hypothetical future populous formed by a theoretical worldview that they’ve convinced themselves is scientifically correct.

[RhythmDroid]

@DIV1NITAL

This, I believe, is why mental illness is so rampant.

Yes. We are all, here in the 1st world, trying to understand the definition of a “meaningful life” viewing it through the warped lens of the (evolutionarily instant) huge increase in material productivity and microdivision of labor and the resulting tsunami of goods and services we swim in. All these factors distort our ability to connect what we do each day with how that impacts the life of others and how we perceive our connection to others. The talking heads say that society is better of without institutions of regular spiritual gathering and shared purpose–while ironically decrying that “consumerism is our new religion.” We kept the church, just changed the sermon.

[thermionic]

@DIV1NITAL

This, I believe, is why mental illness is so rampant.

A mote of truth amongst the populist rhetoric in that “mental illness” is overbroadly defined by society, in persons being ill-fitted to the strict mindset designed to exploit us alongside the systems of control used to enforce that capitalist mindset and the wealth disparity it optimizes for.

Some of us definitely need more opportunities to use our hands and bodies in ways that don’t break us, for some measure of satisfaction in life.

@RhythmDroid

The talking heads say that society is better of without institutions of regular spiritual gathering and shared purpose–while ironically decrying that “consumerism is our new religion.”

A society that can only promote individualism will always blame the individual for the orchestrated outcome of a society. That’s why we need a collective responsibility for taking care of ours, because there are literally no superheroes in politics or reality, hero worship is a distraction from reality.

[RytmMASCHINE]

@ Not_DIV1N

Apparently, flagging and cancelling is quite fast here, too.

[RhythmDroid]

@thermionic

A society that can only promote individualism will always blame the individual for the orchestrated outcome of a society.

I hear you there. I agree those are connected. I wouldn’t say any current society is entirely “only able to promote individualism”…it’s about the ebb and flow of the relationship between focus on the individual vs. on the collective - across various aspects of society. The momentum toward individualism was exponential thanks to the enlightenment, industrial revolution, the free market, etc. But the counterbalancing effect of collectivist social institutions needs all the help it can get, even in the form of spiritual institutions, which are not all, by default, catalysts of individualism - wouldn’t you say?

@thermionic

there are literally no superheroes in politics or reality, hero worship is a distraction from reality.

no, there are no superheroes. But no ideology, collectivist or individualist, has anything of value to add unless it can outline what “good behavior in a human being” is. And how does it illustrate that without exemplifying a human, ficticious or not, who embodies that set of behaviors? Mid-century propaganda figures of big chested Soviet or Chinese men in the fields or ironworks are still superheroes, because they’re embodiments of ideal behaviors to aim for.

[malus_mons]

Can you still make a good amount of cash trimming weed? That’s how it used to work. Not sure anymore

[thermionic]

@RhythmDroid

I wouldn’t say any current society is entirely “only able to promote individualism”

Societal strata developing in large States, not small pockets of community and mutual aid.

@RhythmDroid

spiritual institutions, which are not all, by default, catalysts of individualism

I mean, it’s all a grab bag of ideology.

Spiritual institutions that back these large powers do.

Spiritual institutions on the whole? Not necessarily, but those who do not are not numbered, monetarily blessed or particularly powerful in any sense. They mostly get crushed under boot, or develop into something of a more militarized cult.

@RhythmDroid

But no ideology, collectivist or individualist, has anything of value to add unless it can outline what “good behavior in a human being” is. And how does it illustrate that without exemplifying a human, ficticious or not, who embodies that set of behaviors?

Without getting too Adam Curtis in a thread referencing Florida, I think it’s pretty interesting how we can call forth visions of Soviet Realism in art and creativity but we are sold versions of the same superheroic “realism” through cultural product.

Of course there will be an “ideal” and ideals are not bad to keep in mind, models are useful but the ideas were not saviors, and it is not one single person’s fault if the stars align against them, and it will not be up to one person to save us and blame when they can’t do it all themselves.

[onthebannedwagon]

Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.

[thermionic]

If only!

[wouzer]

I live in nijmegen

[Blasted_pingin]

@Not_DIV1N

things that you don’t go to college for: traditional woodworking, blacksmithing, luthiery (building flamenco guitars), permaculture

Lucky you, these are precisely precious assets for someone who wants to travel.

I do travel (in India atm) and i met people doing all kinds of jobs on the road. IMHO it boils down to what stimulates you and who you meet, which opportinities you take, being social enough, etc.
For that you need to move out of your town first and the redt will follow.
Very rarely someone will come at your doors to give you opportunities. Same goes with having a plan and applying it in real life. They have a sentence i like here:“if you wanna make God laugh, tell them your plan”.

As an example, a guy i met who never travelled before took some basic tools with him and went to Indonesia. He proposed to fix some dodgy stuff in the guesthouse he was in and soon had too much job to handle it

[alexwasashrimp]

@Blasted_pingin

As an example, a guy i met who never travelled before took some basic tools with him and went to Indonesia. He proposed to fix some dodgy stuff in the guesthouse he was in and soon had too much job to handle it

I wish I had thought of that when I was younger. Sounds like a great way to spend an year. Maybe even two years.