Podcast Update Nov 2020 - The Pathless Path

[00:58] Paul: Hey there, Reimagine Work listeners. It's Paul, and I am here with a brief update. I had my friend Travis, who's staying with me down here in Mexico, interview me, ask me a few questions about what the heck I've been up to over the last year. Hoping to get more episodes out soon. Internet's a little shaky down here, so we will see. Might have to wait a few months, but, uh, expect a few more updates, uh, over the next couple months.

[01:34] Travis: When I think you last left off, you were working on your podcast, you were in Taiwan, and then the plan was to go nomadic. So tell us about that.

[01:46] Paul: Uh, so we were in Taiwan, the pandemic was in its early and we stupidly thought that Asia was about to be destroyed by the pandemic. So we'll go to Europe because surely Europe and definitely America, where we are gonna go after Europe, have everything figured out.

[02:06] Travis: That worked out well.

[02:07] Paul: I was wrong. So we get— arrive in Spain. I quickly realized no one is wearing masks. This is February 24th. We come from Taiwan where 100% of people are wearing masks. There's like conspiracies that the virus is spreading even though there's no apparent cases of it.

People are freaking out. It just turns out that like they did a really good job of quarantining people, screening people, and 100% mask usage. So we get to Spain, people are coughing on the street. We're like, holy shit, this is going to break. This is going to break out any day. There's Carnival celebrations.

We decided not to go to any of those, and we just like stayed in our apartment, kept distance from people. Two weeks later, like, Spain was breaking out like crazy and shut down. So we were locked down in Las Palmas for, I don't know, 50 days.

[03:04] Travis: What's Las Palmas like?

[03:06] Paul: Las Palmas is the biggest city on Gran Canaria, 400,000 people. The island, I think, has 800,000. It's part of Spain, but it's close to Africa. And there's kind of a digital nomad hub there. There's a guy, Nacho Rodriguez, that runs a community.

[03:27] Travis: Best name ever. Nacho Rodriguez.

[03:29] Paul: Great name, right? He's a great guy too. And he had 3 co-living houses. We ended up randomly deciding to book a stay at one of his houses before the lockdown. We arrived a day before the lockdown. There was like some preparation and I think we really lucked out because he just communicated directly.

He's like, here's what's going on. You guys can stay indefinitely here. I'll lock you in at a lower long-term rate. So we felt really safe at that point. We were like, we don't want to go back to the US. We also just didn't want to fly because we didn't know enough at that point.

So we basically like, all right, we're just going to stay in the Canary Islands indefinitely.

[04:10] Travis: Yeah, there are worse places to be locked down for sure.

[04:12] Paul: Yeah, it was fantastic. At least the first month. I mean, it was like a— for us, like my wife and I, we work on a lot of creative projects, a lot of online stuff. So suddenly we're locked down and we get to focus on those and go deep on them. We're working out every day. We're engaging with the other people we're living with.

There's 7 of us in the house. We're learning how to cook. And all my friends are now suddenly available to hang out online too. So I've been living and working online for 2 years and suddenly— 2+ years— and suddenly everyone's available to hang out with me. People are starting to understand what I was up to with working remotely. People are asking me for advice.

People are having existential crises about the role of work in their life. So it's really cool time for doing what I was doing. And like online learning started to take off, like my course started getting an uptick of interest and forced me to like take that more seriously. And yeah, it was a really interesting time.

[05:19] Travis: Nice. So you were locked down and you devoted most of your time to your creative projects. What did you work on primarily while you were lockdown?

[05:29] Paul: So it was really just the first month, I think April, and then I ended up having a tooth removed. I had some like— I kept having issues. I ended up having an extraction. About a month after that, there were some issues with that, and I was basically like out cold. I had an infection, I had an abscess, and then just unexplained like numbness and tingling all over my body. So I, I didn't really do much for like 3 months.

I was like cooking and basically being a blob and just trying to focus on my health, trying to get answers. I'd have another surgery. It was just very frustrating navigating the healthcare system in Spain.

[06:11] Travis: But was that more about language? I mean, or was it the actual system?

[06:17] Paul: It was language, and also there wasn't I mean, now looking back, there wasn't really a cure fix. It was basically just I had nerve damage and it was going to take 6 months to calm down in the body and it was going to be shitty until that happened. And language. So when you're abroad and people are talking to you in Spanish, you start to blame things on like, they just don't understand me or I don't know what I'm doing. But in many ways, like Spain was much more pleasant to navigate than the US when I arrived in the US. Yeah.

[06:52] Travis: So update us on that. Like when did you decide to come to the US? How did you make that jump? What was the motivation behind that?

[07:01] Paul: Well, we knew we were going to the US. We were kind of tracking how things were going. The Northeast was pretty good at the end of June when we booked our tickets. Um, we flew through Barcelona. There was no one on our flights. We arrived in JFK.

There was no one in the airport. Um, we drove to Connecticut in 2 hours, which could never be done again. And, uh, uh, it was relatively safe. I mean, we knew our summer would be just kind of locked down at my parents' house, but they live right next to my aunt and uncle, right next to my grandmother, right next to my cousin. So it was basically, we were just gonna be locked into a family bubble. Mm-hmm.

[07:40] Travis: So, The Millerd family reunion.

[07:43] Paul: Yeah. I mean, we would have stayed a lot longer, but Angie could only stay in the country for 90 days because she's— she was only able to come in because she's married to me. But she can only stay for 90 days because it's still a tourist visa.

[07:55] Travis: Got it.

[07:56] Paul: And then we had to leave. And Mexico was like the logical next step, though we could have, could have went to Taiwan. Maybe we should have just went there. But Mexico has been pretty good and I feel pretty safe here as well.

[08:08] Travis: Nice.

[08:09] Paul: Nice.

[08:09] Travis: So you did a, you did a road trip though between being at your family cottage and Mexico. What was that like?

[08:17] Paul: Yeah, so we were feeling a little, uh, cabin fever in Connecticut. Um, and I started feeling better in August and we just decided like part of it was me and my wife hadn't spent much time in the US outside my parents' home. So I was like, let's just go explore, see as many places. I think it was really cool for me because I'd never done that either. I'd done a road trip in California once and mostly just vacations to one location. And then we basically drove from Connecticut to California, 4,600 miles.

We saw a bunch of national parks. We stayed with some family, a couple friends, some social distance meetups along the way. We saw Zion, Bryce, Moab, like just beautiful sights. We were really blown away with Boulder. We saw that as like an incredibly beautiful, inspiring place. Like maybe we could live there after we're done with the visa process.

And also just saw so many Americas. There's like so many US of America.

[09:32] Travis: Yeah.

[09:33] Paul: Like everyone asks me when I'm abroad, like, what is an American like? There isn't an American. There's so many different parts. Like the Mid-Atlantic is so different from the Northeast, from the Midwest, from the Plains States, from Colorado, from Arizona to California. It's like, it's really cool to be reminded of that. And man, the US is freaking big.

It took us forever to drive across like Kansas and Colorado and Missouri.

[10:04] Travis: But yeah, what was your top spot? Like the place that really took your breath away in terms of landscape?

[10:10] Paul: I mean, Utah is just mind-blowing. It looks like another planet. Yeah, it doesn't look like anything. I grew up in Connecticut in the forest, in the woods, um, and Utah is just like these red rock canyons all over the place. It's just amazing. Yeah.

And I think probably— I think everyone from their own country takes their own country for granted. I know Angie, sometimes she started to appreciate Taiwan more after being out of it. Like, Taiwan's freaking beautiful. But to her, these are just like the weekend trips she did. But to me, it's like, oh, like, you can see a lot of cool stuff in America, like in Las Palmas. The Canary Islands kind of look like Utah.

[10:54] Travis: Interesting.

[10:55] Paul: So you do— you don't need to go to Spain to see. You could just go to your backyard in the US or Colorado, right? Beautiful mountains there.

[11:05] Travis: So across the US, did you see a lot of variation in the way that people were dealing with the pandemic?

[11:14] Paul: Yeah, I'm— Northeast is like 100% masking. Mid— the Mid-Atlantics, like a rich suburb we stayed in in Charlotte, just like kind of, eh, we're not going to do the mask thing. We're not going to mask our kids. Kansas, like middle of the country driving, like people weren't wearing masks, but there's also no people there. So it's like, I mean, they're probably fine. Um, yeah, Boulder, Colorado was like 100% mask use.

They were even outdoor hiking mask usage. Wow. Um, yeah, I mean, California was good, Arizona was hit or miss.

[11:56] Travis: Is there a mandate in Colorado? Do you know?

[12:00] Paul: Yeah, I think there was. Um, I think for the most part, if you went in a grocery store, I didn't see any issues. Everyone's wearing a mask inside. We didn't do anything indoors, but Yeah.

[12:11] Travis: Nice. What was it about Boulder that really spoke to you as a place that you felt like you could stay for a while?

[12:21] Paul: I think it's just beautiful.

[12:23] Travis: It was the beauty.

[12:24] Paul: Like you drive in and it's like, boom, beautiful mountains. It's unbelievable. So cool. I think some people we know there as well too are just really open and living in a way we might consider living. So seeing those possibilities. But yeah, I don't know.

I mean, once you've lived in so many different environments, I could, I could really live in so many different ways now. Yeah, I'm super flexible. The most important things for me are like the routines and friends.

[12:59] Travis: Routines and friends.

[13:01] Paul: And like traveling around the world, I've mostly tried to design where we go based on Who do I know there? Who can I meet with? Who can I— how can I drop into a community that's easy to meet people? Yeah.

[13:12] Travis: How does that contrast with when you first started off on your, like, nomadic journey, going to places where you maybe knew no one and, uh, had to navigate entirely by yourself?

[13:25] Paul: Well, I didn't. I went to Taiwan with our mutual friend Irv, like, one of my best friends.

[13:30] Travis: What about in Bali though, for example?

[13:31] Paul: I followed Johnny to Bali.

[13:33] Travis: You met Johnny where?

[13:35] Paul: I met him a few years ago at a conference. He said, "6 months from now I'm going to Bali. I'm going to get a bunch of people together. Would you be interested?" I said, "Sure, I'll come." Good. So I've really designed my travel around like, who am I going with? And then when I met Angie, like, I now can go everywhere with her too.

And you're the first person that's kind of like joined me. So like hopefully I can like find more people along the way. I mean, Twitter's been a really interesting way to meet other people who are living and traveling or living in different areas. So yeah.

[14:11] Travis: Nice.

[14:12] Paul: Awesome.

[14:13] Travis: And so after the US, you made the jump down here to Puerto Escondido. How's that been going so far?

[14:20] Paul: It's been good. It's been about a month, I think a month. Today? Is today the 2nd?

[14:26] Travis: Yeah, today is the 2nd.

[14:27] Paul: Yeah, so about a month. It's pretty chill here. There's not many tourists. I mean, it's pretty awesome. We're sunset every night and we're on the beach. It's not too expensive.

And yeah, I mean, I think a lot of people So there's two things true at the same time, which is like, one, I'm not on vacation here. I'm actually living here. So I have a routine around like, how do I eat? How do I sleep? How do I do work? How do I think about spending my time?

But it's also awesome. I love this. Living in a place like this, I think the nature thing comes back, like living with the beach and this, The sunset is inspiring and excites me and it doesn't get old. People say that they're like, it gets old. To me it doesn't. Like if I'm in a beautiful place and I feel energized, like that kind of sticks around for me.

So there's that, which is kind of like hard to believe. I still feel like I'm on a permanent vacation, but at the same time, it's not what people think. It's not just the beautiful sunset. It's like, sweating like crazy. Our internet goes out for 12 hours.

[15:51] Travis: Yep.

[15:52] Paul: We're getting bit by like fire ants. We don't really know sometimes the customs here. You're unsure of like how to tip. The food is like destroying my stomach some days. So it's like you're— and then your mind is with you too. So like you still have your issues or challenges you're dealing with anywhere in the world.

The first week, maybe you're getting settled and you're on vacation mode, escape mode, but then you're just with yourself and all the questions of your life. How does one live one's life? How does one orient your time? How do you design your— how you spend your time? How do you keep in touch with the people who are not here? There's kind of a slipping away of relationships back in the US.

It's inevitable when you live abroad. And how do I balance that? I try to have a ritual of at least talking to my mom and grandmother every week, but I've probably lost touch with a lot of people in the US. I have a couple group threads I'm on that I stay engaged with, but I've kind of pulled back too. And that part's sad and hard to deal with as well. But I don't know, I kind of feel like I'm in a path.

Me and my wife always talk about a Pathless Path, the path that can't be named, right? That's timeless. And that's, yeah, that's kind of how I think about where I am, where I'm headed.

[17:31] Travis: Nice. So over the past year, a lot of big changes. What, if anything, is kind of the mantra that is keeping you going, the lesson that you've learned that maybe is dominating the way that you approach life right now?

[17:50] Paul: It's really— it's that Pathless Path idea, which is that like just stepping into the uncertainty and like just feeling it. Like all of everything of the society I grew up with and the way like work does this to work and how the questions people ask you convince you that the whole point of life is to kind of like get more security, get more certainty, get more money, then you can solve problems, then you don't have to worry about X. Um, but it— you're just hiding the fact that you're terrified of uncertainty. So the entire last 2 and a half years, I, I was thinking about this this morning. I don't really have a good sense for how the rest of my week's gonna turn out. I have no idea how I'm gonna spend my time.

That would be unfathomable to to me 5 years ago and really stressful. I don't think I'd be able to handle that. Just like stepping into, like trying to picture the fact that I don't know what I'm gonna do this week and that it'll also be okay. Like holding that space is, it's crazy. And when you get comfort with that, like that to me is freedom. And that is something that really drives me.

[19:22] Travis: So that's the primary benefit you think of placing yourself into uncertain situations is the freedom that you gain in being able to deal with uncertainty.

[19:32] Paul: The value of building that resilience has just been unbelievable. And it's probably the number one thing that is not easy to understand from the outside.

[19:45] Travis: It's true. It's kind of like a transformative experience that until you've stepped into that uncertainty, the fruits and benefits of it might not be directly seen by people.

[20:00] Paul: Right.

[20:00] Travis: Yeah, that's good. So what's next on the horizon?

[20:07] Paul: I don't know. I think so. I mean, my Strategy U course and some other experiments are kind of covering my cost of living and giving me room to breathe and create. I think I'm still thinking about, for me it's always about how do I extend the runway of like cash flow and giving me space to think and create such that I can do a bunch of different things that I seem pulled towards. So like continuing to write about work and the creative journey and what this means and how do you make sense with your relationship with work in the modern world. So I want to do that.

I think potentially writing an ebook, which would be a collection of maybe some shorter ideas pulled together with some of my longer essays. I mean, I've written a ton and most people who tell me, hey, I like your stuff you've written, have not read most of it. So, which is good because there might be an opportunity for me to kind of like level up my thinking across those ideas and see, okay, what are the different themes I keep getting pulled towards? How do I make sense of that? And then, yeah, I, I don't know. I want to take Chinese classes, um, when I'm back in Taiwan.

Um, I want to keep, uh, getting into fitness and just developing more practices around embodied, uh, existence and things like that. So, yeah.

[21:34] Travis: Nice. Well, I'm sure we're all very excited, and thanks, Paul.

[21:39] Paul: Sounds good. This maybe will be a recurring theme while we're in Mexico for the next month.

[21:47] Travis: Would love that.

[21:48] Paul: All right, awesome. Peace.