introduce one's self to Hive initiative... I was in the mood for a bit of self-reflection...Thanks to the most excellent @anomadsoul, @ocd and @blocktrades for putting together this
Who are you?
I'm Karl - A pretty ordinary bloke by Hive standards, but probably regarded as crazy by by most normal people, a feeling which is mutual, as I think the life of the 'ordinary worker-consumer' is insane.
It'll probably be a while 'til my beard's looking this sharp, now all the barbers are shut!
What I mean by 'insane' is that it simply isn't rational to work 40 or more hours a week for 50 years in a job you probably don't enjoy in order to fund a high consumption life-style: the house with the spare bedroom, the car, the holidays abroad, the Domino's Pizzas, you know what I mean.
Far better to break the chain, to decolonise your lifeworld and go live a low consumption, low-income, self-reliant lifestyle.
As far as I'm concerned the sane people on this planet are the van dwellers, the eco-village builders, the monks and such like.
It's taken me 16 years of full-time work to be able to break said chain, and I'm just about in a position now to be able to trade my car in for a van, do a conversion, head to Portugal, buy some land and just live.
Before Covid-19 I had planned to spend April-July gradually tarting up my house so I can rent it out, and doing the van conversion, and then head off for Portugal in August. Now, I'm still going to try and stick to this schedule, but obviously I may have to delay the move abroad.
A lot of what I'll be talking about in the coming months will be focused on this transition.
What Have I been up to the last few years?
Most of my working life I've spent as a Sociology teacher (16-19), although I didn't start full time work until I was 28 and only worked full time for 16 years, all in the same college in Surrey until 2018 when I quit, an act enabled by my blog (revisesociology.com) having grown sufficiently to being me in a 'survivable income'.
Key to this was reading an excellent book in 2014 called 'Early Retirement Extreme' by Jacob Lund Fisker. He basically advocated saving 90% of your income and spending 10% rather than the norm which is the other way around.
Think about it - if you can live off 10% of your income and save 90%, that means you will save enough in one year to keep you going for 9 years, so in that model, it's about 5 years to retirement.
Now obviously, most of us can't manage that, but the key idea is live frugally so you can get as close to that 90-10 saved-spend ratio as possible - from 2015 - 2017 I managed around a 60-40 ratio, and after three years of that, with around £40K in the bank and with the blog income looking good I quit work in August 2018.
Sometime in 2017 I bought my first BTC, can't remember how much for - it was in the low thousands I think - me and the database manager at work were the only people in a workplace of 200 who had any crypto. I remember the looks we used to give each other at break times during that insane moon period at the end of 2017 - several hundred pounds richer at lunch compared to morning coffee break on some days. I didn't buy that much BTC, it was always a hedge.
I diversified into a load of alts too, in retrospect this was a terrible idea where most of them were concerned - I should have just held the BTC, except that one of those alts was the token for that blockchain that shall not be named.
How I found that blockchain was thanks to a chance encounter in Sainsbury's with an old neighbour - we were just catching up, he mentioned was into BTC, I'd just bought some, I mentioned my sociology blog, which was doing really well in mid 2017, and he mentioned that social media blogging platform, that shall not be named.
I went home that very evening and signed up, and got blogging - mainly about Early Retirement Extreme in those early days, and I did OK! Met loads of nice people, attended a couple of the Festivals - SF3 and 4, and then migrated here, more of that laters.
At the end of 2018 I moved from Surrey to Hereford, swapping a flat for a house and taking £60K off my mortgage in the process, and spent most of the following year blogging on WP and that blockchain that shall not be named.
In 2019 I picked up a part-time job doing AET courses in the Midlands, South West of the UK, thanks to an old colleague from Surrey. Nice to get a job on the nod, I must say, and that's been me for the last 18 months TBH - working two very part time jobs, which only take about 10-15 days a month between them, and life's pretty easy.
Too easy - I didn't quit teaching to well, teach, which is what I seem to have ended up doing! So now I'm looking to properly transition to a crazy low-impact, low-fiat eco-lifestyle in Portugal.
One thing about moving to Hereford - it's very nice and peaceful here, but quite isolated and I don't really have a social circle - that's still in Surrey and Kent - so I think it's time to move on.
Having said that I did have a very nice chat with my neighbour this morning - one upside of Covid-19 I guess, which hasn't really affected Hereford that much at all, we're right at the bottom of the infection league tables, another advantage of being isolated.
What are you doing on Hive..?
I started off posting about what I call the 'insanity of normality' - posts about how a lot of what we do as part of our ordinary lives is really sub-optimal - such as high levels of consumption, being distracted by social media, watching crap T.V. and so on.
I've been posting more recently about eco-villages and possible alternative lifestyles I might get into, and am very enthusiastic about the ecovillages.io project that @eco-alex and others are initiating, hoping to lend a hand with that from August, if I can get out to Portugal. If not August, it'll happen at some point!
I tend to have a crack at the @eco-train question of the week, most weeks, I like that initiative, and I tend to like most things that fall under the @tribesteemup tag, although the account name needs a refresh - a lot of the stuff posted there is about alts, and critical of 'society as usual'.
I also like posting about self-tracking - I'm a bit obsessive about tracking my income, expenditure and wealth as part of my drive to early retirement, although I might give that a rest for a while because I don't want to look at the value of my shares, I'll come back to those in 2022 maybe?!?
I do also enjoy posting about Hive itself - ever since the Fork away from the blockchain that shall not be named I think it's important for all of us to reflect on what we want Hive to be, what the meaning of decentralisation is and how that 80 odd million Hive in the development fund should be used - go vote for your projects NOW!
I'll probably also be doing some writing for 'Hive onboarding' or whatever we're going to brand it, in the coming months, once it's up and running.
I've also got more and more into Splinterlands recently and I post a couple of times a week now under that community - got my first max level summoner now, and I enjoy the game, and as an investment it's held up really well.
I also do a weekly running update, I love to run.
Other stuff I enjoy on Hive include downvoting shit posts, @abh12345's engagement leagues, once they commence proper as I'm sure they will, and @detlev's Beer Saturday, among a whole load of other things!
Final thoughts
Well that's me, see you around the chain, and remember, death and grieving aside, Covid-19 presents many of us with a unique opportunity to 'break the chain', make the most of this next period of yer life off work, if that's you!
A good post with lots of valuable links, ohh did you put your head on upside down?
Welcome aboard! I'm putting in my votes purely out of respect for that beard 🧔!
Hey cheers!
Err yeah, best not to look at those for a while! Crypto could be more fun to watch, hopefully!
Good to see you and the mighty beard on Hive!
Yes the crypto is keeping the old spirits up!
Hopefully a few million Americans will spend some of their fake money on it!
Nice to meet you Karl! Happy to find out about your story :)
Hey thanks! Happy to be here!
60-40 ratio of savings is hard to achieve, one has to be very determined to do that. And I think, you should not quit teaching because you can enlighten others with your knowledge and I consider that as a gift which very few have.
It was a stretch at times...
I still teach, just not for 'the man'!
Awesome introduction. I'm cross posting into my Introduce Yourself community! 😀
Whats the essence of this intro when you have been an old dude in this side of the earth? Just asking. Maybe or maybe not I get an answer. I like your style men and you have patience with your beards.
Welcome and Hive on dude.
yo Karl. Ive been interested in eco-alex's project as well. Would love to go and visit sometime! Maybe see you out there one day? Love the intro man x
Hey - it is a great project, it'd be great to see you there!
Thanks for reading, it was a handy initiative, I was in the mood for something like this!
Very nice and interesting intro, it's always great to get to know HIVE people a little bit better. :)
Hey thanks! I enjoyed writing that!
Hi Karl,
Welcome abroad.
Glad to see your interests!
Hey, nice to meet you, Cheers!
happy to have you here! :)
Hey cheers!
Hi Karl, cross my fingers to see you soon going to Portugal...
...love to stop by for a beer sometimes.
Cheers!
You'd be very welcome indeed!
Bienvenido... Excelente tu presentación... Dios te bendiga grandemente.
Y si, los mejores Locos somos los cuerdos viviendo en un Mundo de Locuras y Consumismo Masivo...
Me encanto tu manera de denotar las cosas.
Vamos a la carga, con tu barba y sin ella (es tu mejor manera de decidir vivir, ser feliz y eso merece respeto, tolerancia y aprender que todos somos de diferentes características), pararueda siga Girando... En esta nueva era de las crypto y si con Hive.blog haremos la diferencia...
Felicidades... Éxitos!!!🙏😇
Yes, here's to a low-consumption future!
Cheers!
Your beard attracted me to read your post. I'll check out your blog about sociology soon.
Welcome aboard!
Hey cheers, nice to meet you!
tons of great link in there, brutha!
Welcome to the hive family and community
Nice beehive disguised as a beard 😜