08 16 2025

There’s a whole host of unmentioned tradeoffs that apply across the board to my current life structure, and the more I sit with all that, the more I wonder what sets of tradeoffs are ideal. At the very least, future-me will be interested to see that such tradeoffs were indeed conscious — or unconscious, if they’re not mentioned here.

So let’s start with some various options for things I’m considering doing in the next six months, along with the tradeoffs and opportunities implicit/explicit in each. (I realize to some degree that this is an overly-verbose pros and cons list, but this is the easiest way to structure it right now.)

Option A: staying for a few months in Birmingham. This one includes a few sub-options, which right now are (1) chill and do nothing explicit, (2) novel-writing sprint/NaNoWriMo, or (3) volunteering. This could also be either short-term, most likely the three months from October through December, or even committing to a full year. I’ll break each of those into their own paragraphs just to avoid one giant paragraph.

Option A(1) has a lot of obvious downsides, the main one being that it isn’t really getting towards any particular goal at all. But in some ways this is a stealth-pro in that it leaves open the possibility of new interests and so on. It would almost certainly not be doing nothing, but rather would be dipping my toe into several other interests — returning to video games (and maybe learning to make one!), something I was interested in years ago; deep-diving into philosophy or physics or meditation; or even just getting some deep-rest, which could be a key to some breakthrough. Plus I’ll have spent several months Doing Stuff continuously, so some rest may be warranted. Another con I just thought of (again, possibly a stealth pro?) is that it would be consciously rejecting the “achieving” piece of my mind for a while, which with some careful intention would be a good mindfulness test, although at worse it would be just consenting to a certain degree of my own suffering.

Option A(2): The mixed pro/con is that this is largely a gamble. Like some of A(1), it could go great and I could really break through some creative blockers I’ve had for a while, or I could slip into complacency if I don’t adhere to certain guardrails and get essentially nothing done. But the upside is quite high if it does work out — I’ve always had this yearning for the creative life. The fact of the matter though is that I have no archetype or idea for how that sort of thing works, and this would be a sink-or-swim kind of thing. It would to some degree force me to confront my own limitations, and I feel like if I didn’t get a substantial portion of writing done in that time, I would probably just feel like giving up (which again, it’s entirely possible that that’s what’s necessary). One potential idea here is that I could commit aggressively to writing every day after walking on the Camino, and if I can hold on to that in some way, then that may make it easier for me to dive into a bigger writing project with something to hold on to.

Option A(3): This will look a lot like Option B, just in Birmingham. The pros are that it would really help me plant some roots in the area and probably would contribute to reducing my self-centeredness and shut-in type of mentality. Not to mention the joy of giving and altruism, making my hometown a better place and all that.

Option B: Workaway or something similar. It’d be an opportunity to experiment with volunteering in a foreign country. The pros here are that I’d get to actualize the ideas of service as an expression of life and freedom that I was thinking about on retreat, and in some countries (e.g. Japan) it’d be a fun chance to embed in daily life there. (Plus add in all of the pros from A3 as appropriate).

Option C: Doing another long walk, e.g. the Tokkaido/Nakasendo/etc. Now probably isn’t the best time to do this, since some of these will be very long and the spring may be better in terms of timing and all that, and I’ll have just done the Camino about a month before, so it’s not like this will be novel or anything. But assuming the Camino goes well, it’ll at least be a thing I know I’d enjoy and would benefit from.

Option D: Traveling to other parts of SEA (or elsewhere). This would get a new experience in, especially in the shoulder season for SEA which may be nice. But with only six weeks between Dad’s wedding and Christmas, it’s a bit of a tight squeeze to travel that far away.

These will also probably affect what I choose to do next year. I have some vague thoughts, but I think it broadly falls into two categories: continue traveling and doing things elsewhere, or renting a year-long lease in Birmingham and having more home-base time, with only ~half the year or less being abroad. (Some of the considerations in that latter one are financial, but I won’t go into that now.)