How many people here want to be a "bum"

clicker said:
If it were fun it wouldn't be call it work.
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Many years ago I worked with a company called KREAB (as far as I recall, Kreativ Information AB). This was their company's guiding premise:

Whatever you do, do it excellently. If you don't do it excellently, it won't be fun, and it won't be profitable. If you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you in business for?

Cheers,

Roger
 
The last thing you want to take to your grave is regrets. I offer young people two bits of advice. Don't settle down until you've been up and don't waste your youth, it only lasts for a short time and middle age much longer. I spent 7 years travelling in the '70's and don't regret one minute. I also believe if the best time of your life isn't right now, it's time to change something. If you left the bank for a couple of years to bum around then came back would you be the same person?. Go for it.
 
You can go to Nebraska and dump off your kids and they have to take them, then kick out the wife.
 
I had a friend in NY back in the 80's who did it right. She worked as a corporate lawyer for a year, then took three off. Lived in a tiny apartment, but lived every minute. By the time the money ran out she was ready to enjoy the work again. Looked like a completely different person- I suppose she was a pretty different person for that year, but it worked out great for her. I certainly saw the logic in this approach, working my assisting jobs and not having much money. But I didn't have the foresight or the brain to go to law school.

When I lived in NM I would work from April to October, then take the winter for photography. I've spent most of my life without a regular job, and those have all been part time. I've also gone without a lot of things many people take for granted (like indoor plumbing or electricity) for stretches. You gotta be happy. I guess by your definition I've always been a bum!
 
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Living as a poor traveling artist gets old real fast. In fact the first thing to go is the art. Survival becomes more satisfying than makes things that dont seem to matter nearly as much as some heating.

And you'll start thinking, why cant I get a nice normal job like evreyone else, and then I can do pictures in my spare time and still live like a human!

This idea will hit you with the force of genius.

Unless you are truly stubborn and then you will end up going halfway in both directions and end up working for real estate agents taking pictures of houses for sale for next to nothing, and you ll tell yourself, its STILL photography...
And then you 'll meet a girl. She love the art stuff, until it gets in the way of you getting a real job becasue you both need money, and then you'll end up working at the bank again and watching CSI shows on TV and playing the kids playstation just to stop yourself from thinking nights....

These are dangerous thoughts compadre. Do you need to have a crap job to do some good pictures? Whats stopping you making some decent money while you do the same thing? Whats the difference?
The troubel with being poor is you cannot afford to do anything. Even take photo's.
 
talent

talent

No, I dont think so. Talent is highly overrated. Lots of people have talent....


What Im driving at is that this concept is a fantasy, and like most fantasy's they are generally - for most people - better off staying as one.
Once again what wrong with being a bougoise middle class banker while you get your 'art' sorted out? Einstein used to work in the Patent office as a clerk.

Does one really have to be poor and wander the earth having adventures? I have wandered the Earth and I have been poor and have found not much to recommend either.
 
Well back in my traveling days, (most of the 1990s) I got by on teaching english and other odd jobs overseas for many years and certainly didnt live like a bum, but I didnt stay at the ritz carlton either, which was fine with me, A nice Guesthouse or a sparsely furished apt was fine. I never went hungry, just the oppisite I ate some of the best ethnic food around (chinese Thai indian etc..) for pennies. Food you have to pay 10-15.00 a meal for here in the states!! I took many fantastic photographs along the way, some of these images are my best sellers. I also met a number of other liong term travelers, one ex english professor had been traveling for 15 years, another traveler had been on the road for 18 years! So it can be done, and done well, and without living like a bum! But if you have kids, which is not clear, consider working overseas, some companies will pay for most of your movihg expenses. A friend of mine did so with his family in China for a two years. if your not ready to move the whole family, stick to short vacations and take early retirement if you can afford too.... Bon Voyage! - Michael
 
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Interesting how there's a polarization here between 'You can't do it' and 'You can do it'.

Of course there are variables we don't know -- children, marital status -- but the simple truth is that a lot of people have done it, or are still doing it, and are/have been both successful and happy, so it can't be impossible. Of those who say it can't be done, I suspect that there are quite a few reasons for their assertions:

1 They are unable or unwilling to live up to the and pay for it clause in 'Take what you want, and pay for it, saieth the Lord', in the sense of e.g. fitted kitchens, central heating and new cars.

2 They are congenitally afraid of doing anything unusual, and so have never tried it

3 They have tried it, and been unlucky

4 They have tried it but (as Fred suggests) are so talentless and uncommitted to photography that there is no point

5 They don't see why anyone would do it, cf Carlsen's "I have wandered the earth and . . . not found much to recommend [it]' This is the exact opposite of my own experience.

As my wife and I grow older, several things get in the way of our travelling, especially her health: if it weren't for that, we might well be living in India now. But otherwise, we both love to travel as much as we can afford, and so we do. As I said in an earlier post, we've always had a base (like most of the people I know who've done this for years) because it's much easier to earn money from a fixed base and because it's a good place to rest between trips. But it's a rare year that we're not on the road for at least 2 months, and our record in one tax year was 7 months.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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I came to think of Hemingway and 'the Lost Generation' (Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald, etc.) Americans who 'freaked off' after WWI and lived classical bohemian lives in Paris. Well, Hemingway was supposedly a war correspondent, covering the Greco-Turkish war - from an expensive hotel bar in Paris. - What 'bum' life!

Things were a bit different back then. For the value - in dollars, for a well written, but heavily biased newpaper article, you could stay a few months at 'The Ritz'. Today, you can't even cover the bill of getting drunk in the bar.
 
oney

oney

I am being unnecessarily negative I know. Ignore me. I am using sleight of hand to try and confuse the side of me that would stow away in your combi van when you go....
I do understand entirely, perhaps too well, sometimes I get bright ideas myself...really brilliant ones, usually to do with going exploring....
I dont really like the travelling itself though, meanign the part that Roger likes - being "on the road". I like going somewhere and staying and exploring it and living there. Constantly on the hop from place to place goes against my grain.
Still there are exceptions. I was in Suva for less than an hour before I had a rifle pointed at me, been swindled and then mistakenly picked up by the police for something I didnt do. I was ready to go after that....
 
I've been alternating between working my ass off for a year or two and living off that money for two or three for the last fifteen years or so.
Never really thought of selling photos but I used to live quite well off making and selling clothes.
My favourite way to travel is by van - you decide where to go and your kitchen and bed are always there when you need them.
I do plan to explore China by motorbike with my girlfriend in the not-too-distant future.

Sometimes I've been very poor, sometimes I wished I could do a regular job year in and year out but that's not me. Fortunately I grew up in a country with a national health system - a year in USA really showed me that poor people there are really no better off than those in developing nations. Even with insurance I was denied care with two fingers half cut off because I wasn't carrying identification.

I've always managed to get some food, never had to beg, but it's often not easy.
 
'Down and out' is also a classic example of a writer slumming it in order to write a book, holding his nose while doing so. The account of his throwing out the hot milk, because a fly had landed in it, removed all credibility from the story for me. I've not read the book in decades, but that is the one part that sticks in my mind.

It's also a very long time ago, and Europe has changed quite a lot since then (though I fully take your point about the restaurants).

In other words, yes, it's a fascinating book (as are most of Eric Blair's books) but I'd dispute its value to anyone contemplating the bohemian life in the early 21st century.

Cheers,

Roger
 
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