Movement

I'm moving tomorrow.

Or rather: I’m leaving my pandemic-era hunker location to move into a US-based apartment for a year, as was my plan back in early 2020 before essentially every aspect of my then-ambitions were sidelined for something like a year and a half.

Moving for me is typically a fairly enjoyable process.

Part of that enjoyment is derived from what moving is—what it represents and allows and encourages—and part of it is the result of what moving typically isn’t, for me.

Because of how frequently I travel, I don’t have a lot of unpackable, possession-infrastructure. Depending on where I’ve just been, for how long, and what sorts of weather and experiences I expect to face next, sometimes I’ll have more than my typical couple of bags when changing locations, but even then it’s never been more than I could comfortably fit in my small, hatchback sedan.

This next move is different in some regards because I’m headed to a new town for at least a year and intending to scope out the area for a potential, longer-term investment. That could mean setting up a more permanent home base in the area, which in turn means having to think a bit differently about how I plan and perceive the move.

I’m not, this time around, necessarily building something that I want to be collapsible like a tent. I’m instead maybe building something stable and long-lasting: a place from which to travel, rather than a place to which I’m traveling.

The practical differences between planning for portability and planning for locational endurance are pretty stark across the board, but one of the stranger aspects of this move is considering what I want in a space, ideally, as opposed to how I can reshape myself, my habits, and to some degree my needs to align with a space I’ll be occupying for a time.

Being capable of shapeshifting, putty-like, so that you fit whatever space you occupy, is something you tend to learn if you travel enough and if you go out of your way to adjust to local conditions rather than attempting to bring your familiar perspective and habits and preferences with you.

It’s a less useful capability, though, when you’re looking at what amounts to a blank canvas, and you thus don’t have a preexisting shape to take on.

Putty fills existing spaces nicely, but it’s difficult to meaningfully build around something so latently shapeless.

The initial value of moving—which includes, among many other things, the forced opportunity to question all of one’s habits and routines and beliefs and perspectives and possessions and investments—remains intact, whatever shape one’s next home and lifestyle might take.

But I’m learning a lot about myself this time around because the idea of having a more rooted space between trips—and having that space look and feel like me, rather than the other way around—is a significant contrast to my usual mode of operation.

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Snap from a walk around my shorter-term home of Quartzsite, Arizona, back when I was full-timing in an RV (while on tour around the US and Canada).

Projects

Brain Lenses:Exposure & 4E Cognition

Let’s Know Things:Ransomware Franchising (this month’s bonus episode is about Centenarians)

Curiosity Weekly: May 25, 2021

One Sentence News: Info / Subscribe

Interesting & Useful

Some things to click:

• Lighthouse Map(people are just doing gobs of fun stuff with map-data these days)

• Points of No Return(a grim but very informative assessment of climate tipping points and how they work)

• Every Roman Settlement(a map that shows exactly what it says it does)

• 2021 Bird Picture of the Year Finalists(some real stunners in this collection)

• The Unlikely Success of Fish Sticks(interesting history)

• IND Second System Track Map(maps of every NY train line proposal since 1929)

• EX STASIS(if you’ve never seen Reuben Wu’s work, this very short video is a nice introduction—and it’ll likely make you want to see his photos)

PS: if you like this sort of thing, subscribing to Curiosity Weekly (link in the previous section) nets you an email of just curated links every Tuesday.

There’ve been times when I’ve spent so much time on trains that I essentially (if not literally) lived on them for months at a time. My favorite rail-based voyage was around Europe—from Oslo to Lisbon to Istanbul and back—but there’s quite a lot to see along the US train network, as well (this photo was taken out the window of a train in the US).

Outro

I’m at that liminal stage of a move where most of my stuff is packed and ready to go, but I still have a day before I make the actual drive to my new location, where unpacking and fresh access to all that stuff can commence.

Even though most of what I own right now is purposeful and was intentionally acquired, I still enjoy the diminished access enforced by this kind of process: it makes very clear what I miss, what I don’t, and what I probably would if the practical constriction of access were to continue longer than a day or two.

It also gets me back into the “living out of a single bag” mindset that I sometimes long for when I’ve got more stuff—more resources and useful possessions—available. There’s nothing wrong with having a more complete set of tools and treasures, but I do miss the challenge and creative constraint of “making it work” when I’m in the position to not have to.

Any big plans for June? (I can’t believe it’s almost June, either). How’re you and your family/friends doing? What’s been on your mind, what’ve you learned recently, and what’re you working on?

I love hearing from folks on the other end of these missives, so please feel free to contact me at colin@exilelifestyle.com or by replying to this email—even if you just want to vent or share something silly and random with a stranger from the internet :)

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You can also communicate via the typical channels: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or one of humanity’s many senses.

If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work via one of these methods: Become a patron / Buy a book / Buy me a coffee

Short video of a very rare Chinese/Japanese/English typewriter in action.