2018

When do you lose all sense of time? Is there any activity you engage in where you experience that? Writing is definitely one of those things for me. So is web design. Got lost redesigning my site today, the minutes and hours melting away. Seem to remember doing the same thing in this same town several years ago.

Met up with a student of my course today in Chiang Mai. Quite the story he has. Home-schooled in the US by super-religious parents – we’re talking Westboro level – kicked out of the house when he was 19 for losing his faith, now 25 and a self-taught web developer enjoying life in Thailand.

I love these bike sharing programs they have in many cities nowadays. The one in Las Palmas is a bit buggy but still works good enough. Unlocked a couple with our phones this eve and cruised on down to Las Canteras. Walked up and down the promenade for a while, listening to smooth trumpet, sipping a matcha.

History of the workplace. Hunter-gatherers didn’t “work,” not in the traditional sense. Agriculture was the start, the farm was it. The industrial revolution moved us into factories. Blue collars became white and we sat at desks in big buildings, then got squeezed into cubicles, then dropped into open offices. Now we can increasingly work remote, free to roam once again.

We met in Colombia, must have been back in 2014. And hung out again in Berlin a couple of years ago. We were single men then. Now we’re meeting at a cafe in Amsterdam with our long-term ladies, talking big plans. Two years. That’s all it took for everything to change for us. You never know what’s coming for you.

24 hours on and we’re at the other end of the automobile spectrum, cruising perfectly paved roads from Schiphol airport in a Tesla Model S. There’s no handbrake or gear stick between the seats, no jerky acceleration or hot steam or strange sounds. Just a smooth futuristic ride through this historic city that I love.

Business obsessed. Woke up this morning thinking of Facebook ads. On the way to rafting I’m crunching numbers. 6 jeeps, 7 customers in each. €65 a head if they stay overnight. That’s €500 best-case. After paying staff and other expenses, surely doesn’t leave much. Plus, it’s seasonal. Nobody’s getting rich off this, but it probably affords a decent living.

I feel uneasy, swimming in open water when I can’t see the bottom. I know there aren’t any sharks or anything to worry about here, but still. I heard someone say once that you wouldn’t walk into a pitch black forest because anything could be lurking there, so why is a sea or an ocean any different?

Been feeling tired and cranky lately. Which is fine if I’m by myself, but not when I’m around others. Then I find myself gossiping, complaining, starting arguments. Not they type of person I want to be. Trying to step back and recognize when I’m in that mode. Helps when others call me on it.

Saw the tomb of Christopher Columbus today, at the cathedral in Sevilla. Interesting thing about Columbus is that he never believed he’d found a new continent. Eleven years and four voyages back and forth still had him thinking he’d reached a few outlying bits of Asia from the west, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Another coaching call. Spent $600 on this one, for an hour of his time. And it was good, definitely worth the money. I could stick with him and pay the same each month. That would be the safe choice, the comfortable choice. But I don’t believe safe and comfortable will get me where I want to go.

How can you ruin the day of a privileged man, who can come to the mountain for a month just because he feels like it, and spend his time frolicking around in the snow between bouts of productivity? Well, all you need do, is give him crappy internet access. Then sit back and watch as he goes mad with frustration.