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+title: "Book notes: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts"
+date: August 31, 2020
+---
+<p>
+Really enjoyed this short volume on long term travel. It resonates with my
+belief (one that runs counter to what most people these days seem to believe,
+and definitely counter to how they behave) that a career should not be the
+central piece of one's life. It also challenges any person who says they
+believe this (such as myself) to <i>prove</i> that they actually believe it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Long term travel, the sort that isn't just plain tourism, is something I've had
+in the back of my mind for a while. This read definitely pushed it farther
+forward in my mind &mdash; who knows, maybe I'll end up in Asia or South
+America for a few months after I'm done with university.
+</p>
+
+<h3>Quotes</h3>
+
+<p>
+(many of these are from other sources, quoted by Rolf; he's quite the quote
+aggregator!)
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These first three quotes are basically on that philosophy I mentioned above,
+that if you feel a personal need for more to life than the modern day to day,
+don't let the material world hold you down.
+<blockquote>
+    we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) "the best part of one's life earning
+    money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable
+    part of it."
+</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+    This notion &mdash; that material investment is somehow more important to
+    life than personal investment &mdash; is exactly what leads so many of us to
+    believe we could never afford to go vagabonding.
+</blockquote>
+
+<blockquote>
+    Vagabonding sage Ed Buryn knew as much: "By switching to a new game, which
+    in this case involves vagabonding, time becomes the only possession and
+    everyone is equally rich in it by biological inheritance."
+</blockquote>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On spontaneity, unplanned travel (what Nassim Taleb would call <i>flânerie</i>
+over tourism).
+<blockquote>
+    John Muir used to say that the best way to prepare for a trip was to "throw
+    some tea and bread into an old sack and jump over the back fence."
+</blockquote>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On planning a little bit, after all.
+<blockquote>
+    And, as Phil Cousineau pointed out in <i>The Art of Pilgrimage</i>, I tend
+    to believe that "preparation no more spoils the chance for spontaneity and
+    serendipity than discipline ruins the opportunity for genuine
+    self-expression in sports, acting, or the tea ceremony."
+</blockquote>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On "seeing beyond the guidebook" (from Mark Twain's <i>The Innocents
+    Abroad</i>).
+<blockquote>
+    "The pilgrims will tell of Palestine, when they get home, not as it appeared
+    to <i>them</i>, but as it appeared in [the guidebooks]."
+</blockquote>
+</p>