Blake Boles | Escaping Routine: Deep Conversation and wanting a Galactic Commune - Self Directed

Episode Transcript
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Jesper Conrad (00:00):
Today we're together with Blake Bowles and
it's the second time we'retogether.
So first of all, welcome, blake.
It's good to see you again.
It's great to be back.
I'm excited.
The first time we talked a lotabout your book.
Why Are you Still Sending yourKids to School?
And if people haven't heardthat episode they should go
check it out.
But the reason we are heretoday is because you are writing

(00:23):
a sub stack and the latestnewsletter from it made me be
like, oh, I really want toconnect with Blake again and
have a conversation about this.
So let me read aloud the titleand the subtitle of it.
It goes I don't want a nuclearfamily.
I want a galactic commune onthe pursuit of quality

(00:47):
conversation.
I just loved it.
So for the people who haven'tread it, can you share the
thoughts and the pursuit ofconversations?

Blake Boles (01:01):
It starts with me being in a restaurant, an
expensive Swiss restaurant, witha friend who I'm hiking with in
the Alps and this was just aweek and a half ago and we are
surrounded by couples, mostlymen and women, who are sitting
there and not really talking toeach other, and the food on the
menu is very expensive to myAmerican taste.

(01:22):
And I sort of look around and Irealized that my friend and I
are the only ones having what Iwould consider to be like a
dynamic conversation, andeveryone else is just like kind
of staring over the shoulder ofthe person in front of them or
maybe look at their phones.
And this is a scene that I'vewitnessed throughout my life,
but it's one that was especiallypresent in my childhood, and I

(01:45):
looked at this and I was like Idon't want to become that, and
so getting to see this again atthis later moment in life I'm 42
now it inspired me to writethis piece about what makes me
hesitant to enter into standardlong-term relationships and even

(02:05):
to have a family, and that isthe fear of the death of
interesting conversation.
I'll stop there.
So we just celebrated ouranniversary yesterday.

Cecilie Conrad (02:16):
We have a standard nuclear family.
We're heteronormative, samenationality, same age, even.

Grew up.

Grew up in the same city.
We have double the amount ofchildren most people have.
But we have children with eachother, Not so much with anyone
else except for one.
No, definitely.
Okay, I can't take it anyfurther.
A little bit standardized.
We are said Master Yoda, westill talk.

Yes, but I understand the fear and the
rarity of it.
I've been on restaurants seeingparents giving their children
an iPad and then each of themlooking on their phone at the
same time and we as full-timetravelers.
That's one of the things Ireally, really love is just all

(03:14):
the conversations, and sometimesI actually want to take my wife
for a drive in our car, becauseoften we have some of the best
talks after we have co-livedwith people or been a place and
we have a two or three hoursentrapped in the same room, yeah
, yeah, and then we just it'sbecause we take the time to talk

(03:34):
when we drive.

When we don't drive, we have so much to do so
we don't really take the time totalk.
It's a lot of passing ofinformation and practical
questions like can you do thatmeeting or can?
you respond to that thing?
Or what do you think about thatchild?
Or should we?
What are we getting grandma forher birthday?
Kind of just logistics anddecisions that we need to do

(03:59):
together as a couple, which isanother downside of being a
couple that you lose some sortof control.
You have to negotiate and alignall the time.
But anyways, when we do sit ina car there's not much else to
do, so we chat.

Anyone who reads the article will see that it's
definitely not an attack onstandard long-term partnership.
It's more me talking about mybackground and hangups and why I
also choose to have a travelinglifestyle.
While I really enjoyparticipating in these temporary
intense communities, like thetraveling group programs I do

(04:38):
with teenagers working at summercamps, going to visit friends
for a period of two to four days, it's just the quality.
And these dance weekends thatI'm going to in friends for a
period of, you know, two to fourdays, it's just the quality.
And these dance weekends thatI'm going to in Europe, which
I'm highly addicted to, it'sjust the quality of the
conversation and the volume thatI can learn from someone in
these conversations and knowingthat the window of opportunity

(05:00):
is brief, really is thismotivating set of circumstances.
And when I imagine a muchlonger term, more predictable,
much more familiar set ofinteractions and a much smaller
set of interactions, a lessdiverse set of interactions,
that's what I become wary of.

And.

I've been in long-term relationships too.
I'm part of a family.
I've tasted the benefits oflong-term friendship, romantic
partnership and siblings andparents.
I know that's real, but it'salways just felt a bit stifling
to me and that's the sentiment Iwas trying to get across in the
article and ultimately say weneed all sorts of people.

(05:41):
We need the people who are thebricks the family units and then
we need the mortar.
We need, like the people whoare the bricks the sort of the
family units and then we needthe mortar.
We need the people who likedrift in between and then bring
people together from disparategroups, and I really consider
myself a mortar person.

I think we also you touched upon we need the
sense of urgency.

Yeah.

It's one of the great.
We are travelers as well andit's one of the greatest
benefits of being a traveler.
It can be really annoying andwe can sometimes feel we're busy
all the time.
We wake up with this busy feel.
But not being busy is just tofool yourself to think you have
an infinite amount of time,because no one has that.

(06:23):
You never know, right?
I mean, yeah, our son-in-lawjust arrived yesterday with a
sad face because one of his bestfriend's mother is has a
terminal disease now and she'smy age.
You know, you never know and weneed to know that we never know
.
And traveling just makes it soeasy because if I want to see

(06:44):
that art museum or have thatconversation with that person,
well that's going to be when I'min the city, and that's now
because I'm leaving on Friday,and we know that because we're
travelers.
So yeah, so I think the urgencyis a big part of it as well.

Yeah, where do you think the conversation got
lost?
I don't think it's necessarilyonly in everyday life, or if you
end up being in everyday job,the same thing you talk about
what's on the television, etcetera, et cetera.

(07:20):
But don't we have an interestfor each other any longer?
I think it's.
Maybe there were.
When I look at our teenagers,there's a lot of dialogue in a
couple of years where it's a lotof talking, talking, talking,
and then it's almost like whenpeople grow older, then some of
these deep conversationsdisappear.

I see myself as doing battle against that
constant erosion of deeper, moredynamic, more meaningful
conversations and what seems tobe the gradual sinking into as
you described earlier, this modeof parenting where you're sort
of like managing a smallbusiness together and that small
business is your family andit's a lot of logistics, who's

(08:03):
going to take whom where, howmuch does this cost, et cetera.
And listen, somebody's got tomake more kids right.
This is something that needs tohappen, and so I don't see what
I'm advocating for asinherently any better or more
noble or anything like that.
It's that spirit of youth.
It's that spirit of adolescenceand young adulthood.

(08:26):
For me, I really bloomed when Iwent to college and got exposed
to all these different minds.
It was very different from themore conservative, suburban,
middle-class agricultural areain California where I grew up,
and I think that's where Istarted to get hooked.
And then going to summer campand getting to get surrounded by

(08:47):
all these people who, like,really want to learn from each
other, and they know that thesummer is ending in just a few
weeks, that was another part ofit, and so somebody needs to
carry this torch right Of like,let's have provocative
conversations with each other.
When I work with groups ofteenagers, one of the favorite
games that they like to play iscalled Hot Seat, which is just a

(09:09):
game that creates a formatwhere we can ask each other
deeper, more interesting, moreprovocative questions in this
structured, facilitated way, andsomebody volunteers to get up
on the hot seat for threeminutes and then everyone else
can ask them any question theywant, and the person on the hot
seat has to do their best torespond to it.
We can't force them to answer it, of course, but there's an

(09:30):
equal responsibility betweenbeing open and honest and
vulnerable.
If you're on the hot seat, andthen the people asking the
questions, they need to askquestions that are more
interesting and deeper than onesthat they would feel
comfortable asking in a normalday-to-day situation, which is
why I think this is an activitythat needs to be pretty heavily
facilitated, because if someonestarts asking what's your

(09:51):
favorite color, it just sort ofdrifts into this kind of boring
realm, and so if I'm running agame of hot seat, I will be like
nope next, deeper, moreprovocative, let's go.
What's going to happen to youafter you die?

there's a question indeed, I have a friend
called ronnie, who have createdsomething called the human
library, and one of the things Ifind fascinating about that is
is basically you can rent orborrow a person instead of a
book, and the person you borrowis often a stereotype it can be

(10:32):
an obese person, it can be oneof a special nationality or fate
, etc.
It can be an overly tattooedperson.

Now you say overly yes.

I would say overly, and that is my judgment.

Exactly, exactly.

But one of the interesting things that
facilitates is that people cansit and ask about their fears of
this stereotype or a lot of ofthese questions and it came down
to.
The idea originated once whenhe in his early youth,
facilitated a talk between apunk, young kind of criminal not

(11:16):
too much criminal officiallyand a policeman and they sat and
chatted and they had awonderful conversation and they
lived as friends.
Because when you get deep downinto a conversation and get to
know a person, you actually endup liking them, and what we
often do not like with otherpeople is all the things we

(11:37):
construct in our minds aroundthem.
So I like his format for it.
I like his format for it and Itry to.
When we are in dialogue withpeople or in meetings sitting
with people, then I try to asksome of the difficult questions
about their siblings, theirparents, their relationships,
because one of the reasons is Iwould get bored just talking

(11:59):
about nothing and the other isthat it's often there there is
something deeper, something wecan grow from.

Yeah, everyone has a rich interior life.
It's just sort of our job toscoop it out of each other, to
draw it out, and I understandthat.
Spending a lot of time aroundone person or a small group of
people, that's a great way todiscover the rich interior life
of other people.
For me, I think I just needmore.
I think quantity might begreater than excuse me yeah,

(12:32):
quantity might be greater thanquality in this regard, or I
just want both.
This is why I like the idea ofhaving kids, but I don't like
the idea of the insulatednuclear family.
I want there to really be thisvillage.
I really want there to bepeople coming and going.
I just hosted a cyclist who'sgoing across Europe for three

(12:54):
months.
He's an American, but he's fromthe South.
He was a Marine, he owned aCrossFit gym for a while and now
he's cycling from Ljubljana toBilbao and he had a pretty
interesting story, quitedifferent from mine.
I love that.
He was here for two nights andthis was just my ability to just
like dip into a whole differentworld.

(13:16):
I have long-term friends.
We have long histories together.
That's very meaningful to me,but without this like full, full
spectrum of new people comingin and revisiting conversations
with old people, I fear for thequality of my mental experience.

Well, I would fear for it as well, and I think
I just wanted to point that alogical fallacy, but maybe also
a point of interestingexploration for this
conversation, which is, you know, the limitations of a nuclear
family isolation.
I think you used the wordisolated nuclear family, and I
mean the nuclear family is notnecessarily isolated.

Anything is possible, I would say
infrastructure within countriescan push a family towards
isolation or towards morecommunalism.

So that's what I'm saying.
Maybe we could explore whatdrives people to look over the
shoulder of their partner whilesitting wherever at a restaurant
.
We've just been driving fromthe Lake District in England
back to Copenhagen, so this wasa four-day road trip, and so I
sit and I knit and I chat withmy husband and I look into all
the other cars and I see a lotof passengers on the shotgun

(14:35):
seat with their phone, and so Isuppose they're not having a
meaningful conversation with thedriver.
It's the same thing.
It's not about the expensiverestaurant.
That just somehow exaggeratesit, because do we expect people
to have a meaningfulconversation because they're
eating something that costs moremoney?
The problem perseveres throughall kinds of situations where

(14:59):
you could have had a meaningfulconversation.
You flip out the phone or youlook over someone's shoulder or
you talk about the weather orsomething infinitely not
interesting.
So what happens?

I think I have an answer for that because I think
I'm the one of us three whohave lived the most normal life
going to an office for 20 years.
Things become a routine andthings become every day, and
sometimes when I talk withpeople about why did we start
this podcast, one of the reasonswas that I went from being this

(15:32):
guy who went to work and had mywork life and came home and had
home life and then we startedour full-time traveling and
after some time on that, it wasnot that there was nothing new
in our life, because there was alot of new stuff, but I
couldn't ask Cecilia how her daywas because I had been there, I

(15:54):
had seen it and I like thisoutside inspiration that you get
when you travel and I reallylove having this one weekly
conversation with someone andhearing their external
perspective on a subject, whichmake us then walk and talk and
ponder about it.
But maybe it is the everydaycircle of routine and what I

(16:19):
think that you also hit the nailon the head, cecilia, is that
you said it is the we make aself-belief that life is
infinite, that we have todialogue at a later point.
So scarcity is important fordialogue.

Yeah, I think the end date, the expiration date,
is incredibly powerful becausewe all have expiration dates,
right, and you're just eithergoing to recognize that and live
like there's an expiration dateor you're going to create this
delusion that it goes on and on.
There's always another chance.
I'll just sort of scroll on myphone because there's probably

(16:59):
some funny stuff to see there,instead of try to have what
could possibly be an awkwardconversation with someone or a
difficult conversation withsomeone in front of me.

Or something else that you're passionate
about, and read that very, verycomplicated book you always
wanted to read or learn to playthat instrument.
It doesn't have to, as such, be, that's it?

No, but I'm trying to challenge ourselves
here by asking what is a goodconversation?
What do we get out of a goodconversation, versus sitting
next to each other and watchingNetflix?

Well, a good conversation to begin with is a
conversation, not a notconversation.

I think we got to define it Like talking about the
weather.
Is that a conversation?

Can be, can be.
I think talking about theweather is being frowned upon a
lot, because talking about theweather is a very good place to
start.
Often we rarely disagree aboutthe weather, and then if you
make a few comments about theweather with someone, you're
waiting for the bus or waitingin line at the airport and

(18:09):
you're going to be there for 25minutes.
If you comment on the weatherand the person responds, then
you have a conversation.

This is a person who wants to talk to me.
You're talking about an openerwith a stranger.

Then you can go where are you going?
Within a few minutes you canhave a meaningful conversation,
or they just need to unload,which apparently was my job that
day, to listen to that story,which is fine.
I don't want to talk about theweather all day long, and I'm
very rarely talking about theweather with my best friends,
but we just did yesterday.
We did talk about the weatherwith our best friends.

(18:41):
We came here, just come toDenmark and we're cold.
Why am I putting on woolenclothes in August?
That doesn't make any sense.
So we talked a little bit aboutthe weather.
It's not too bad.
It's a way to touch, it's a wayto connect, it's a way to feel
each other's vibe.
And how much do you want tochat right now?
I don't want to talk about itfor more than maybe two and a

(19:02):
half minutes and I'm done.

Here's where I feel like I'm a bit weird and an
outsider, which is like talkingabout weather, talking about
food, talking about TV shows,talking about cultural icons,
like my tolerance for this it'snot zero, but it's pretty darn
low and to me like a capital Cconversation, the kind that I'm
advocating for in that article,are ones where I guess you have

(19:26):
like a heightened emotionalstate, Like you feel something.
You feel like, ooh, this couldgo someplace, I don't know.
Maybe a little bit of fear,sadness, maybe excitement, maybe
a little bit of anxiety.
I think that that's what I'mgoing for here.
I want to feel something.

(19:47):
I don't want to have a sense oflike okay, we've just entered
these rutted tracks and now Ikind of know where this is going
to go.
I mean, yes, Jesper, thisapplies to my feelings about
work, my feelings abouteducation.
This crosses many disciplines.
You can call it novelty seeking, you can call it ADHD, you can
call it something else, but Iwant this stimulation.

(20:12):
I want to actually feel itinside of me, and the
unpredictability is a veryimportant element for me.

It made me think about one of the issues I have
with a week as a construct and aday as a construct, because
part of me liked the circularityof life.
We live on a planet that spins,we have different seasons, all
these things I like.
And I like that you can live ina mood where you go into winter

(20:45):
mode maybe and you have moredowntime and you live in a more
uptime thing.
I like the cyclosis of thesethings, uptime thing.
I like the cyclosis of thesethings.
But at the same time I thinkthat working with weeks is
cheating ourselves.
I know when I have kind of beenon a diet or tried to lose
weight, for example, some days Ican start the morning as the

(21:09):
calories I ate yesterday didn'texist and when I went to work
every day it was kind of a newweek started on Monday.
That it resets somehow, insteadof having this direction that
life also has.
And I find that is a difficultthing with the cyclists we have

(21:32):
used in our wording of time andweeks and years, because life is
going forward, but yes, thereis some cycle movements in it,
so I'm in doubt, but part of it.
What I don't like is cheatingmyself, the reset of a new day,
a new week, a new year, etcetera.

I appreciate new days.
That's a nice natural reset forme.
But weeks like if it's a sunnyMonday, like it was yesterday, I
am going to go out for a trailrun, if it's at all within my
power, and if it's a weekend andnothing else is going on or
it's kind of crappy weather, Iwill sit down in front of the
laptop and do laptop stuff.

(22:15):
Yeah, I'm with you on that one.

I'm not with anyone on the weekday thing.
It's a running joke that Inever know.
And the funny thing, I neverknow what weekday it is.
And the worst part is I think Iknow and this has been, this is
years, and my family members.
They just laugh if I saysomething about what we.
So I'll just say out loud asit's Sunday today, we will have

(22:41):
three days until we have to goand people are like it's
Thursday, you know, and whateven makes you say you think you
know what day, but I never.

It's Tuesday.
It's Tuesday, I know, becausewe have science class tonight.

I actually know that, but I did start mixing it
up with tomorrow, where theyhave bouldering, so it kind of
merged with Wednesday.
I rarely know what day of theweek it is, yet if we are
discussing that, I do think Iknow I've read somewhere that in
most human societies that grewbig enough for a calendar to be

(23:16):
needed, there has been someversion of the week, as if
humans like to organize theirtimes in chunks that are
understandable and under thenumber of 10 days as some sort
of rhythm.
You go through things, peopledo their weekly shopping, maybe
you wash your clothes once aweek, and it has some sort of

(23:37):
rhythm that like the new daythat attaches to the spinning of
the planet but the new week.
There are some routines thatcome with living a life that
somewhat has made sense forhumans across cultures
throughout the ages.
So I mean we can be againstthat.

(23:57):
We can also just not care toomuch about it.
My challenge is that I?

come to this cheating myself to believe that,
oh, I can just start over orthat can wait till next week.
The whole postponing that canbe in it.
That's what I dislike.
I actually want to ask you guysa question.

Yes, the second half of the article, the title,
is I want to live in a galacticcommune, and by that I mean I
want to be a member of this big,wide universe where there's
little communities that I'm apart of everywhere and I can
sort of sail through like acomet.
And it's a mutual dependencething because I need other

(24:41):
people to be rooted in order tobe able to plan and go visit
them and hopefully they enjoy mecoming and visiting and
bringing stories, taking theirkids on adventures, whatever it
might be.
And you two are active increating communities and
bringing people together fromdisparate places and other
people like yourselves who arefull-time or semi-full-time

(25:04):
travelers.
So I'm kind of curious whatyou've experienced with bringing
together maybe more isolatednuclear units into these
temporary communities.
I've never done that.
I've never taken whole familiesand brought them communities.
I've never done that.
I've never taken whole familiesand brought them together.
I've only taken teenagers andbrought them together.
Does it work and does it seemlike it could work in this

(25:28):
longer term?
I use the word commune tonguein cheek.
I don't actually want to livein a formal commune where you
don't have any real agency andeveryone's resources are pooled
no you're on that one, yeah, butlike my resources are not off
reps, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, how has it gone for you?
And like how, how big or how,how long do you think that sort

(25:50):
of temporary bringing togetherof nuclear families can work or
should work?

So our longest experience is with co-living.
Where we are now in this officeis some of our friends, where
we always end up visiting andstaying for a long time with
them while we visit Denmark.
This is such a good community.
It works really really well.

(26:17):
We love and respect each otherand have, over the span of many
years, maybe lived together fora whole year if we count all the
months, maybe two.
Maybe longer, yeah, so it worksreally really well.
There is definitely somethingabout the scarcity and knowing
that it is a limited time.

(26:39):
One of the things I enjoy mostis that the conversations
stretched, that you can have aconversation in the morning that
continues the next day becauseyou are living together for a
piece of time.
You are living together for apiece of time.
I also love that you see eachother without the facades on,

(27:02):
because you cannot.
If you live together in thesame house, in the same
proximity for so long time, youcannot keep the facades in the
other.
That is.

I don't know where I've put mine.

No.

Sorry, I don't think they're available.

No, but often when I talk about this I reflect
on that when I lived in Denmark, I actually never stayed
together with my parents, forexample.
I only visited them, and atsome point we lived so far apart
that the birthday visit wasshorter than the commute back

(27:37):
and forth to it.
And when you are only visiting,then there's almost like a
structure, like a whole set ofrules.
Then we come, then we say hi,then we have a little chat about
this, then we sit down and eat,then we go for a walk.
It's so structured that itmakes me having difficulties

(27:58):
breathing sometimes when I thinkabout these kind of meetups.
Then we have attended, throughthe World School Pop-Up Hubs
that our friend Rachel Carlsonhave created.
We have attended a lot of hersmall hubs.
That is only a week, but it wastoo little for us and many
others.
So many others started toorganizing hey, let's use this

(28:21):
week as a focal point, butshouldn't we stay in that city
for a whole month?
And the whole month was the theenjoyment.
But then we lived in separateapartments but just met up on
the street but for us actuallyit started out with actual
co-living at the castle infrance two and a half years ago.

How long every time it was two and a half years
, I think.
So we're creating it now withthe world school villages and we
we made a better village injune in denmark and we're doing
the first actual village inOctober.
Now we're up around 30 familiescoming to the same village in
Spain.
They will not know what hitthem.

No, not the village, a lot of people coming
from everywhere.

I think it's a brilliant idea and really making
use of the moments.

I think it's going to be a lot of fun and we
have two more lined up in thespring in Prague and Copenhagen.

And they look very affordable too.
That's great, oh they're socheap.

I think the balance between how much work we
put into them and how muchmoney comes out in the other end
is not really compensating forthe carrots we need to buy.
But anyways, we're doing it andwe're doing it because we think
it's needed in the communityways.
We're doing it and we're doingit because we think it's needed

(29:39):
in the community and, as yousaid, you kind of need some.
I want to go back to what yousaid about needing someone to be
rooted, to have places so thatyou can satellite between these
places and come visit.
If everyone was moving likethat, there would be no place
for you to come back to, justlike if our friends didn't have

(29:59):
this big organic farm in Denmark, we wouldn't have this
community to come back to.
And I think there has alwaysbeen travelers right, there's
always been adventurers.
There's always been stablecommunities of people doing
their thing, living in one placeor maybe a few places during
their life, and other peopletraveling.

(30:19):
And those who travel, theybring something to the shared
table of humanity and those whostay in one place bring other
things to that table.
And I don't think that I am anybetter for traveling than my
friend is for being here.
And I think the bringing thenuclear families together for

(30:39):
the months-long stays that weare making for the villages
right now we're playing with themonths as a concept because we
as travelers think that a weekis a very short time.
Especially.
Well, for the adults.
A lot of it is for practicalreasons, for financial reasons.
It's a lot to move every week.

(31:00):
For the teenagers it's a veryshort time to make a new friend,
let alone a girlfriend.
So we just need more time forall the systems to work, the
working and the studying and theworking out and the
practicalities of everyday lifeand the relations on all levels.

(31:20):
They need more time than a weekto unfold.
So we work with a month.
It might change, it might comeup to three months at some point
.
I don't know.
I think a month at this pointis a good.
We had actually six weeks inthe beta village but people came
and went in different.
Actually six weeks in the betavillage but people came and went
in different somewhere only fortwo and a half week and some

(31:41):
were for five weeks and onefamily stayed for six weeks.

So I'm curious about the the time aspect here.
If you're bringing 30 familiestogether, how long would be too
long just for you two?
Like if you think like, oh,like, if we had everyone commit
to stay a year in the same smallcity in Spain, oh, that would
be a bit too much for us.
We actually want the freedom togo off and to go other places

(32:05):
and see other people and notnecessarily be bound to this one
group.

I think we have to take that question and tear
it a little bit apart, becausethere is what would I want, and
then there is what would work,and what would work is what
would work for everyone involved, right?
So I personally am not readyfor a year.

I could maybe do two months before I need to move
.

I could possibly do three.
I had to be a good city though.

When you think about going above two or three
months.
What are the feelings attachedto that?
I want to see where we overlaphere.
It's a fear of just.

I just feel trapped, Super trapped.

I get anxiety just talking about it.

This is also if we're talking about the village
concept, then we are the hostsof the village.
So this means if I put out avillage proposition for the
community of travelers and saywe will be in, let's say, madrid
for six months and we will hosta village for six months, we
will make sure that there isparties and conferences and

(33:14):
shared art walks and all thethings you know, and let's say,
it worked out financially for meas well, so that I could
actually keep my head abovewater.
I would have to stay because Ijust sold tickets for people to
come and do it, whereas ifsomeone else proposed a
four-month stay, I could comeand say, okay, we might stay

(33:35):
four months, but I might feelI'm suffocating after six weeks
and I'll leave.
So that's two very, verydifferent situations.
And all of the people who boughta ticket to my event, our event
.
They're free to come and go asthey like.
I mean they can just leave ifthey only want to stay for three
days.
By all means, for three days,by all means, just do whatever
makes sense.

(33:55):
So it's very dependent on theindividual traveler, and we are
working with travelers here.
It's all travelers, so this isalso a very narrow subgroup of
nuclear families.

I think the reason we have chosen that price
point just to mention it isactually to clearly say where
the difference is inresponsibility.
If you go and have a high pricepoint, then people expect you
to arrange everything.
What we are facilitating is thefocal point, the meeting, and
then we have a weekly walk, themeeting and then we have a

(34:39):
weekly walk.
We do some arrangements andcultural stuff during the weeks,
but we keep it as a minimumwhere we are like hey, it is
your family, it is yourresponsibility.
It is not a teen retreat.
There's no food, there's noaccommodation.
It is people meeting together.
And the interesting part isthat we arranged this because we
had some really good friends inTarragona and they are from the

(35:00):
States and they had been livingthere for many years and I'm
like, oh, we really love stayingtogether with you for a week
and we would love there was moreteenagers and we was like so
how many teenagers do you want?
Let's create the first villagehere.
And they are really happybecause they have lived in the
same place but as travelers thenthey got caught up in covid and
all that and really like thecity and they have a job, that

(35:24):
where they're tied to that placeand then you just need to bring
people if you need thisexperience or people coming in.
As the said, there has alwaysbeen people traveling and other
people staying, and I came tothink about the old role of
having a bard.
That was the person travelingbetween cities and telling tales

(35:48):
of the king and the queen andit was kind of a, you can say,
musical newsletter of whathappened in the country.
And I think there's kind ofthis exchange when you open your
doors to people, you getsomething back.
There's an exchange of energy.
When we lived in Copenhagenbefore we could travel full-time
, we opened our doors toworkaways, which meant that we

(36:11):
had young people coming andstaying with us and it felt like
traveling because we got somuch stories in, we got so many
people in and it was reallywonderful.
Now we have that job, you cansay, or that part of the
exchange when we come, what dowe bring to the table?
And we have become more notfocused on it, but we have

(36:36):
opened our eyes to when we cometo people, we bring something to
the table.
It can be that Cecilia do art,a lot of art stuff with the kids
.
We have just spent twowonderful weeks with a family in
UK and they were doing arts andcrafts every day, and they were
doing arts and crafts every day.
One of the things that is funthat you bring as a traveler is

(36:58):
actually the love of the localarea of the host family, because
they get to want to show wherethey live and often some of them
we talk with them say, oh, Ihaven't taken this walk for
years, I only take it when Iwalk with someone new here.
They say oh, I haven't takenthis walk for years, I only take

(37:19):
it when I walk with someone newhere, and so it's a gift to
come and visit also becausepeople go on trips together and
share stuff together with youand with you.

Yeah, symbiotic relationship.

Absolutely.
And to go back to the questionabout what works, what doesn't
work, about bringing peopletogether, then I like the idea
of a village square, a villagesquare where you can meet up.
We are neither we are also likeyou're not into living in a

(37:53):
communal living where peopleshare everything.
It would feel, yeah, I'm notready, maybe one day.
Right now, when I think aboutit, it would feel kind of
suffocating.

But I think also one of the problems with
communities, and especiallytrying to create projects like
our World School Village as acommunity, like a temporary
community, is we have to takeinto account that all all these
people are different people andall these families are different
families that work in differentways and doing it based out on

(38:33):
a city somewhere on the planet.
Everyone can make it work theway they want to.
Some are coming in vans andjust living in their vans.
Some are coming in vans butparking up at an official
campsite.
Some are volunteering nearbybecause that's their way of
travel.

(38:53):
Some are renting big houseswith pool and the view of the
Mediterranean.
Some will have to keep goingwith their structured home
education from nine in themorning to three in the
afternoon every day, becausethat's how they work, and then
they will join every day afterthree o'clock, which is
perfectly fine, and I think if Iam to, or anyone was to come up

(39:16):
with this, is how we do itexactly all day long summer camp
style for families.
That would just be pushing ittoo much, that would be asking
too many people to adapt toomuch in order to have community,
because this is basically aboutcommunity.
It's because we want and needto share our life with other
people and being travelers itcan be one of the harder parts

(39:44):
to find community beingtravelers with teenagers.
They have specific needs fortheir friendship life, how it
can unfold, and with whom theycan't just play soccer with
anyone on the beach.
They need to unfold morecomplicated relationships and
pick their friends in adifferent way, and so we cannot

(40:05):
just come up with aone-size-fits-all kind of life
and install that Like, let's say, we rent a campsite for a month
and everyone share theirbreakfast and we do it like
summer camps.
Lots of people would notfunction in that.
So, yeah, bringing peopletogether this way allows for a

(40:26):
lot of flexibility, flexibilitythat we know we personally need,
and we have now been livingwith so many different people
and traveling with so manydifferent people in so many
different ways and contexts.
It's very clear that peopleneed their freedom.
Basically, they need to be ableto organize it the way that

(40:47):
they want to and that makes wantto and that makes them happy.
So this is the most flexibleway we were able to set up some
sort of community living thatwould be moving around, that
would, at the same time, becheap.
The entry point is cheap andthat would allow for all kinds

(41:12):
of people to come and join inall kinds of different ways.
I'm saying the same thing overand over.
I'll shut up now.

We talked with Charles Eisenstein on an earlier
podcast where Cecilia and Ioffloaded our dislike of
ecovillages, which is basicallythat we have visited one or two.
I like the concept Absolutely.
I've worked for GlobalEcovillage Network or together
with them on a project calledGaia Education.
I love so much about it.

(41:39):
The amount of rules I do notlike and many of these
communities have super manyrules and we talked about that
and our take on it is wewouldn't like to live a place
where there were small rulesthan in society and it feels
like it sometimes.

Well, there will be.
Because the society hosting thecommunity, those rules still
apply.

Yes.

So in the community you just have more
rules.

Yeah.

And that's when I bounced.

Yeah, and Charles said something interesting,
which was that people don'tnecessarily have the same moral
codex or they haven't livedtogether with many people, so
therefore they need the rules inthe start as a kind of crutch
to community as they have neverreally tried it, community as
they have never really tried it.
And I found that veryinteresting that we as a society

(42:37):
, due to the nuclear familiesbecoming smaller and smaller,
actually maybe have difficultiesliving together.
What do you do when you travel?
Do you co-live with people, ordo you rent a place, or do you
couch surf?

All of the above, yeah, I definitely like, and I
have a very high battery levelfor going and visiting friends
anywhere from a few days up to aweek.
Friends and family and sometimes, if I'm in like bike travel
mode, then that will includemore staying with strangers,
couch surfing or or warm showers.

(43:08):
Every now and then I reallyenjoy just paying money to have
a temporary private, furnishedplace to call my own and to
potentially host other people.
It's just that the balance ofall that tips way in the
direction of.
I want to be bouncing around inthese short-term situations

(43:29):
much more than having along-term situation.
I just don't have this deepdesire that I witness in other
people to have the right kind ofsofa or to know exactly where
everything is in the kitchen andwhat's in the spice cabinet.
I appreciate that, but I canadapt to new kitchens very

(43:49):
quickly.
I love showing up at a friend'splace and being like I'm going
to cook us dinner and then Ineed like five minutes to orient
myself to how the burners workand what the spice situation is
and where the rice might be, andthen go to the grocery store
and whip something up foreveryone.
I love that challenge.

I will share one of my panic attacks.
It wasn't a real panic attack,it was more a oh my God, I need
to get out of here mode.
I was in a Bauhaus one of thesebig chains where you can buy a
lot of stuff for the house andthe garden and I went down an

(44:27):
aisle and I kept going there andfirst I was thinking, oh,
that's a lot of handles going onhere.
It was like door handles andknobs for drawers etc.
But what made me almost panicwas in the start I was thinking
that is crazy.
How many can there be thinkingthat is crazy?
How many can there be?

(44:48):
But in the end, after I havewalked like 50, 60 meters down
an aisle with more and more ofthese handles, I actually took
myself in thinking oh wait, weactually have different handles
on our doors.
Maybe it would be prettier ifwe had the same.
And then I go oh, no, that'swhen you need to sell the house.
No, that's when you need tosell the house.
That's when you need to sellthe house.

(45:09):
That gave me the panic.
I'm like imagine that it can beimportant for you.
So which door handle you haveon your doors?

and you didn't even think it was important.
Until you went to the store Ididn't realize I'm missing out
my door handles could be better.
Yeah, I am not living my bestlife.
I'm not.

I was disrespectful to humanity by
having a mix of different doorhandles.
It was terrible.

Can I ask you something?
I've heard this story obviouslya few times.
Do you remember why you were inthat shop?

Absolutely not.

Because I'm actually thinking maybe you were
there for something that wewould, now that we do not have a
house and haven't had one forseven years, also think was
ridiculous.
Absolutely, I actually think soit's actually not ridiculous if
you're passionate about havingfancy doors.
No, I respect other people'spassions.
It is the jewelry of the door,it's the inside flowers you know

(46:08):
what If that makes you happy,but just stop and wonder will it
actually make you happy?

It is the jewelry of the door, it's the inside
flowers.
You know what If that makes youhappy.
But just stop and wonder, willit actually make you happy?
I have a question for you,blake, which is how do you go
about having interestingconversation?
What do you do in your personallife to get more out of being
together with people?
Do you have some way you open adialogue?
Because I actually think forsome people it's just a question

(46:33):
of not being used to havingdeeper conversations.
So where to start?

I think having a sense of humor is a great place
to start.
I think you can go deep prettyquickly while also not getting
too serious or too attached.
I think that's a lovely tightrope to try to walk.
One of my favorite questionsthat I'll ask of people who I've
known for years, but also askof people who I've only recently
met, is you know, how's yourlove life?

(47:00):
And I think that when you startto unpack it and go beyond just
like how's your romanticrelationship or how's your
dating, but you unpack it tolike what are you in love with
these days, like what reallymotivates you, what moves you, I
think that that's a greatquestion that can just you can
unfold for hours potentially.

(47:22):
I think it's fun to imagineyourself to be like a cultural
anthropologist with anyone whoyou might be with and just
imagine that this other personis some sort of alien and it's
your mission to figure out whythey're doing what they're doing
, what's going on inside theirhead, even if this is someone
you've known for quite a longtime.

(47:44):
And that involves asking sortof like basic or so-called dumb
questions, and I'm trying tothink of a recent example here.

Yeah, someone who Go ahead.
No, no, please go ahead.

Someone who I've known for 20 years I met through
summer camp in California wewere just catching up the other
day and our conversation oftenrevolves around the question of
long-term romantic partnershipand whether that can lead
whether we want that to lead tosomething like a family and the
ups and downs of that.
And I feel like he and I had theconversation that we also had

(48:20):
15 years ago.
But it's with this new wealthof experience and the new
situation that he's in that I'min.
And so I think, just going backto the basics of like, what
gets people like, what do wereally care about?
And often that's like ourrelationships, whether it's, you
know, friendship or romantic.
It's about, like, the qualityof how we spend our day-to-day

(48:42):
time, the work that we're doing,whether we think the work is
actually meaningful, whetherwe're sabotaging ourselves.
I think everything that goesunder the umbrella of mental
health, without talking about itin a way that's, you know, like
one person actively being atherapist or a doctor to someone
else, I think just talkingabout the inner workings of the
mind, that's endless.

(49:03):
Give me anyone we can talk forhours just on those subjects.

Blake, why do you travel?
I will put you in the red seat.
I will start it as aprovocative question what are
you fleeing, Blake?
Fleeing?

boredom, monotony, too much cultural homogeneity,
fleeing people who I believe Ican't have great conversations
with.
I think I'm fleeing having tosit too long in one place and
stare out the same window.
This is all connected, right?
It's too much familiarity and Iwas poisoned at a young age

(49:39):
with the knowledge that theworld is a big place and there's
many interesting people outthere.
And then since then, it's justbeen this mission to go find
those places and those people,and I can never undo that
knowledge.

I've eaten from the tree and now I am suffering
the consequences I think weactually we just talked about
that maybe it wasn't with you,maybe it was one of the kids I
talked to about that, thethere's no going back.
We can't.
For us, it's the seven yearmark, this year, of full-time
traveling as a family, and it'sjust could we settle down?

(50:15):
No.

No.

It's not like I would just get bored so quickly.
And the kids say the same.
You can think about all thebenefits of living in one place
and having your own room andmaybe a bicycle and all the
things you can't have when youtravel full time, and then their

(50:39):
conclusion still is no.
So I think there is a level ofI really understand the eating
from the tree thing.
It's just this.
We definitely passed the pointof no return.
Also, now our friends, oursocial life is spread out all
over.
I want to see my friends andthey happen to not live in the

(51:01):
same city I.

This is what I tell people all the time.
When they say, if you had tosettle down in one place, where
would it be?
I'd say there's many places I'dlove to spend more time, but if
I really had to stay in oneplace for most of the year, that
would mean cutting out theface-to-face contact with most
people who I care about.
So it's actually kind of atragic situation, no matter how
beautiful or amazing any oneplace might be.

That's a science fiction book and I unfortunately
don't remember the name or theauthor.
I will look it up, but it isbased around the idea that you
can have like what's it called,like the holes you can move
through in space time Wormholes,wormhole doors.
So you're in your living room,can open it, and then you walk

(51:47):
out to the jungle and so youhave wormhole doors installed in
your house.
So maybe your bedroom is in thecool Nordic Arctic and I mean a
life like that I could settledown in, with doors to my
different friends.
That could be nice.

(52:11):
To leave the people who havelistened here some thoughts on
conversations then what shouldthey do if they want more real,
deep dialogue and conversationsin their life?
How to throw themselves into it?
What kind of safe spaces do youthink there are?
Because it can be a littlefearful and if you go to

(52:33):
everyday work at the same office, then just taking a
conversation with someone youhave seen in the office for 20
years or 10 years or five andhaven't talked with, really that
might feel like crossing aborder you're not ready to.
So I don't know how people.
What would you suggest?

What should they do ?
I'd say, unless you really livein the middle of nowhere, the
first thing and the safest thingyou could do is just open your
door to travelers.
So that could mean getting oncouch, surfing or warm showers
or work away, or another one ofthese hospitality network
websites.
It could just be putting out apost on social media and being

(53:13):
like hey, we'd love for peopleto come stay with us and you can
set parameters around it.
Like we have a guest room or anin-law suite that we just put
in the backyard and we or thissummer we'd be happy to pitch
some tents in the backyard andif you want to come stay with us
for up to a week, like you'rewelcome, you know, and that I

(53:34):
think kind of you get to createyour laboratory, then you get
the, the mice to come to you andthen you can try out your
methods that you've read aboutin books or on on websites.
Just go ask chat, gpt how do Italk to people?
I forgot, and then and thenthey come to you.
You're in your safe space, youhave some shared meals together.

(53:54):
Maybe you get to show them yourhome area through a new lens,
but then that's your, that'syour practice, that's your dojo
for conversation right there.
Just let's see what kind ofinteresting conversations we can
get into with these people,whether we've known them for
years or we just met them fiveminutes ago yeah well, I
couldn't agree more.

We did exactly that and it very much worked
yeah yeah, it's a great way todo it yeah, I know, I personally
love potlucks also, wherepeople get and meet in a park
and everyone brings somethingand it's a good way to.
I mean there.
You then start with the openerof oh, that's an interesting
dish you have made, what is it?

(54:34):
And then you can hopefullystart a conversation on it.
It is time to round up, it istime.
Yes, Blake, it has been a bigpleasure and I know in Europe
this fall I don't think ourpaths will pass, but I look
forward to when they do and thenwe should have a potluck and

(54:55):
good long conversationface-to-face.

A non-recorded one.

A non-recorded one.

Analog.
Let's go analog, that would bevery nice, very nice.
That's great.

Thanks again, that would be nice too.
Yeah, thanks a lot for yourtime.
And also, before we hang up,blake, please plug your podcast
and the other stuff you're doingif people want to know more
about you and the things you'redoing, because I would like to
highlight that as well.

Sure, I've got my writing, which is the newsletter
.
I've got the book I'm workingon called Dirtbag Rich, which is
also a podcast at this moment,and other stuff, and all of it
can be found at blakebowlescom.

Easy, fantastic.
Thanks a lot for your time, man.

My pleasure.
Good to see you two again, bye.

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Blake Boles | Escaping Routine: Deep Conversation and wanting a Galactic Commune

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Blake Boles | Escaping Routine: Deep Conversation and wanting a Galactic Commune