One of the joys of moving between the “First World” and the, so-called “Third World” is the ability to see contrasts. In some ways, a trip to the Third World, even with all its problems, is a welcome trip back in time. This morning there was a...
Don’t Waste Your Retirement Financial websites that try to tell you when is the best time to retire will say that you should start considering retirement when you calculate that you have enough income, through some magical combination of pensions, Social...
What Does Home Mean to Me? A few weeks ago I was able to watch Pico Iyer’s thought-provoking TED Talk about “Where is Home” and it got me to thinking of my personal definition of home, what does home mean, where home is, and the difference between being away from home...
I get to talk to a lot of people that are approaching retirement age, but feel they must delay “making the leap” because they are trapped by their habits of consumption. I can’t tell you how many have told me the equivalent of, “As soon as we...
Some people say that there are not enough angry people in the world. If only people were angrier we could solve the world’s problems. Perhaps those who want everyone all irate and angry are misusing the word, but anger by itself rarely accomplishes anything. Sustained...
A few years ago, not long after I moved to Cambodia, I was talking with a friend about how I received my Internet service. Since I was living down a dusty road in the middle of a rice paddy, not too far outside of Siem Reap, the expectation was that modernity was not...
Imagination is a funny thing. We all use it, but different people use it in different ways. Imagine two people taking a long journey to a place they haven’t been before. Both of these people have been around the block a few times, have a basic understanding of...
Here are a few images and a drone video I made of bomb craters in Laos. These craters were created over two generations ago by so-called “carpet bombing”. This mutilation of an otherwise bucolic landscape was created by heavy bombs, indiscriminately dropped by B52s,...
