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In praise of blowing up your life

sashachapin.substack.com

251–260 of 352 posts

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#251

It seems the only factor the author is encouraging the reader to take into account when deciding to blow up their life is themselves. There is zero altruism or kindness in this advice. It feels like a very beginning of the 2000 position. The generation that was first allowed to divorce and blow up everything. And it's very good that we got this liberty, much better for everyone involved than the previous status quo.…

[deleted]

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#252
post #54

Do not take life advice from someone with the blind confidence of a mediocre white man.

What does race have to do with any of this?

Given its ambiguity, "white" is not always a racial descriptor. We all know what the parent comment means; it's up to us to respond charitably.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#253
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I have a blog where I started posting six months before we set out on this journey until the present.

Can you link the blog?

There are no ads, no affiliate links and no “monetization”. This is strictly a personal journal.

https://digitalnomadder.micro.blog/

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#254
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh. Ok so one groups rate of successful suicide is more important than the others. Gotcha. At least we can agree that it is an epidemic among white middle aged men.

The mentioned statistics are not comparable, so there is no "more importance" regarding this.

As if.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#255
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting that a lot of people don’t like big changes, because I’m generally the exact opposite. If I haven’t had a big change in a few years, I start feeling really anxious—like I’m letting life pass me by. Most people crave constancy and routine; I seem to crave novelty and adventure. To your example, I moved from North Carolina to Paris when I was 3, and ever since then have wanted to go more places. It’s a…

I think maybe it has to do with self confidence, or childhood trauma? I had a very unstable childhood and things quite often didn’t “just work out”. Adults in my life literally got stabbed and died when “interesting” new things happened. “Hi nice to meet you”, “oh he’s dead now”. “Time to go live in the women’s shelter! Hey now we live in a trailer in the middle of nowhere!” Change was scary and often not for the bet…

I definitely found myself in what you're describing.

Especially the feeling extraordinarily lucky to have it part.

Chaos gives me anxiety. I know the general state of things IS chaos, change is the only constant, ecc. ecc., but I guess the schopenhauerian minimization of suffering is the only mantra I can entertain.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#256
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're paying half your rent to property managers?! Stop this insanity. There is no such thing as a rental pool, unless it's literally a pool that is rented. What service are you using?

It literally is 300-400 units in a resort “hotel” and they rent out your unit as part of a pool of units. They do all of the marketing, replenishment of supplies for the kitchen, maintenance, payments etc. The units are rented out by the night just like a hotel when you aren’t there. But you don’t understand the other part. I’ve done the landlord thing before. I would rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever…

I did the math on one of these in Clemson and it would have still cost me $10,000 / year if it was rented year round.

I liked the model but the numbers didn’t work out to make it an investment. Sounds like the one you found does, so congrats!

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#257

I’ve mentioned the last year of my life on HN where my wife and I decided to get rid of everything we own that wouldn’t fit in four suitcases including our cars and we became “hybrid digital nomads”. We fly to different cities across the US and stay in midrange extended stay hotels and stay in our own “Condotel”[1] the other six months in Florida. What I haven’t talked about is what got us to this point. I grew up in…

I've done this on a smaller, temporary scale and it wasn't for me. You end up spending a lot of your time planning, packing, unpacking and generally working around all the things you never have to think about when you just live where you want to live and do some traveling. Our life became meaningless chores that just ate away at all the interesting things we could be doing or wanted to be doing.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#258

I’ve mentioned the last year of my life on HN where my wife and I decided to get rid of everything we own that wouldn’t fit in four suitcases including our cars and we became “hybrid digital nomads”. We fly to different cities across the US and stay in midrange extended stay hotels and stay in our own “Condotel”[1] the other six months in Florida. What I haven’t talked about is what got us to this point. I grew up in…

Won't this get kinda boring after a little while? I guess I've been on enough business trips that constantly traveling to me seems stressful and boring. I liked looking forward to meeting coworkers though, so having some people like distant family or friends in these areas makes life more enjoyable. I guess I've also been somewhat forced/or I guess blessed to live in a different state for a while. You won't really get a good understanding of a place until you've lived there maybe 2-3 years and have driven all over and met different types of people in that culture. The first year I think is mostly adapting to the differences and handling culture shock if you move across the country.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It literally is 300-400 units in a resort “hotel” and they rent out your unit as part of a pool of units. They do all of the marketing, replenishment of supplies for the kitchen, maintenance, payments etc. The units are rented out by the night just like a hotel when you aren’t there. But you don’t understand the other part. I’ve done the landlord thing before. I would rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever…

I stayed in one of these places in Miami FL, but I didn't realize what it was until we arrived. Really interesting model.

I can’t recommend it for most people. It’s a horrible “investment” by any sort of analysis. We barely break even and that’s only because we stay there during low season.

We also had to pay 30% down since it is considered a commercial property. But you buy it just like you would any other commercial unit through a bank. On top of that, we took a HELOC on what was our primary home to get the 30%, just as interest rates were rising. We rent our home out to our grown son and two of his friends that we have known forever.

The HELOC isn’t covered by either rental income and that only makes sense because it is offset by the state taxes we don’t pay.

The only time this makes sense for most people is if their primary home is paid off and as a vacation home and for retired snowbirders.

Also people do it to avoid taxes on real estate sales using a 1031 Exchange.

Even knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t do it under any other circumstances besides what we are doing now or as part of 1031 exchange if had taxable real estate capital gains.

Re: In praise of blowing up your life

#260
Not quite blowing it up but we bought a used RV that sits in a campground year round.

I stay in it during the summer 4 days a week. I’ve learned how to be relaxed again and have worked through a few layers of anxiety.

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