I notice that whenever I'm catching up with people, they ask those questions. That's the general information that seems to stick with people who don't know me too well. Over the last week, I met up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in years, and those were the two main identifiers they had about me. Not bad, as far as it goes.
Still writing?
When you're chatting with someone you don't know too well, professional life is a life-saver. How's work? Though I've noticed a lot of people, when you ask them, seem to drop a bit. They're not interested in talking about work, I've noticed. Or, even worse perhaps, have nothing much to say about work. They don't find it interesting enough to carry along tidbits and when in company, seem to prefer being known by anything but their work.
I feel I'm quite lucky not to be in that boat. I love being known as a writer, even if half the time people struggle to follow or care about what I'm writing. At least I'm passionate about what I'm doing, which is a hell of a lot more than most people can say.
It's hard, talking about writing like it's work because people generally build a fairly negative dialogue around their work. It's always the boss who's a dick or the long hours or the commute or the pay or the assholes they have to deal with, if they're in more people-y professions.
I frequently get people asking me about my hours or wishing me an easy week re work. Sometimes, I go along with it. It's easier than saying I make my own hours and that while work isn't always easy, it's so freaking exciting and satisfying to me. Because then, they get this idea that it's not actual work.
How could it be work if I make my own hours and enjoy such fluidity in my material. What I work on today is seldom what I'm working on a week from now.
The work lies beyond that, I explain (though not often. I don't like to complain.). It lies in holding that fluidity in myself, in finding comfort in the not knowing, the volatility of artistic life and expression. It can be intensely satisfying, but only once you swim out past the uneasiness, the fear, the feeling like you're out in the rain, getting soaked to the bone.
Exploring Split pre-opening-drinks, looking up flights someplace else.
Still traveling?
People assume I have money when they learn how much I travel. I don't. (I'm open to donations though, if anyone out there feels like supporting my next sojourn, hit me up xD)
They do that mainly because they judge by their own city breaks or narrow holiday experiences that include expensive touristy passes and tickets to all sorts of things and restaurants and fancy hotels. I've said it many times, travel isn't excessively expensive if you budget well and don't have over-the-top expectations, which I don't.
The great wealth that allows me to travel is the loose schedule I mentioned above which would mean a loss of money for people employed in a traditional job.
"You're so lucky". I am in many, many ways. But it's not blind luck. I don't think luck just randomly falls on your shoulders. I think it's in part determined by willingness to explore. To test your boundaries and gradually expand the slice of Universe you inhabit.
You can't settle yourself in a traditional, 9-to-5, overly consumerist, white-picket-fence life and expect Fate to drop the "so lucky" card on your shoulders and whisk you away to Panama tomorrow. It does not happen that way. You make your own luck.
I'm lucky to have a family and social net that loves and supports me in my quirky explorations. I'm lucky to have had some financial breaks where I did. But I also make my own luck (to turn to a cliche expression) and the many ways in which I am lucky now are the result of ten years of exploration and fluidity in how I traverse this life.
For which I am grateful.
But of which I am also proud.
So here I am. Still traveling. Still writing. And hope to be for many moons to come.
I resonate with this so much!!! I do wish I could say writing was my profession, though. Eventually... I envy that, even though writing often feels like the most effective way to go insane sometimes. (I think I stole that from someone else and tweaked it a little to make it my own.)
I also, for the most part, enjoy my work I do now, even more so the freedom that comes with it (but not the poverty with the dry spells that accompany that freedom), and yes, that tends to make people think the work is easy. Is any work easy? Would it be work if it was? Whoever coined the expression "find a job you love and you never work a day in your life" probably never had a job they loved, or a job at all.
And the travel part, fist bump. Travel can be done very cheaply and, in my opinion, is much more gratifying without the fancy expenses. Some of my greatest travel experiences involved freezing my ass off in my car or freaking out about whatever was stomping around in the woods beyond the nylon walls of my tent.
Exactly. It's a means to an end, except so many of us are somehow tricked into making it the actual end. Weird.
Yess! I admit I haven't been so nature-y in a second, but completely relate to this. I loved dingy apartments and discovering random places outside of the "ten museums to see in wherever-the-fuck" guidebook :D
Sometimes a cafe or bar can be the best contemporary cultural museum there is!
Ahhhh the good old 'small talk' subjects. I really don't like them because it always remains so shallow and everyones non verbal communication speaks out everything.
'still a nurse?' God I hate this....
'ow you have a coaching degree as well' ...rolling eyes from the other side.
Big groups...hate them big time.
But yeah travelling with makes choices and priorities, it doesn't have to be so expensive? And also....I'd rather take a 10 vacays versus buying a flashy car, its all about priorities right?
Yeah, I'm not a group person either. For me, these subjects (on my part, at least) have been a useful way to sort out people I might want to know better. When I see the dead eyes and just trucking along attitude in someone, I just know it's unlikely we'll be close.
100%! I get the "oh travel is so expensive, you so lucky" card a lot from people who fall into the traditional buy a car, buy a flat, buy a ton of clothes schtick. Well obviously it's gonna seem expensive then :D Haven't caught up with you in a sec, but really hope you're well!!
than you make your hobby the most known thing. Still photographing, Yeah. Most people don't know what i do. And it is better that way, i would start complaining how legislators and government is f-ing us :)
Crazy to me it's just a hobby, you're very good at it.
You do realize I can't help myself here.... what do you do? :D
photography as a business in our part of the woods is pretty weird, 90% of people that can live from it are doing weddings (and other celebrations) by selling photos to guests. i am not fan of that 😁
i do photograph some parties, maybe once a month, that is how i make excuses for myself to spend money on gear 😂
bookkeeping/accounting/taxes for small businesses. So doing something "creative" on the side is a must 🤣
Me neither! Especially since it seems people expect very artificial photos to come out of these events, have you noticed that? Having seen your kind of photography, I don't see you just lining up the bridesmaids and getting them to put on a biiiig smile.
Looks to me like you've got that covered :)
by weird coincidences i stumbled into photographing 18 birthday parties some years ago and when you get into it in a small town people know you so you get called often. And it is not that serious as weddings, it is a party.
And i am happy to see that i managed to influence people to realize that those line up smile portraits will be nice in 10 years (oh look how i looked here) but those candid ones will make you smile when you see them in 10 years time.
That's really cool. Especially at that age, what kind of an authentic memory of your 18th b-day is it to just sit nicely for a portrait like they used to 100 years ago?
Definitely making your own luck. Sometimes I wish I was single again to go travelling on my own. I did love it and travelled on an absolute shoestring, largely on whims and tearing up plans and maps. Pity I love my husband really.
Go you - keep writing, keep travelling. Someone's gotta do it.
We resonate on a deep level, my dear <3 Maybe we have a coffee someday, when you're back in Europe (or who knows where really). I'd love that. Thank you for this sweet lovely comment, it was precisely what I needed. <3
And hey, it's a great fortune to have someone wishing to travel with you as you do with hubby. It's different than solo travel for sure, but still a treasure.
a free schedule is freedom and it's really cool for those people who are able to organize themselves and work systematically, but it's also a more difficult path. because regular work with fixed hours, although people complain, is an easier way in terms of the fact that they do not need to organize themselves, the boss does it for them. but people who were able to adjust freestyle work successfully, this is respect for me
Yeah! Travel Travel ....
A quick hello from wonderful Zanzibar
Hello lovely! Hope Zanzibar is as lovely as you hoped (it certainly looks it!).
In this country people are glad that you are no longer working in your profession and yes, in a better paid place... so you meet an old acquaintance and the most common thing is to ask first of all if you continue working in the same place, and in the worst case we are glad because even a doctor left the hospital to go to work in a restaurant or any other place, today success is about that, to abandon what you love because you have to eat.
In my case, I have a serious problem, I take very seriously what I am passionate about, whether it is my profession or not, and that has been very beneficial because it has allowed me to develop other skills, and it has also allowed me to survive, so I rectify, it is not a problem, I have obtained a new evolutionary defense mechanism.
Traveling has not been my strong side, I admit that I have limited myself by not having your philosophy of life.... I have been a little demanding.... and if I had not been I would have gone a little further, although each country has its own traveling culture, people like it and need some time to do it even so I can do it better by my own effort and with a more minimalist vision.
So be proud to live doing things you are passionate about and continue to travel under your own expectations.
🌻
Really? That's beautiful to hear, I'm really glad there's more people applauding that escape from unhappiness to pursue a more fulfilling life. Maybe there's still hope for thins little world of ours.
I am proud and I'm happy always to read a comment from you, my dear. <3 Abrazos!
Well, the truth is that although people are happy that a doctor leaves his job to improve his life economically, it is sad for everyone because we lose a lot of qualified personnel in hospitals, it is an emergency that this country has .... because we suffer from what is socially called the Inverted Pyramid, where a person who works as a waiter in a private restaurant earns more than a doctor, whether he is a specialist or not ..... Maybe it is something complicated but it is more or less as I explain.
It is painful for all of us.
Your reflection is powerful and honest! Luck is often birthed from our choices and the risks we take, rather than waiting for one. Also, it's awesome you have built a life exploring and having to adapt. It's nice you are proud of what you have built.
Still writing... Not yet traveling...
Tough luck😂😂
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