Rain on the roof. Fire in the woodstove. A cabin on the Washington coast. Sounds like a fine place for a digital detox vacation. – And, I manage to find enough bandwidth to do some writing. Okay. More of a diet than a pure detox. Yet, beneficial. Yet, not enough, which is not a surprise. Washing away more than a decade of poverty takes more than a few days, months. (Years?) Gotta start sometime.
Let’s try that without the bandwidth. Computers have memory. Remember this.
I am in a cabin at Kalaloch Beach. I think it is larger than my house, though not as efficiently designed. Kinda comfy, but lots of wasted space. But, it is more than good enough. Small kitchen. Two queen beds. (Overdoing it.) Tiny shower.
But the cabin wasn’t designed for efficiency, or for the view. It has a great view, but I have to stand up to enjoy it. But these cabins were built in a time that was more likely to have a family staying here, not a single guy. Small wasn’t a surprise then. Now, small is supposed to be trendy. The cabin is here because of where here is, on the Washington Coast with waves close enough to hear all night.
It works. These aren’t fake logs for the walls. They’re real. Tile, not linoleum. A proper woodstove. (Got the place to 84F last night. Oops.)
And it is on the beach; well, it is on the bluff that is by the beach, and other cabins have already been lost to bluff slides. The tides they do churn.
What does this have to do with personal finance? It costs money. It costs a premium because there are no other oceanside resorts for about an hour north or south. It takes about three and a half hours to get here from Port Townsend, where I live. So, it also costs time.
Time and money, two resources to not take lightly. Time is irreplaceable. If not now, then when? And that’s a question to ask after years of no long vacations except road trips. Money is replaceable, yet it is also ephemeral. We made up money; it is valuable because we say so. Time is valuable because it is.
And yet, while I write about the stereotypical Amish lifestyle, and my semi-minimalist ways, this trip reminds me that most ideas (any?) do not have to be taken to an extreme.
This cabin is comfortable. Without it, I’d have trouble surviving the storm outside. Electric lights are handy. So is the heater, and the hot water. Oh yeah, and the microwave. I might make some popcorn after this. I prefer popping kernels on a real fire, but microwave has its advantages.
This cabin is comfortable because of technology. Even a woodstove is technology, just somewhat dated tech.
It would be easy to do a digital detox, but it is nicer getting phone calls from friends, checking emails when I grudgingly connect to broadband, even checking for news (which can go either way, lately.)
The advertising world is driving hard to convince us to incorporate AI into our lives. They haven’t convinced me yet. I have yet to identify anything that AI does that I can’t get done some other way. AI is great, so I hear, but it always seems to be uses that I don’t have a use for. That’s just me.
The stock market, and probably the economy are being driven by fear and greed, as usual. Lately, it is AI fear and AI greed, otherwise stated as AI’s pluses and minuses. Within my group of friends, I hear about pluses and minuses. Within the corporate world, fear and greed are heightened beyond their normals.
Pardon me as I got up to put another log on the embers and sip some beer.
An absolute luddite might get out of the market and get out of town, far out of town and live there. An absolute AI advocate might delve into a dense urban environment where they won’t miss a trend and can engage fully, technically. I suspect most of us are going to be in the middle, continuing with our lives, adapting as seems appropriate. Maybe give up cash. Maybe acquiesce to voice mail menus. Maybe enjoy one-click shopping and maybe even next-day delivery.
The world will change. I meet folks who want it the way it was, even though those memories include selective amnesia. I know of no time when there wasn’t some major injustice that needed to be worked on. Hopefully, the change will be positive. Sadly, I fear that the AI disruption may be unavoidable, even for luddites and those on the sidelines.
A time like this, while I sit at the beach, or at least in the cabin, reminds me that I don’t expect to change my personal finances much. I have bills to pay. Some relaxation to catch up on. Some fun to have. Friends to meet. I’ll stay aware of the tech, political, societal, and climate trends because ignorance is risky; But I’ll also be glad for some quiet time in a peaceful setting, and a bit of a digital detox, or at least the diet version.
