The Art of Non Conformity [Kindle Edition]

Don't get me wrong, I really like Chris Guillebeau. I just don't think there's much in the book. I mean, it might be good for absolute beginners to the world of life-hacking/entrepreneurship/living-the-way-you-really-want but if you've read Chris's blog or anything else on the topic, this book feels quite... "light". It felt like a free e-book, if you know what I mean.

On the other hand, it's really encouraging, and you get to know more about Chris's story. So I wouldn't say you shouldn't buy it at all. I just feel it's not practical!

Find your mission/passion and go for it. That's definitely it, but there are some techniques/advice/tutorials out there (blogs are great and free) that can help you much more!

This is the perfect read for anyone who suspects there's more to life than the daily grind of joyless conformity.

Being self-employed, I was inspired and encouraged by Chris Guillebeau's take on 'creative self-employment', in particular using the internet. Though I don't share his passion for travel, I can relate to his quest for the freedom to live a life of creativity, flexibility and fun. His advice is less about becoming wealthy enough to travel the world and more about engineering the lifestyle you love doing work you enjoy. (I'm all for that!) Aside from the work/career/employment advice, there are also some strategies for general life-imporvement (I loved the To Stop Doing list) and tips on how to handle the 'play-it safers, the creatures of the commonplace and the slaves of the ordinary'.

The Art of Non-Conformity is an enjoyable blend of anecdotes, insights, how-to advice and soul-searching questions. There is also an altruistic thread throughout the whole book, exploring what we have to offer the world, in terms of our talents, service and legacy - a healthy and refreshing balance to the pursuit of the our ideal lives.

Inspiring insights, encouraging stories and provocative questions- a fab read. Really enjoyed it.

I grew up in an era when "conformity" was a grey, grey word to colour parents, teachers and people with clerical jobs. (Oddly, manual workers were neither conformist nor non-conformist: they were "the workers" and as such outside cultural judgement.) Back then we knew what it was people were conforming to: marriage, children, job-for-life working for a bank or one of the nationalised industries or in government, washing the car on Sunday and middle-brow culture. It meant fitting in with what other people said they expected you to do and believe.

An updated version of this is roughly what Chris Guillebreau means by "conformity". I think he makes two mistakes. The first is that post-modern capitalist economies don't want you to conform, except to your employers' dress and IT codes. Expecting you to conform to anything else would mean setting standards and training people and generally making commitments, and post-modern capitalism needs to be able to dump it, outsource it, price it out of your salary range and generally melt it into air at any time with minimum disruption and expense. The second mistake is that conforming is not about product choice and how we make the rent, and many of the choices we make are constrained by the numbers. Most of us have to work 9-5 because most jobs are 9-5, not freelance. Most of us have to work at what we're good at rather than at what we love, because what we're good at pays and what we love doesn't. Following your bliss is viable if it so happens that your bliss pays enough, or you are prepared to live very cheap.

Indeed, the book's title should be "Live Cheap and You Need Never Go Into The Office". He's a web developer and seemingly one of the few who are good enough to find enough clients prepared to let him work off-site, which not many clients are prepared to do. He only needs some telephony to do his job - sometimes, I'm gathering, sat phones so he can dial in to a client conference call in the middle of Africa. (That strikes him as cool, but I think it's a little... disjointed.) He travels a lot - not in a Tyler Brule style. He's not going to Biarritz for dinner at Restaurant Phillipe, but to Azerbaijan, Syria, Turkey and other Poor Countries. His idea of fine dining at lunchtime is Chipolte and he's a vegetarian, which keeps the costs down. He's also prepared to sit around airports for a day waiting for connecting flights, delays and the like, on cut-price airlines. Going to poor countries makes your income last a lot longer, and provides months of comparing your material circumstances with Poor People, which makes you feel a lot better about yourself than a few weeks in Manhattan or Kensington.

If I said that books like this were actually commissioned by corporations and western governments to convince you that it's your fault you're a wage-slave tied to a soul-crushing commute and job, which given your skill-set you can only change for a different soul-crushing commute and job, you would mutter something about "Corporations and governments aren't that smart". He may not know it, but he's blaming the victim, the favourite tactic of the oppressor and his lackeys. If only we had the gumption to Do What We Love And Find Someone To Pay Us For Doing It, we would be happy and unafraid of being replaced by someone in Mumbai. Good thing Chris likes web development, which he can do from a rooftop cafe in Syria, and not Java enterprise systems, which would mean he would have to be on-site right up to the day they at-will terminated him.

I felt cheated, because a book with this title should be about more than working freelance, which is a way of life that takes a particular character and mind-set that most of don't have - which is why we don't do it. Non-conformity is about just a lot more than how you make your pay-cheque and where you go on vacation, and there are moments he addresses that stuff, but not for long enough.