Yes! I managed to do the impossible: I got Chris Guillebeau, probably the most productive traveler on this planet, to admit that he could relate to the concept of idleness as described here on TFA!

Idlers, rejoice: Even productivity mavens know the value of disconnecting, relaxing, and letting the idle brain do its job!

Of course, this is only part of the story! Because the real lesson from talking to Chris was that being productive isn’t just a matter of the right tools and tricks. Ultimately, it’s about doing the right work: Work that matters, work that you love, and work that helps other people.

All in all, I can honestly say that my Productive Anywhere interview with Chris was amazing! I was happy to talk to someone so smart and inspiring, and he was a perfect fit for the great line of interviewees I was lucky to talk to during the creation of the guide.

As a special treat for you and for the benefit of working travelers everywhere, Chris and I decided to give this interview away to you for free! Just listen in right here or feel free to download the MP3!

Productive Anywhere Interview – Chris Guillebeau

Additionally, a full PDF transcript is also available!

Enjoy!

The photo is CC-BY-NC directly from Chris’ Flickr account.

Over a couple of mails and months, I was lucky to have an interesting (and totally tempo giusto) conversation with WordPress hero and long-term freelancer, Melanie Orndorff. We talked about new ways to approach a career, location-independence, the relationship between freelancing and micro-entrepreneurship, and how hard it is to avoid getting employed.

This is the first part of our conversation, the second part can be found on Melanie’s blog, Rock Unemployment!

Fabian: Hey Melanie, great to have this conversation with you! You help people to find a job and/or build a side gig while being unemployed – I am deliberately unemployed, but of course making (some) money is an issue for me, too.

My personal problem is that I’m just not much of a business person. I was wondering about how to get more into an entrepreneur’s mindset as a person that is somewhat critical on consumerist lifestyles. As you dropped a career to get into freelancing, can you relate to this, or did you just have an entrepreneur’s mindset right from the start?

Melanie: Your question’s been on my mind a lot this week! I’m intrigued by the balance between entrepreneurship and anti-consumerism.

I’ve been a freelancer for most of the past 12 or so years, so I actually felt very confined in the full-time, salaried positions I held recently. I remember being shown a chart of my potential career progression within a company I worked for, and feeling an immediate need to run screaming from the building. I think being a freelancer requires a bit of an entrepreneur’s mindset, since I’m in charge of my own ship, but at the same time, there’s a lot of stability in knowing that – if I needed to – I could probably dig up a job next week doing something (even if it’s not particularly glamorous).

Maybe that’s where the balance lies: There’s a need to be professional enough to manage your own career without a company telling you where the “career ladder” is, and yet, there’s got to be a willingness to try anything and everything. One of my life goals is to work as a US mail carrier. I love sorting things and relish the idea of walking around, greeting people all afternoon. Would that be possible if I had a corporate career? Probably not. Do my friends think I’m crazy for it? Absolutely.

Fabian: At least in Germany, part-time mail carriers in smaller villages are really well-paid. Surely sounds like a fun job for some time, preferably in summer, though.

Melanie: Related to this, how do you balance your professional and anarchist sides?

Fabian: Until now, I found it to be surprisingly easy to get a job, and surprisingly hard to avoid it! In this sense, I really admire your decision to go freelance and never look back. As for me, I am mixing freelance jobs with temporary employment and casual jobs, and I’m getting more and more interested in micro-entrepreneurship. Consequently, I’m also making some money from my internet endeavors.

In practice, it looks like this: Before leaving Germany at the end of 2008, I worked as a tutor, web and print designer with a professor for political science in Cologne. After that, I took some time to write my thesis, travel through South America, and think about my life. When money became an issue again, I did a few translation jobs while being on the road, programmed some websites, and eventually engaged in a short career as a tour guide for cruiseship tourists in Cartagena. (I even was co-owner of a small pig farm in Colombia, which was kind of fun and admittedly delicious, though not too profitable.)

This enumeration probably reveals already my anarchist approach to work. My idea is to replace the typical career advice with an approach of common sense: It’s logical that we have to make money, it’s logical that we have to work on some unpleasant things – but we are also free to make the best of it and adjust work to our personal priorities!

In the democratic states we live in, we often just cast our vote and then enter into a state of apathy in almost all areas of our existence. Friendly anarchism is a call to get active and involved – in work and politics, but also in life in general. We have one life only, and we should live it on our own terms, making the best of it.

I see you are traveling a lot – What do you think about location independence, would that be an option for you or are you already living location-independently?

Melanie: I don’t have the travel bug like so many of the bloggers I read, so my “lifestyle design” is more about creating a work flow that allows me to spend time with my friends and family, take time for myself whenever I choose, and avoid a long commute.

Read the second part of the conversation here.

This was probably the first time that Jonathan Mead got interviewed while a tropical thunderstorm was going on in the background. The result: No electricity in my barrio (3G wireless plus a fully charged laptop battery saved the day!), three dropped calls, a tiny little bit of white noise, and a lot of fun.

This is, then, the perfect excuse for the mediocre sound quality and some harsh cuts in my first audio interview – but we managed to get it done, and that’s what matters most! In 11 minutes, Jonathan talks about the third round of Paid to Exist, the coaching-tested road map, and what to do when you get hit by an overwhelming “WTF moment” while starting out with your business:

A short reminder: There are still a couple of hours left to get a free spot in the third round of Jonathan’s program! Just jump over to my review of Paid to Exist and leave a comment on why you are the person who needs to get paid to exist – beware, comments are only open until today, Monday 13th, 6pm CST!

After many attempts, I finally managed to find a cellphone company that offers 3G access out here in the village, so I am happy to present you today this interview with writer, performer and escapologist extraordinnaire, Robert Wringham.

I found out about Robert’s endeavors online, and have since been in touch with him, contributing a couple of articles to the New Escapologist, “an irregularly published magazine that celebrates the “flight” bit of the “fight or flight” quandary”. New Escapologist promotes freedom, Anarchy and the Absurd, and thus is a perfect fit for TFA.

In this interview, Robert and I talk about ignoring the system, absurdity, the status quo of comedy, and how minimalism helped him to escape from his day job.

What is Escapology and why does it matter?

I’m starting to see Escapology as being a special strain of Anarchy. Where traditional Anarchists would want to smash the system in various ways, I advocate simply ignoring the system wherever possible. There’s a philosophy professor I like called Roderick Long: he said something about disregarding the demands of the government as if they were the demands of a delusional street person. I like that description: as a left-winger, I sympathise with the State but their demands on our time, money, liberty and obedience are often too great.
Whenever I see government documentation or an episode of Question Time, I think, “How dare they speak to us like that?” I won’t be hemmed in to a certain mode of behaviour just because they’ve deemed it the correct one and ensured its continuation through force.

To answer your question more directly though, Escapology is about engineering a situation in which you don’t have to deal with the rubbish we’re expected to deal with: a career, a mortgage, debt, too much tax, too much property, annoying things like cell phones, mind-rotting distractions like television. Instead, try and foster a more vital and frigal way of living – as the Bohemians did – so that you don’t have to work so hard, maybe even make a living through your art, and you can laugh all of these things off.

Have you ever attended an Anarchist meeting? They like ‘fairness’ and so they become obsessed with things like committees and agenda and provisions. They develop highly complicated little bureaucracies, which is one of the things they probably hate about the government but they end up doing it themselves. Better to get disorganised, I say, and just get on with living.

When it comes to Escapology, you seem to be very good at balancing theory and practice: Not only did you start a magazine on the topic, but you also created freedom for yourself, escaped from work and moved to another continent. What was the main lesson you learned?

On a personal note, I think I learned that my natural state is a kind of nervousness. When I was a worker I would worry constantly about not having enough time to do my own stuff, that I wouldn’t be able to meet a deadline or that I would sleep through my alarm again and not get to the office on time. Now that I’ve escaped, I worry about other things: that the money will run out one day, that the plan will fail (which would be very embarrassing since I’ve, perhaps foolishly, made it a public endeavor through the magazine), whether my girlfriend’s family see me as an unconventional entrepreneur or as a lazy bum and what that means for our relationship. I’d like to worry less: I don’t want to be like Leonard Nimoy.

For a more transferable lesson, I think it’s important to remember absurdity. I’ve not written enough about this. Basically, nothing really matters: as long as we’re true to our own ethics and that we reassess these ethics from time to time, it doesn’t matter what we do. We can spend our life in a luxury office in the Empire State Building or we can spend it sleeping rough in Central Park: it doesn’t matter. There’s probably no god and nobody is watching or judging us beyond our own superegos, which don’t really exist either. We are free to do what we want. There’s no such thing as success or failure beyond what we decide there is. There’s no totting up of accounts at the end of your life by some ethereal jury. You’re just a system of nerves and glands and teats, roaming the drier bits of a ball of dirt in space. This is not a bad thing.

I also think Epicurus was onto something: the idea of maximising pleasure and minimising suffering. The Epicureans started as individuals: how can you maximise the pleasure throughout your own life? (They learned to appreciate the idle and natural pleasures and lived frugally). But also they set up academies and helped to raise the common good. That’s why I try to get the message out through the magazine and the blog: I don’t just want to say “fuck you all, I’ll do what I like”. That’s what separates Escapology from Libertarianism, and where Anarchy sometimes goes wrong. Also, any project needs dissemination: in a way, I’m conducting a societal experiment on myself and publishing the results as I go along.

Many other people seem to struggle with escaping: When young, everybody has dreams and big ideas, but most people, at one moment in their lives, just seem to give up. What’s the one thing preventing us from escaping?

It’s no one thing: it’s a complicated system of internal and external pressures that makes us fail. Also, I don’t think most people even think of it as something that can really be achieved. They’re happy to sit, aging, in an office somewhere and making ironic remarks about how sunny it is outside.

If we want to be reductive though, let’s say it comes down to two main things: Bad Faith (internally) and Restricted Mobility (externally). Bad Faith (which we cover extensively in Issue Four) is when you convince yourself that something is impossible when it’s obviously very possible. You say “I can’t visit Pakistan” or “I can’t quit my job” when you very well can. People do this because true freedom is slightly frightening, so they procrastinate and come up with excuses as to why they can’t be free. Externally, there’s Restricted Mobility. You’re restricted because you have to obey certain rules, such as getting a house and a job and a hairstyle and an iPad and a funny t-shirt. You’re restricted by having too much
stuff in your possession: you’re unlikely to get up and go one day if you have an expensive home and a bunch of useless stuff inside it. You’re restricted because you’ve allowed yourself to become manipulated by adverts and conformed to the behaviour of characters on television, whose inadequacies (usually sex-related if the character is a man and shoe-related if the character is a woman) are there for entertainment purposes but misinterpreted as admirable.

The notion of “escaping” is a nice counterpoint to “fighting”. I personally, for example, have never been mugged in my life thanks to being a decent short distance runner, even when being on the road in flip-flops. But what do say to people confronting you for being a coward as an escapologist?

It’s weird, because it seems slightly cowardly to me too. Avoidance is surely cowardly, right? But most people I meet describe me as ‘brave’ because they see I’m going against the grain and not mindlessly following the dollar. If Escapology is cowardly, I think the defense lies in this area.

Also, “Fight or flight” is an economic decision and I’m not sure whether bravado or cowardice have a place in economics, which should be about rational decision-making in order to maximise the desired outcome. When confronted by the question of fight or flight, you have to decide whether anything can be achieved by fighting. Any sensible person or animal would avoid a fight if the opponent is too strong, if you have nothing worthy of protecting, and if -above all else- more can be achieved by fleeing.

You’re not only a writer, but also a stage comedian. In a recent article you described comedy as “a dangerous commodity” that “should be left in the hands of experts”. Although the context was a bit ironic, comedy seems to have lost much of this “dangerous” element nowadays, as every good joke or parody may just be another viral marketing campaign. What do you think about the subversive potential of comedy in the 21st century?

That bit of writing was a comic performance, so I adopted an overly judgmental attitude for comic effect. The incident it describes genuinely happened though and I was genuinely annoyed at the insistence of these men that we all laugh at their rubbish prank (if indeed that’s what it was). They were police officers though, so we can’t expect much more from them than persistent aggravation of the public.

I think you’ve discovered the shameful truth that I’m a bit of a snob when it comes to sense of humour. I’m irritated, unamused and ashamed by most comedy acts and the one bad thing about Montreal is that the comedy here is very, very poor. Proper comedy is still out there though. It grew up in the 1980s and has never gone away. We have brilliant comedians like Chris Lynam, Ian Macpherson, Simon Munnery, Stewart Lee, Arnold Brown, Tony Law, Johnny Vegas, Boothby Graffoe, Richard Herring, Andy Zaltzman, Tim Vine, Milton Jones, Jerry Sadowitz. They’re all subversive in their own ways and very, very clever. It’s not quite my cup of tea, but ‘The Daily Show’ is hugely subversive and is a major force in the North American mainstream. Subversion doesn’t need to be the main drive of a piece of standup
though: we just need cleverly-constructed and timed routines worthy of being on stage.

Let’s talk about the “money and stuff” issue. Isn’t this whole idea of downsizing and modern minimalism arrogant behavior of affluent Westerners?

It’s the behaviour of affluent Westerners, not because we’re arrogant, but because non-affluent Easterners don’t have the same problems as we do. In most of the east, the problem is finding enough desalinated water to drink or keeping idiot Christian missionaries (from the west) from giving them all AIDS with their bad advice. They don’t need to minimalise because they don’t have the glut of luxury that we have, and they don’t have advertising screaming ‘acquire!’ in their faces all day long. There is such a thing as an affluent East too: the rising middle-class in India will soon have to curb their consumption habits, China are ruining the planet for everyone and Japan’s commodity fetishism surely offsets any efforts they’re making to be friends of the environment.

Westeners are becoming more understanding of the societal and environmental concerns attached to having too much stuff as well as the infringement it all has on our personal liberty. I think it is the personal liberty element of minimalism that you wanted to talk about though, since that’s what I bang on about all the time. All I can say is that the proof is in the pudding: I managed to quit my job (hopefully forever) and minimalising was an important part of that: I kicked my addiction to buying things (thus saving a lot of money) and I made it very easy to travel when all of my stuff fits in a single suitcase.

This is related to the last question: Being one of these “affluent Westerners” myself, I sometimes wonder about all the fear out there. Having received some decent (self-)education and being more or less a healthy person, isn’t it ridiculous that it’s often financial fears that hold us back from doing our “thing”?

It’s not ridiculous exactly. Money is important. It’s the only fruit of our labours and it’s the only way to ‘store’ our labour. Other systems like barter are useful sometimes but they don’t really cut the mustard. But you’re right about fear. People are reluctant to quit their jobs in case they never make any money again and end up dying in the street. It’s true that money is the modern commodity essential to dignity.

I’d say two things to those people living in fear though: (1) You don’t need as much money as you think you do. If you can embrace minimalism and frugality, you’ll be able to live on far less than you think and not have to work so many hours; (2) Use your job as a career gym before you leave it: learn as many useful skills and poach ideas from the office’s most interesting people. This will all help to make yourself re-employable should the escape plan fail. It’s like a little insurance plan: it has a practical application but also helps salve your fear. Recognise that job security is an illusion.

Do you see there’s a potential for humanist entrepreneurs, i.e. people that were not raised with the classical goal-oriented economic thinking?

There’s definitely the potential. An economist called E. F. Schumacher wrote about precisely this in the 1970s. His book is called Small is beautiful: economics as if people mattered and is well worth a read.

There’s also ethical investing. One dollar, one vote. Invest in companies that can further the human endeavor rather than hamper it: green initiatives, human rights organisations, advocacy journalism, sustainable development, the transfer of technology to less-economically-developed countries. If you have to buy products, try to support microbreweries and the likes, so we can start getting rid of the giant companies that arse things up for everyone.

What’s coming up next for Robert Wringham? New Escapologist was first intended to last only three issues, but now there’s a fourth one coming up. Do you know already where it will go next, and what other projects do you have on your mind?

I’d like to do more Escapology-driven events. We did the Montreal Anarchist Bookfair this year and an event with Tom Hodkginson last year. They were both great fun. I like the idea of some sort of music and comedy cabaret night, perhaps as a launch party for a future issue but perhaps just for its own sake.

I also do an improvised comedy podcast with my friend Dan. It’s very different to what you get in New Escapologist and I’m slightly embarrassed about it. It’s kind of our Derek and Clive. We have a few beers, set Dan’s computer to record and just talk. The characters we play in the podcast are inflated versions of our real selves: I’m arrogant and attention-seeking, and Dan is kindly and unassuming. It’s probably rubbish but it’s good fun to make. We’ll probably record a one-off later this month and then do a load more in October. It’d be fun to do live recordings with an audience one day
too.

New Escapologist has really grown legs. When I started, I never wanted it to be my main project (I wanted to be a standup comedian), so I said it would be a mini-run for three issues. It’s really gathered momentum now though and a lot of people are excited about it, so it seems a shame to quit. There’s also a lot left to talk about. Issue 5 will be about Bohemia and Issue 6 will be about Evolution. I’m also looking into publishing the first four issues as a ‘collected works’-type book for the shops. Issue Four is out now too.

Robert, thanks a lot for taking the time for this interview!

Photo by Sieglinde Cassel

I am very happy to present you the first Friendly Anarchistic Interview with Belgium employee, politician, entrepreneur, social activist and hardcore vacationer Pieter D.!

I met Pieter earlier this year during my Amazon trip, and was fascinated by his strategies to reduce unpleasant work and maximize time for his personal projects and travels. As opposed to anti-employment strategies, Pieter not only manages to have a secure job, but also to follow his passions. By knowing the rules and bending them, he is able to take several months of vacations each year, while perfectly fulfilling his duties on the job. For me, Pieter’s approach is a great example of real-life lifestyle design. He does not care about fame and money, but about broadening his horizon and helping others. Without further remarks, let’s jump into the interview we did during the last weeks by mail.

Pieter, thanks for sharing your experiences and strategies with the readers of The Friendly Anarchist! First of all, a quick question about your pay job: What are you doing to make money?

I have a 9-5 office job in a government department, but in contrast to a lot of younger colleagues I don’t have a career plan or great ambitions to work myself up to a higher position. I participate in courses and tests, but I don’t feel like joining the rat race of making career, paying a mortgage for a house, having a big car, etc. My ambition is to create opportunities for other people and to make a small diffirence in this world with my projects.

So while being a full-time employee, how many weeks of vacations did you have in the last year, and how did you use them?

In 2009 I had 18 weeks of vacation and 3 months of  sabbatical leave. In Belgium, the latter can be taken for a minimum of 3 months and a maximum of 6 years during your career. In that period you still get paid some €335 each month.
I like to use my time for traveling. In 2008, I went one month on a trip to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, 2 weeks to Ghana and 1 month to Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa. From November 2008 until January 2009 I spent my sabbatical in Ghana to start with the construction of a Community Center with an NGO I co-founded.
After that, I spent one month of 2009 traveling in Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay and one month in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama. Apart from that, I also took several city trips within Europe.

As far as I know, you are not a millionaire. So what’s your secret to be able to finance these large vacations and travels?

The most important thing is the way of traveling. I search on the internet for cheap plane tickets, and I travel just with a backpack and look for cheap places to stay and eat. For example, during my last trip to Central America I spent an average of €36 a day for sleeping, eating, drinking and transport.
Another reason is that I saved a lot of money during the years that I didn’t travel. Also, since a few years, I live temporarily back in the house of my family. That is giving me the opportunity to save a lot of money. In Europe it is not very common to live like that. I am taking advantage of my current situation to travel, because in my opinion “to travel is to experience life” and I understand it as my walk to destiny.

This sounds really intriguing. I think it’s what happens to a lot of travelers – once you’re out there, you don’t wanna stop anymore. As for your “walk to destiny”, where did it lead you? You are very active in a lot of ways: Apart from your full-time job, you’re involved in local politics and in development aid. Could you talk a bit about that?

I don’t know what the destination of my walk will be, but one thing that changed my life is my encounter with Africa and the project that was the result of it.

In 2005 I was traveling through Ghana when I met Natty Johnson, a rasta guy who was making drums. At the bar, with a view at the Atlantic Ocean, we talked about a lot of things and about business. The guy had a lot of ambition but didn’t have the chances, so I decided to try to sell drums in Belgium for him. I created an opportunity and from that moment the project was started.

In 2006 I began importing drums and other musical instruments to Belgium. In 2007 we got the idea to connect the business with a social project. I made the plans and in march 2008 we bought materials and the first stones of what will become a Community Center in Ghana.

In November 2008 I went for 3 months to the country – already my fifth visit – and launched the construction of the foundation of the Community Center in the village of Adoteiman (northern Accra). The goal of this project on the one hand is to provide medical first-aid material, mosquito nets for malaria, and contraceptives for AIDS prevention. On the other hand the center is aiming to become a meeting point for children and young people who want to develop their artistic, dance, drum and sport skills. Besides that we want to give young people the chance to do volunteer work in the villages and schools. It’s all about creating oppertunities.

In January 2009 I registered my own NGO in Ghana, The Bimbi Foundation. Bimbi is the village in Congo were my grandparents lived in 1957 for 3 years. Also my mother went to school over there. It’s a symbolic gesture and a link between Africa and my family. In the last week of my stay in Ghana I organized the visit of a member of the Belgian parliament, Rudi Daems, a television-crew and some newspaper reporters concerning the illegal e-waste dumping. Because it’s a long story to tell it is better to watch the documentation “E-waste from Antwerp to Ghana”.

My political commitment started when I was 18 years old in 1997 as president of the young liberals. In 2000 I was elected as the youngest member of the City Council and re-elected in 2006. In 2003 and 2004 I worked for the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Development Cooperation.

What are you fighting for in Belgium politics?

An important cause in my political career is the local heritage. In 1998 I gathered 2000 signatures to stop the construction of a big building in the middle of the city center just in front of an ancient little castle and its park. The protest didn’t help. The majority pushed through and the building is now spoiling the heart of the town. This year I was successful and could prevent the destruction of an old brewery. The government declared it a historic monument and now the City Council has to renovate it.

Recently the majority in the City Council called me a communist. I tried to save an other old building from destruction because of the historical value. But the building is private property and it’s not very liberal to ask for government protection for a private building but my opinion is that you can’t build a future if you don’t respect the past. These old buildings give the city a soul.

And what are the next steps on your “walk to destiny”? Any clear plans yet?

My next step on my “walk to destiny” is to connect my project with another project in Latin America and one in Asia. I am sure one day I will find that connection. It’s only a matter of time.

As for traveling, I will make some trips to Cuba, Ghana, India, Nepal and maybe Colombia, Syria and Jordan.

Some people believe in coincidence but I am not. Everything has a meaning and nothing happens like that. Some people are crossing your path of life and some people travel with you on that journey, sometimes for a while and sometimes they stay.

With so many activities in addition to your pay job, what are your plans in relation to that? Do you want to stay employed as long as possible, or are you thinking about leaving your job one day and focus entirely on the other issues?

I have been given civil-servant status in my current job and thus can work for the government until my pension. I can change my department if I want to. But you never know what the future will bring. In my current position I still can take more than five years of paid and two years of unpaid sabbaticals. So, there are still a lot of opputinities to do and for me the present is important.

Most people spend so much time focusing on the future that they forget that their life is happening right now. It is like Mark Twain said: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Thank you very much for the interview, Pieter, and all the best for your current and future projects!