The first mate and the mariner will soon depart to visit our far-flung children. He will do his best to post moments of interest. Of particular interest, to the mariner at least, is to imbibe fresh seafood other than the occasional never-frozen catfish – a fine plate in Iowa but the only one. Leaving a small quiet town, we shall thrust ourselves into the urban society of large megacities, traffic, and cultural phenomena unseen on the gravel roads and cornfields of Iowa.
We find that options offered by AirBnB are quite satisfactory, certainly on par with four star accommodations, and affordable at 1/3 the price. Already we have reserved a home in Phoenix for our winter retreat and a reunion of said children and families.
The mariner recently posted a series on the future of work, suggesting that automation will erase whole job sectors in a few decades. He sees the current AirBnB movement as an example of redistributing income based on individual resources and skills rather than depending on business resources. Eventually, businesses will revolt against income distribution to independent workers – first trying to outlaw them or force them to comply with peripheral law and regulation, then being forced by market pressure to reduce product cost to reasonable levels that do not provide the degree of profit available to businesses today. In any case, it should be interesting to watch the future of AirBnB and other self-financed efforts as a spearhead movement toward the future of work.
A long time friend of the mariner had a career in utility management. When the friend retired, he set about doing renovation work. He specializes in turning attics into finished rooms. His only promotion is word of mouth. Yet, for many years, he is as busy as he wants to be.
Another friend has retired to do consultant work with newspapers and dictionaries along with publishing detailed accounts of movie house history. He is as busy as he wants to be and travels frequently. Over the years, the mariner has come across numerous craft persons who maintain a modest cash flow as artists, cabinet makers, making knick-knacks, colored glass glaziers, and family builders and renovators. With a few dollars to invest, one can open a simple store front specializing in a high quality product – one as simple as cupcakes. Already, the desire to find contentment in what one does, along with a contribution to the marketplace in return for income, has become a job sector to be noticed and an example of the future of work.
Ancient Mariner