To kick off the new year, Chris Guillebeau just launched his Unconventional Guide to Publishing.¹ His offer made me think about my own stance towards traditional publishing and the current state of selling books.

…

For me, self-publishing one ebook and one huge e-guide in 2011 was a great experience. The creative freedom digital self-publishing entails is both a marvelous opportunity and an interesting challenge. Fortunately, by learning some basic tricks and whistles, getting help from friends and mentors, and paying a couple of services to solve some technological issues, all major roadblocks could be cleared.

On the other hand, taking the do-it-yourself route was quite demanding at times: Writing, editing, layouting, proof-reading, illustrating, uploading, marketing the books and then somehow finding a way to deliver them electronically, get paid and handle any upcoming issues was more exhausting than I would have expected.

This of course made me reconsider the pros and cons of traditional publishing houses, who solve at least some of these issues for their authors.

“Print is dead” has been claimed for years now. But still, book shops – at least here in Germany – are generally well attended. Amazon is selling more and more ebooks, but still there are thousands of yellow DHL trucks on the streets, delivering the paper books people around the country order.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of print are greatly exaggerated. Maybe the rumors were only due to a transcription error?

Print is Dad [sic!]

If I look at the beautiful releases of smaller imprints, the growing hand-setting scene or the rise of independent photo magazines, print doesn’t seem to be dead at all.

We could say, though, that print is Dad: It’s the father of the publishing revolution we are witnessing right now. Print changed the way information is recorded, transmitted and consumed forever. Even after more than 100 years of radio and more than 80 years of television, it’s enjoying quite a healthy life.

While ebooks are without doubt on the rise, there will certainly remain a place for print in the world: It’s a question of complementation rather than displacement. In the end, who says you cannot enjoy the touch and print quality of a nice book, even when you also like to read the New York Times on your iPad rather than on paper?

The Funeral I’d Love to Attend

So if print isn’t dead, who should we be mourning? Here’s hoping for a funeral that won’t be all that tearful: Publishing houses that don’t care about their readers nor about their authors hopefully will pass away soon. From all I can see, they are at least in terminal stage already.

The market for cheaply produced paperbacks that are more akin to raspy toilet paper than to books worth to be read or put in a shelf may come to an end. But the time you could make a fortune by selling heartless literal products probably won’t be missed at all.

Where will this lead us? As a cautious optimist, I would say that the opportunity of digital self-publishing will allow more writers to make a living from their books even when they only have a small audience. Companies like Amazon, Apple and a bunch of digital payment services will see huge benefits here, as will any writer who is able to handle the process.

But then, traditional publishing houses will also stay relevant. I am not the first one to say it, but I believe that they can stay in the game by embracing the following strategy:

Produce high-quality books with a lot of dedication.

That means: Mine your book proposals, the blogs and all the smaller magazines for gold. Treat your authors well and give them enough financial security to produce new work. Most of them don’t want to get rich, they just want to pay their rent and have the peace of mind to write. Help them with the editing process, give them great lectors, teach them some basic marketing skills. Encourage them to maintain an agile online presence.

Then, procure for the best type-set and layout you can afford, use decent paper, purchase high-quality printers and make the resulting book a worthwhile collector’s item. Customers will be enjoying these kinds of books for a long time, even if they are more expensive.

Ultimately, don’t try to compete with ebooks: Sooner rather than later will they be the standard format for the kind of cheap paperbacks nobody ever loved in the first place. If you want to sell cheaply, electronic publishing will certainly be the way to go. Just make sure you find a way to keep Amazon in check.

If you want to learn how to get your own book published, check out Chris’ guide on the topic. You’ll get a 25% discount until Friday and a free Q&A with veteran literary agent, David Fugate!

1. Note: I am an affiliate for Chris’ products because he always delivers great quality to his readers. If you buy the guide through one of my links, I will get a commission that helps me to keep The Friendly Anarchist going. The price for you remains the same, so I’d really appreciate it!

One idea for 2012: Don’t just make plans and resolutions, don’t just work on them and review them, don’t just evaluate numbers and goals in life and business. While all that can be fine and helpful, there’s one small thing you can over the course of the year in order to learn to appreciate the wonderful things that happen to you, big and small ones alike: It’s keeping track of them!

An easy way to do this is to keep a simple text file on your computer or smartphone and update it everytime you feel like it. At the end of the year, you will have a diary of wonderful things to remember the best experiences of the year. Appreciate.txt (as the file is called on my computer) also can be a great motivator for the moments your life isn’t going as smooth as you’d wish for.

To give you an idea, here are some excerpts from my own Appreciate.txt from 2011:¹

• Living in my favorite hotel in Cartagena during January and February, taking baths in the Caribbean every single day.
• Regular breakfast at “Muffins & Panes” in Northern Bogotá. Great coffee, tasty omelettes, and a gorgeous and friendly waitress.
• Meeting two ex-colleagues in Bogotá for a totally spontaneous lunch. Talking about the writer’s profession and making fun of their new boss. (So glad I’m out!)
• Meeting online friends and acquaintances in the real world: Lisa, Ryan, Ben, Mars, Earl and many more… Thanks to you all!
• Getting picked up at the airport by Christine and Max. Staying in Eastern Standard Time for weeks before finally adapting to European hours.
• Finally seeing the cresent rise above the North Sea in Denmark again. Breathing cold, fresh air.
• Being slightly overwhelmed by the work on “the book” (This was the code name for Beyond Rules at the time) and carry on nonetheless.
• Releasing “the book”. (Yay!)
• Doing Epic (and Stupid) Things in Berlin: Riding a bike without brakes through the heavy city traffic; dancing with Molotov and hundreds of Latin Americans; living in Friedrichshain among hipsters, stylers and welfare recipients; hiking with Daniel and Kathi to the Greater Wannsee without ever reaching it (Note to self: City≠Nature!); attending a crazy techno party at the Sisyphos club with Philipp from Sunday evening to Monday afternoon…
• Reaching Cologne at 1am in the morning and still getting picked up by Christine in Dennis’ Fiat 500.
• Riding 199,43 kilometres on a bike from Trier to Koblenz with three totally crazy guys.
• Getting dragged through the sea by a 16sqm kite. Pure adrenaline.
• Seeing the shooting stars on an undisclosed location in the North Sea in the early morning of August 23rd. This is the first time you really feel that autumn is approaching.
• Releasing Productive Anywhere and spending a whole day to paint one single room shortly afterwards.
• The 8-hour trip to Cologne with Philipp on Christmas day.

As I just read in Oliver Burkeman’s book Help!, keeping an appreciation list apparently doesn’t just do it for me. The benefits of what he calls a “gratitude journal” have been proven scientifically: “Gratitude journals are at the extreme end of the cheesiness continuum, but the studies are hard to refute. In stepping back and objectifying your circumstances in writing, you also step, however briefly, off the hedonic treadmill.”

The bottom line: If you’re struggling with keeping a regular diary (too much work – too easy to fall behind – not sure what to write about…), give Appreciate.txt a try! And have a wonderful year 2012!

1. The list isn’t complete, of course, but many entries are probably meaningless for people not directly involved.

I am always impressed and a little jealous when I see travel hackers outline the way they organize their trips around the world. A recent example was this über-post on how to organize an international adventure. Tyler covers it all: From budgeting your trip and earning airline miles to hiring tour guides the smart way.

The hacker’s tricks, discipline and organizational talent can certainly make travel classier (airline miles used for free upgrades, anyone?) and save you money.

I’m a bit wary of the downsides of extreme travel hacking, though. The huge amount of planning it requires is a bit intimidating to me. Also, many travel hacking strategies require you to be based in the US and picking up several credit cards – deal breakers for me and many other people.

The good news is that there is a double remedy at hand!

First, there’s Chris Guillebeau. Chris is the guy who made travel hacking popular, and if you are interested in learning more about it, I’d suggest you to take a look at his new site: About half of the hacking deals there are available worldwide, and he teaches many ways to earn miles without the need to sign up for credit cards. Chris also guarantees that as a member you’ll get four free tickets a year by only investing 30 minutes a month into applying his lessons. Fair deal, as far as I am concerned.¹

Second, there is a way to travel that’s directed to dilettantes rather than hackers, and that has worked great for me for several years. It allows you to see the world instead of spending time in your planning room or on your airline’s hotline, it’s inexpensive – and all it really takes are the guts to leave your current home base for a while. Marketers would call it “The Anti-Hacker’s Guide to Seeing the World Without Stressing Out, Going Broke or Losing Your Mind.” I call it Hub Travel.

What is Hub Travel?!

Most travelers know travel hubs from their air journeys. A hub is an airport used by an airline as a transfer point to get passengers to their final destination. “It is part of a hub and spoke model, where travelers moving between airports not served by direct flights change planes en route to their destinations,” as Wikipedia states.

For example, Atlanta is a huge hub for Delta Airlines, serving Delta travelers as a connection point to their intended destination.² Panama City is Copa Airline’s hub to connect the two Americas. You get the idea.

For long-term travelers, the hub approach can be taken to a whole new level. It is quite different from more organized ways of seeing the world: The classical tourist only travels for a very limited time and often has a strict schedule to keep. The backpacker moves slower, but still rarely stays at one place for longer than a couple of days, maybe weeks.

As a hub traveler, in contrast, you become a (temporary) expat and move from your home to a place that intrigues you and that serves as a hub: You make this city your new headquarters – and use it as a stepping stone for exploring the broader region.

Instead of over-organizing and preparing the whole trip from home, you just plan as you go, always with total peace of mind from the comforts of your temporary home. What’s more, travel will be inexpensive, as you are already in the region of your interest, say South East Asia or Western Europe.

Thanks to this approach, I was able to not only see large parts of Colombia, but also to travel to Florida, the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, the Bay Islands of Honduras, the Orinoco and the Uairén in Venezuela, and the Brazilian Amazon department. In Europe, it was the hub approach that allowed me to visit friends and see places all over Germany, in the Netherlands, Belgium, England, Austria, Spain and France.

The totality of these trips would have required either a huge amount of advance planning or quite a bit of money. Thanks to the hub approach, neither of the two was necessary!

The Advantages of Hub Travel

The hub approach has a couple of advantages over other ways to travel:

• You don’t need to plan everything: If you want to leave your home for a longer time and organize a whole round the world trip, you will meet good old Mrs. Overwhelm rather sooner than later. The good thing about hub travel is that you go step by step: First, you leave and only research your hub – then you continue to plan and explore from there.
• It’s cheaper: Instead of paying expensive hotel rooms or living in ugly dormitories all the time, you just rent a place on your own. This lowers costs and improves standards. As it turns out, living in foreign countries often will be significantly cheaper than living at home: Friends of ours generally spend three to six months a year in Thailand and use it as a hub for South East Asia and Australia. As pensioners, they actually save money during their vacations – and they don’t even sublease their apartment!
• You find a new home: By living for a couple of months (or even years) at a completely new place, you make deeper connections with local people and culture, and experience the place in a much more profound way than most travel hackers ever could. If you take enough time, you might eventually call that once “new” place your second (or third, fourth, fifth, …) home.
• You learn a new language: Living at a foreign-language hub is the perfect opportunity to learn and practice a new tongue. Thus, you can not only skip travel hacking, but also language hacking: Immersing yourself with time in a new place will allow you to learn the language naturally, just like children would.
• Go at your own pace: From a tempo giusto perspective, the hub approach is the perfect way to travel. You don’t really know now where you want to be in three or six months, so why force yourself to plan it all down to the last detail? By living at a hub, you are free to react spontaneously to invitations, new discoveries, and follow your feeling, using the pace and the degree of organization that makes you feel good about it.

The Hub Traveler’s Checklist

Visas

We’re living in a 21st century world with 19th century nationalist attitudes. Thus, living in foreign countries (and, especially, living there for more than a couple of weeks) can still be tricky.

That said, there are almost always workarounds, depending on your style and taste. Here in Colombia, as a EU or US citizen³ you can stay up to three months on a tourist visa that you get when entering the country. This visa can be extended for another three months. Depending on your negotiation skills and the person that attends you, you could extend it even longer, but it’s getting harder.⁴ In Thailand, people will do a visa run to the borders of Laos or Cambodia every three months in order to get a fresh stamp. In places like the EU or the USA, visa extensions are way more complicated. It really depends on where you are going.

Work

While visas are still easy to get for people who are lucky to have the citizenship of the “right” country,⁵ work permits are way more complicated. I personally wouldn’t care to dive that deep into bureaucracy, unless you have a company that backs you up.

If you are self-employed and work remotely, you might be able to just stay on a tourist visa. As far as I can tell, there just doesn’t exist a visa category that is apt for location independent professionals (LIPs) yet. As LIP expert Lea Woodward points out, things change if you run a business that “caters to and sells to locals.” Be sure to keep this in mind – and do your research in order to avoid trouble.

Rent

I’m a bad bargainer. Still, my outlook on things has changed a little since reading this awesome post over at Earl’s blog on how to save 40% on rent and still make a great deal for everybody involved. The major trick is to offer high flexibility to the landlord in exchange for a huge cutback on rent.

While this probably won’t work everywhere, it’s certainly worth a try: By bargaining a little, we were just able to rent our beach house during high season here in Cartagena for 300 dollars instead of more than a 1000.

Food

As far as I am concerned, street food is great and should be part of a good travel experience. That said, if you stay at a place for a longer time, cooking for yourself will generally provide you with best quality for a fair price.

Be sure to buy local groceries, even though they might look weird: Whenever I’m not sure what I’m about to buy, I just ask the vendor at the market place or a housewife in the supermarket what it’s good for, and give it a try.

You will also find local cookbooks pretty much anywhere, often also in foreign languages. Courses directed by locals could be another option to avoid eating only the same stuff as back home.

Weather

If you plan to visit India, you probably don’t want to go only during monsoon season. So if you plan to stay at your hub for less than a year, you might want to consider weather conditions before scheduling your voyage. Weather2Travel is a good resource for this.

Major Events

Another thing to keep in mind are important local events at your hub: You wouldn’t want to live in Rio de Janeiro for six months and miss the carnival because of unwittingly leaving two weeks early. Wikipedia or a simple Google search will easily inform you what events you should not miss.

High Season versus Off-Season

The flipside of the weather and event recommendation is that it might actually be likable to live at your hub off-season: The beaches are quieter, there are less salesmen around, travel around the area will be cheaper, as will be many apartments and restaurants. What’s more, the sights won’t be crowded, and it will be easier to get in touch with the locals.

A good strategy thus might be to bring both season and off-season into your mix. For example, Cartagena would be a good place to stay from November to May: You get the independence festivities, the parties and cultural festivals during December and January, and then a lot more relaxed city during the coming hotter (but still dry and less mosquito-polluted) months from February onwards.

Insurance

Depending on your travel time and health requirements, it can either be cheaper to get a travel insurance at your home country or to buy one locally at your hub. Here in Colombia, the latter is much cheaper, but the quality is also inferior to the private clinics a travel insurance would cover. As I am (kinda) young and generally healthy,⁶ this is a good deal for me. Also, my German insurance is obligated by law to take me back as a client without any further inquiries once I move back to the country. Be sure to check these things before leaving.

Family and Friends

“But – only young and wealthy singles can do this,” is a common objection to the hub approach.⁷ I for one am (kinda!) young, but I’m also married and almost broke. Admittedly, I am rather flexible and have hobo blood running through my veins, but even if you are committed to your current place of residence, have a house and a family with children, the hub approach can work for you: A sabbatical year (or two), subletting your house, and organizing a college year abroad for your kids is really all it takes to get you started.

Have in mind that the sublease you receive for your house in Europe or the US will often be (much) higher than the rent for your seafront apartment in Cartagena! Also consider that modern technology makes it easier than ever to keep up with your loved ones at home. You’ll be more comfortable bringing your expensive laptop if you follow the hub approach and rent a place rather than staying at shady hotels. Having your own place will also allow you to get a decent broadband connection and make you less dependent on slow wi-fi.

How to Find a Hub

There are a myriad of places that could serve as a hub, but some are better than others. To check if your dream destination allows interesting and inexpensive getaways, first of all take a close look at a map, and maybe at a travel guide of the area.

Then, consult these huge lists of major airport hubs and low-cost airlines. The latter matters because low-cost carriers will offer you more flexibility and are very convenient whenever you travel with no or little luggage. As you can leave your stuff at your hub, this should generally be no problem.

So far, three hubs have been working great for me, and I came to all of them by coincidence rather than planning. Let’s have a closer look at them:

Cologne, Germany

Cologne is the 4th-largest city of Germany, but with about a million inhabitants still fairly small. While Berlin certainly is the go-to place in my home country nowadays, Cologne has still a lot to offer: Bars, restaurants, a vivid concert scene, several interesting museums, the Dome and the old city, many parks and green zones, the carnival, and very friendly and open people. In the summer, you can enjoy barbecues in the parks; in the winter, you can just sit inside one of the cozy breweries and enjoy a Kölsch beer and some local food.

As a hub, Cologne is perfect because of its large train station in the middle of the city and because of its airport that has been catering several low-cost airlines for a couple of years now. You reach it with a simple subway ride for 2,50 euros, and are ready to fly to pretty much anywhere in Europe for a couple of euros more. If you are adventurous, some airlines like Germanwings even offer “blind booking” at a very cheap price – you will only know your destination after the booking procedure.

Cartagena, Colombia

Cartagena has been my base of operations for two years now, but I know the city much longer. Like Cologne, it has about a million inhabitants – although it’s way more chaotic, as you might expect. Situated on the shores of the Caribbean, Cartagena is famous for its colonial city center that was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. The old houses and defense structures are beautiful sights, and as tourist streams begin to grow, several new restaurants have opened to offer more exotic dishes to well-paying foreigners.

Bums like me still can find cheaper places, although it’s getting harder. Unfortunately, many of the normal citizens of the city can’t afford the growing luxury either, and thus the center is endangered to become just another tourist Disneyland. Future will show if the striving black culture manages to take back what is theirs, or if the foreign investors manage to sneak this pearl of the Caribbean.

As a hub, Cartagena is beginning to be more and more interesting. Unlike many other countries in Latin America, most Colombian cities have one or two central bus stations, so whenever you go there, a huge selection of travel options is offered. From Cartagena, the beautiful beaches of Parque Tairona (near the city of Santa Marta) are easy to reach in a little more than four hours. A few hours more, and you pass the Guajira desert and reach the Venezuelan border. You could also head towards the Panamanian border in the West – or take a bus upcountry and explore the Andes.

Cartagena’s airport is getting better each year. Nowadays, you can get flights to Bogotá for as little as $20, saving you what was a 20-hour bus ride with way too cold air conditioning! Flights to Florida and Panama can be found for $150 or so.

Bogotá, Colombia

Elevated at 2.600 meters or roughly 8.500 feet above sea level, Bogotá is a lot chillier than you’d expect from a city around these latitudes. Traffic jams, high pace and the overall vibe of a city of 8 million manage to heat things up pretty fast, though.

Without a doubt, Bogotá is the cultural heartbeat of Colombia, featuring the greatest museums, restaurants, concerts and alternative culture in the country. The huge universities of the city are great places to start looking for what’s going on once you move there.

In an article I wrote about Bogotá a couple of years ago, one of my favorite features of the city was its bus terminal and the possibility to leave – despite its advantages, the city is just a bit too large for my taste and starts to annoy me whenever I spend too much time there.

As a hub, Bogotá is great because it features a very nice hinterland: Beautiful mountain villages can be reached easily within an hour or two by bus, and if you get bored by the climate, you can reach hotel resorts in tropical heat in the same time. As you might expect from the capital, there are also buses leaving to pretty much every city in the country.

Bogotá’s El Dorado airport is too small, quite chaotic, and unfortunately still a little hard to reach if you’re not a pro user of the crazy bus system of the city. Things might get better soon: A new terminal is currently being constructed, aiming to convert El Dorado into the biggest and most modern airport of Latin America by 2014. Also, a connection to the bus rapid transit system Transmilenio is currently being created.

Flight connections are decent. The military-run airline Satena leaves for almost every departmental capital of the country, and there are several competitors for the more popular routes. You can also book direct flights to Central America, the USA, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela, and connections to all over the continent.

The Heads-Up

Money

I want to reiterate this: Travel doesn’t have to be expensive. To get an idea, consult this list revealing budget travel costs in 94 cities around the world.

But with so few things in life being perfect, hub travel probably isn’t one of them. I leave this to the hackers: Free flights would still be nice to have. So yes, I personally will definitely check out Chris Guillebeau’s Travel Hacking Cartel, and maybe you want to do the same. Considering the name, I hope you don’t have to smuggle cocaine in order to get the best airfare deals. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes!

Time

As should be clear by now, you will need more of it. Hub travel isn’t the way to organize a quick 6-week getaway with 18 pre-scheduled flights and bus rides. But this higher time commitment also allows you to travel naturally and enjoy the pace of the road – and for me, this is what travel really is about.

When I went for my Orinoco/Amazon adventure in 2009, I just left when my Colombian visa was about to expire (I barely made it to the frontier on time), and then traveled as long as I felt right. About three months later, I arrived back in Bogotá, having bought my flight out of the jungle just a couple of hours earlier. Traveling like this can be a first step towards reaching time independence.

State of Mind

You need to keep cool. There are some people who like to plan every single detail of their trip. Most of you, though, probably enjoy a good mix of planning and spontaneity on the road.

My personal approach is sometimes a bit more extreme: No plan, just go. Last year, I went to Europe on a week-notice or so, and I had a great time: I managed to visit several cities in Germany, take a trip to England, and travel all over Austria.⁸

As always, how you do it ultimately depends on your own preference: It’s your life, it’s your trip, and you decide how you want to live it!

The title image is based on picture (CC-BY-SA) by Upon A Tree. Thanks a lot for this great work!

1. Disclosure: Chris’ products are always high quality and come with no strings attached. That’s why I am an affiliate for them and earn a commission if you buy anything from Chris through my links. The price for you remains the same, and the commissions help me to finance my dilettante lifestyle. Thanks a lot!
2. I once spent a night at that airport thanks to the incredibly “fast” immigration lines. Since then, I react allergic whenever I get a Delta offer, although it wasn’t really their fault.
3. And surely as a citizen from many other countries!
4. Note: I am not talking about bribing here. The bureaucrat in front of you is almost always human, and often able to connect with you as long as you are playing nice. Sometimes, of course, they want money. It’s up to you if you enter that game – I personally don’t, and just try with another person or accept my fate.
5. Ask someone from Colombia about it: Unless you are rich, getting something as simple as a one month tourist visa for the EU is a huge pain in the ass.
6. Ironically, I am writing this right after recuperating from a tough fever during the last couple of days.
7. It’s also a common objection to a happier life in general. SCNR.
8. This year, I’m a bit better off with my planning, although I still don’t know where exactly I’ll be going nor how long I’m going to stay. No, there is no flight booked yet, but I’ll be leaving in February.

Winter is beautiful – on photos. That’s what I thought when I heard that it snowed for the first time this winter in the city where my parents live. A good reason to stay in the Caribbean for sure (despite the rain here). But also a good reason to look into my archives and find a couple of pictures from the past winters I could take before my fingers froze. Together with a hot cup of coffee (or tea, Michael!) and a couple of highly recommended good reads a decent way to spend a Saturday afternoon – wherever you are in the world!

[¶]

“But, here’s the thing: as much as saying so pisses anybody off, I think the topics we’re NOT talking about whenever we disappear into Talmudic scholarship about “full-screen mode” or “minimalist desks” or whatever constitutes a “zen habit”—those shunned topics are precisely the things that I believe are most mind-blowingly critical to our real-world happiness as humans.

In fact, I believe that to such a degree that helping provide a voice for those unpopular topics that can be heard over the din is now (what passes for) my career. I really believe these deeper ideas are worth socializing on any number of levels and in many media. Even when it’s inconvenient and slightly disrespectful of someone’s business model.”

(Gotta love Merlin Mann. This article is long and twisted and it’s worth every minute you spend on reading it. Seriously, this is right to the point in a “not right to the point” kind of way. Love it.)

[¶]

[¶]

How to be interesting: (via)
“Cultivate at least one paradox or contradiction in your life. The best example of this one that I can think of comes from my friend Mark McGuinness. As he said on Wishful Thinking, he writes sensitive poetry yet he’s a huge football fan. Sure seems like a contradiction to me [sounds of bones crunching on the television]. However, these contradictions are made of the stuff that interesting comes from. In other words, contrasting to extremely different interests makes for good conversation.”

(I always felt that I was interested in interesting thing. That’s my passion, I suppose, apart from light. What to make of it? Who knows, but I’ll publish a post with my point of view next Tuesday. Hope it will be, well, interesting.)

[¶]

[¶]

Overwhelmed With Projects? Declare Task Bankruptcy: “A pile of papers to read on the side. A stack of notes for several unrelated projects. Assignments to prepare. Questions to answer by email. Inbox full of unclassified mails. Lectures to prepare. Cluttered office desktop. Cluttered computer desktop.

A few weeks ago, Friday, this was what I saw when I looked at my office desktop. And I decided it was too much to bear and filed my first Task Bankruptcy.”

(You know Ruben Berenguel from the friendly anarchistic comment section and from his recent guest post. He publishes a fun blog on maths, LaTeX (not the sex fetish kind of thing, mind you), cooking and productivity. I love it because it’s such an eclectic mix. As far as I am concerned, much more interesting than these hyper-focused money-making blogs out there. (There: Interesting! I said it again!))

[¶]

[¶]

“Writer Robert Anton Wilson, self-described as “agnostic about everything” is fond of saying “The universe contains a maybe.” I think that’s a good motto. There is an interesting paradox: whenever you state a fact, qualifying it with a “maybe” instantly makes it more accurate.”

(David Cain on how to be right all the time. His blog Raptitude has become a favorite of mine since I discovered it a couple of weeks ago. Brilliant content, but not for quick scanning. You actually need to read what he writes. (That’s why I like it so much, probably.))

[¶]

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DIY Marketing for the Lost but Ambitious: “Turn your focus into a laser cannon! … Don’t become the dopey Alice who gets lost in the magic kingdom. Know exactly where you want to go and what to aim for!”

(I try to ignore marketing blogs as good as I can. But Mars Dorian just writes too entertaining to be ignored for a long time. How’s that for a plaudit? )

[¶]

The passion is in the risk: “We work through the fear that everyone feels. Fear is a very uncomfortable emotion. Most people feel fear and move away from the thing that made them feel fearful. Or they work to contain the process or action that caused the fear. Some work through the fear to feel the love. The work is the love. The process is the fear, The fear is the risk. And the risk is the thing that artists embrace. And that’s what makes the best work work. Knowing that you might fail. … There’s no way to inspiration other than to wake up and want. And to be willing to accept the risk that creates the passion. And that’s why it’s worth it not to copy anyone else but to create your own art and take your own risks. ”

(Kirk Tuck. Wow. I could actually quote the whole thing, and it’s rather long. A must-read for photographers, but also a recommendation for open-minded artists of all sort. Really good stuff, as always.)

One year ago, The Friendly Anarchist went live with a short post remembering the gunpowder plot of 1605 and a speech from V, main character of the Hollywood movie V for Vendetta, based on Alan Moore’s graphic novel of the same name.

It was a bit of a coincidence, but then, why not start a friendly anarchistic blog quoting an ambigious character – “a mixture of an actual advocate of anarchism and the traditional stereotype of the anarchist as a terrorist.” (Wikipedia)

Alan Moore comments on V: “The central question is, is this guy right? Or is he mad? What do you, the reader, think about this? Which struck me as a properly anarchist solution. I didn’t want to tell people what to think, I just wanted to tell people to think and consider some of these admittedly extreme little elements, which nevertheless do recur fairly regularly throughout human history.”

In the same spirit, I also don’t want to tell anybody what to think, I just want you to think. So far, my endeavors have led me to publish around 60 posts on this site, and there are more to come. You can check out the timeless content of the first year of friendly anarchism in the archives. I implemented this page and some other shiny details here on the site thanks to the help of Joel Runyon. Joel is not only internet-savvy, he’s also an awesome person, so be sure to check out his blog if you are interested in doing impossible things!

[¶]

These days, I am taking some time off the internet, preparing new content for the second year. All I can tell you now is that we will accelerate a little, getting back to a “two posts per week” schedule. I will also move soon from Cartagena to stir things up a little, although I haven’t yet decided on a destination.

If you want to get a little bit of an inside view on how are things going and what’s coming up next, feel free to sign up for my friendly anarchistic newsletter. (It’s free, no spam, maximum 1-2 mails per month. I didn’t launch this officially yet, but you are invited to come early and get the best seats!)

Year Two will be exciting – the idea is to grow consciously in the spirit of better work, more idleness, higher creativity, and a balance between business and anti-consumerism. Thank you so much for your interest, your help, your comments and your messages. I am honored to have you as a reader.

[¶]

“Most writers are conservative. By that I mean they lock their best ideas in a vault and take pleasure in the richness of their stores, like misers with their money. Maybe you have moleskins full of hastily scribbled notes. Or a corkboard next to your desk messy with images, structural blueprints, articles ripped from magazines. Or at the very least a folder on your computer labeled Stuff.” (Short and sweet. Benjamin Percy on Writing as a gambler’s trade.)

[¶]

“The problem is, that paid employment rarely delivers the benefits that its promoters, who must be either naive or disingenuous, claim for it. Overwork destroys lives and wrecks families. Work kills: the TUC estimates that 20,000 people in the UK die each year as a direct result of their job. A quarter of a million are injured by their jobs, the TUC claims, and a further half million are made ill by them. The UN says that 2.2 million people worldwide are killed by work. That’s three times more than war. Yet we see no war on work being declared by governments.” (Tom Hodgkinson on delcaring the war on work.)

[¶]

“No one can know with certainty what the market will embrace, so truly no one person can purport to be in possession of that knowledge. It’s completely backward, but we very often don’t know that we want something until we’ve experienced it. What if Albert Einstein, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rainer Maria Rilke, Miles Davis, The Beatles, Pablo Neruda, Salman Rushdie, The Ramones, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, shoot, even J.K. Rowling or Lady Gaga, had refused to do their work because they didn’t think the ‘market’ wanted it?” (Jamie Berry on setting yourself on fire. I had one of the most enjoyable Twitter conversations ever with him. You should definitely follow him if you’re interested in art.)

[¶]

“Museums are a great thing. Most have free or pay-what-you-want nights. But sometimes you just want to look at art in the late morning without a crowd standing around you. And maybe 24 hours later you need to look at that painting again. And 24 hours later you need to look again. And maybe you don’t really have a job and you don’t really make any money and you can’t really afford to wander around in museums everyday, though you have the time to do it.” (David Horvitz on going to museums for free.)

[¶]

“The Misconception: You procrastinate because you are lazy and can’t manage your time well.
The Truth: Procrastination is fueled by weakness in the face of impulse and a failure to think about thinking.”
(You always get me with research on procrastination.)

[¶]

“You are not your enemy.” (Zen at Play. Great message. So true. Worth following on Twitter, too.)

[¶]

“As long as the toilets are comfortable, people are happy — even in nomadic conditions.  I first saw the Washlet (Japanese shower toilet) in the 1980s, and I immediately bought one for every restroom at the ryokan. I knew that as long as people had decent, clean toilets, they’d be happy staying in 100-year-old rooms.”

(…)

“A country needs all kinds of people with all kinds of jobs. Japan is full of jobs that nobody wants. There’s work available along rivers, such as cleaning and fishing, and at ryokan, but it seems that everyone wants to live in Tokyo and sit at a desk.”

(The best newspaper article I read this week. It was send to me by my reader Greg, and it’s the account of Tsurunoyu Onsen Kazushi Sato, the owner of a hot-spring ryokan (a traditional Japanese inn). This man knows what he’s doing, and his place is definitely on my travel list!)