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diff --git a/src/blog/book-notes-vagabonding.html b/src/blog/book-notes-vagabonding.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..edd5848 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/blog/book-notes-vagabonding.html @@ -0,0 +1,75 @@ +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 — 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 — that material investment is somehow more important to + life than personal investment — 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> |