Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Wildlife photographer. Eg National geographic style.

But really just not having to work would be great. I think part of what makes a job, any job, unpleasant is the shackles it places upon you. The obligation to do it day in and day out every day according to regimented times and to always be doing the same thing. I think that can make any type of job, including wildlife photographer, less enjoyable.

I think having the freedom to dabble here and there in a variety of different things when I want on a consultancy basis would be my cup of tea.

SavingWithBabies wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 16, 2017 9:52 pm

To bootstrap, you need funds. To gain funds without investors, you need to save. One of the best ways to do that is to practice ERE. So there is an interesting tie in there.

That's how/why I ended up writing a chapter for the One Million in The Bank book.

Job? I see no need for a post retirement job.

But, I do want to volunteer as labor, in a variety of fields. Stone masonry would top the list. Lots of things can be learned in a book, or a video, some things must be learned by doing. I can mix mortar, and stack rocks, and in fact have. But there's nothing like having someone pick apart your work as you do it to improve how you do it.

So for me, I'll be using my labor to pay professionals to improve my skills in areas I want to develop. But that's hardly a job. Internship, that's what I am thinking about. I don't want to apprentice, I doubt my interest will last that long. But 2-3 weeks hauling rocks is likely to teach me everything I want to know about it.

Each time this comes up, author is a popular choice. Not for me, but for those who are interested, Scott Alexander, from slate star codex wrote and published a book, unsong, at
http://unsongbook.com

The book was very good, but I really liked the way he did the editing and publishing. I feel like ebooks are an adaptation of an old publishing model using new tech. This is more of an organic, fresh approach to the concept of publishing in an age of information.

@jacob Interesting! I'll go check out the book. Somehow, I missed it existed. I see it on the homepage but I probably mentally filtered it out as a 3rd party ad.

jacob wrote: ↑

Mon Nov 11, 2013 7:55 pm

The boatbuilding school I'm looking at charges some $12000 for an AAS degree (which can specialize in tall ships). Would be nice to circumvent that. I got enough degrees already, I think :O)

https://youtu.be/7DHvWtQc3o4

Reminded me of this old thread.

People who posted dream jobs here and are still around, how did it go? Did you get to do your dream job? Or has your idea changed? How?

I have found a volunteer job. For two years now I do work in maintaining rowing boats in my rowing club. There is a rather good shop with a lot of tools, and there are people skilled in all kind of fields (metal, plastics, woodworking, electronics, chemical). Besides applying my own practical knowledge, I learn a lot about trimming the boat, the best setting of the oars and the like. The club owns some old style rowing boats (wooden copper nailed ones) to the newest carbon racing boats. And as you know, rowing is a strange sport, you are going backwards, and lacking eyes in the back of your head... there is rather often damage from a collision with bridge-foundations or with other (rowing) boats...
So this job gives me pleasure from making/repair things, learning new skills and interesting social contacts.

ertyu wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:44 pm

People who posted dream jobs here and are still around, how did it go? Did you get to do your dream job? Or has your idea changed? How?

I didn't post this one but always wanted to try vulnerability auditing. I have two friends who are professional vulnerability auditors / pen testers. The computer penetration testing portion of the job is not as interesting to me as the vulnerability assessments which involves using social engineering to get into places and access to systems. That always sounded like a lot of fun to me.

These past few months Mrs. Ego and I have been Census workers. The experience has been very similar to performing vulnerability assessments. We've gotten really good at following people into buildings or talking our way past security and getting people to share their most guarded secrets. We started out asking questions as if answering was optional. We gradually became better at knocking on doors and asking for name, dob and other really personal information in such a way that the people just answer without thinking. I've learned that an Amazon Delivery vest provides carte blanche access to even the most locked down environments and managers who try to limit access to particular floors with elevator key fobs cannot lock the stairs. It was a blast while it lasted. I stopped a few weeks ago because we were competing for use of the Vespa as the case were more and more in the areas of town where parking a car is difficult. The week before last they offered Mrs. Ego a position as a traveling enumerator in Georgia and Arizona but she declined.

Apparently my dream job in 2013 was professional yacht racing. However, since moving to Chicago, I've yet to restart racing and I lack the interest to make it happen.

When I first posted in this thread, I was living in suburban Chicago with a very limited idea of the possibilities of how I could achieve the lifestyle I wanted. At the time, i thought there was only one route which was guiding through a major outdoor education company. As I've accumulated skills and experiences over the years I've come to learn of many other sectors that fulfill what I'm seeking. The biggest breakthrough in understanding was learning about all science/resource field jobs. I've worked in forestry for 3 seasons now and greatly enjoy the work. I still have aspirations to work with youth outdoors. I did on a small scale earlier this year, volunteering as a ski coach in remote villages and found it very rewarding. I'm content with how things are right now. I think scaling up (doing more of the volunteer coaching and upgrading forestry work to similar role in different job) combined with personal trips and hobbies will lead to even greater satisfaction.

Tough question as my only viewpoint the past few years is that dream and job are a dichotomy....

The discovery of permaculture through this website and further branching out made me realize I did miss my construction job in the military to some degree. I liked being outside, bantering with my fellow Airman, building things.

So post ERE, I will probably volunteer to do labor on permaculture projects...(never touched before) to learn these skills and apply what I learn to my own backyard, or something like habitat for humanity.

I also think it would be cool to do interesting data analytic work. No timelines and deadlines though lol.

Fine furniture builder and graphic novelist.

But, semiERE, so I'm going to have a go at them pre-FI. (I notice back in the day on the forum people used to say "when you / after you ERE" like it was a singular event. We've all been trained now to separate FI (a before/after event) from ERE (a path/progression/mindset/focus loosely sketched by the Wheaton table). Interesting to notice the shift in community thought/use of words.

I would love to have multiple jobs without having to put in the effort to make them happen.
-> musician
-> public intellectual (something like Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins)
-> international dance instructor
-> a therapist, or even better a leader of a community that is oriented around self help (something like what Dr. K does https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClHVl2 ... NJVx-ItQIQ)
-> someone who interviews/meets interesting people
-> something involving acting or theater
-> a professional life-long learner/student?

It's funny how everything on this list is nowhere near my current career (software developer). I suspect that I would need some kind of engineering in the mix as well, it's just that right now, I am bottlenecked in that department.

I'd like to write a history of my local Catholic parish/school from the perspective of a large tree stump that sits in the courtyard. I'm assuming the tree was there before the church/school was built, and I'm also assuming it had to be cut down either because of disease or because it was becoming "dangerous" for the surrounding church/school buildings.

I know from DD that the Kindergartners and primary school kids thought fairies lived in the little knotholes and crevices of the tree, and that the teachers, older students, and the priests played along by leaving little bits of evidence of fairy habitation.

Jobs I think I'd enjoy are bicycle messenger (sadly most bicycle messenger jobs here are pizza delivery jobs, that's not what I want to do) and being a forester. The idea to spend the day in the forest is just amazing.