Nomadic Neil

I had been living in London for a year when the economic problems started to hit mainstream consciousness in the Autumn of 2008. I was shocked, not at what was happening with banks, stock-markets and house prices, but rather that so many people were acting surprised. Most ‘experts’, journalists and politicians were saying the same thing: ‘No one saw it coming’. Now the scope of this blog isn’t economics so I won’t go into details, but the basic fact is that many people had been warning for years that you couldn’t build an economy on the idea of never ending house price rises, mountains of debt and trade deficits.

I guess I had always thought of myself as slightly anti-authoritarian, clued up on how the world really works (not what you’re taught in school or on TV) and quick to question those that presume to be experts and to know what is best for other people. But it turns out I was still quite naïve and that a part of me still put too much trust in the opinions of others. The last remnants of this naivety was blown out of the water by the sheer incompetence and idiocy displayed by media, politicians, economists and other self-proclaimed experts (although I’m sure a good portion of them knew exactly what was going on and just chose to ignore it for their own short term gain).

So what do you do in the face of what might be the 3^rd Great Depression of the industrial age and the precursor to resource wars, WWIII, and a full on Mad-Max scenario? Curl up in a ball and start crying? Roam the streets with a sign saying ‘The end is nigh’, warning people of the doom awaiting us all? These and other options were tempting to say the least.

However ignoring my emotional-monkey-brain’s flight or fight response momentarily, and looking back at history, I realised that despite how bad things may seem now, we (in the developed world at least) are still living the best life humans have ever had. For most humans in history life was a 30 to 50 year struggle where all they thought about was where their next meal was coming from and how they could avoid being killed in some horrible war or by some lethal disease.

Whereas in the last depression people went hungry this time round they will probably have to do without buying a new iPod or new car this year. And if we do have something like the last depression, wars, and we start competing against each other for food and water in a post-apocalyptic nightmare then there’s nothing much I can do about it right now and I should stop worrying about it.

So lets just assume that the current economic climate is going to cause hardship for many, the balance of economic power will shift to Asia but other than that things will continue on fairly normally. Could the western currencies be devalued and thus derail my plan? It could happen, but if it does I won’t be any better of having stuck around here.

So assuming the non-apocalypse scenario will transpire I went through the following thought process.

1. I will die. No one cares what I get up to and it won’t matter because we’re just a bunch of slightly-more-advanced-monkeys hanging out on a rock on the edge of the galaxy. This is the existential argument to do whatever I want to do.

2. I decided that I’ll do lots of fun things or work towards maximizing my ability to do fun things, this means having maximum control over how I spend my time and where I spend it.

3. If research has shown that the law of diminishing returns applies to the relationship between happiness and how much money you earn, and I am already above the threshold for which that law applies, then there is no point in working to earn more money and I should in stead focus on how I earn an income. In addition, the way that pensions are supposedly provided for (based on the idea that a shrinking working class should support a growing retired class or betting on continual growth in the stock market) is unsustainable. I should operate from the assumption that either I work till I die or I save and invest enough for myself to live on.

4. Since I might work till I die I might as well do something I enjoy or choose something where I can spend a minimal amount of time earning an income. I have several friends that make their income online which potentially maximises the control they have over their time and location. These friends can serve as mentors and teachers.

5. Since I have little to lose and a lot to gain I should be engaging in (relatively) high risk, high reward behaviour. Play to win big, not to lose what little I have or perceive to have. This applies to every aspect of life. It puts me in the category of a Diversity Generator as opposed to a Conformity Enforcer (See ‘Global Brain’ by Howard Bloom), which is a good category to be in for my personal life as well.

6. In the worst case scenario, I ‘fail’, learn a lot and grow as a person. I come back to Europe and get a job, I start working as an English teacher in China or go work for multi-nationals in the Czech Republic. I could do all kinds of things.

7. If things do continue to detoriorate economically speaking (as a lot of people I respect think it will) then I will at least have had a good time before it all goes down.

So this is the rationale for choosing to go to South East Asia for a while to work on my online income. South East Asia is cheap and currently I can take advantage of strong UK, US and EU currencies (Not guaranteed for ever I know). I’ll be able to direct 100% of my focus on working for myself. I won’t have to worry about shopping for groceries, commuting to work or dealing with strikes. I’ve already been to South East Asia so I know what to expect and won’t be a distracted tourist.

So there it is, an entirely logical plan. Or maybe just dumb rationalizations covering up a decision already made on an emotional level. What do you think?