Visualizing the Future

JUN 17 2026 (written 17 Jun 23)

This habit is called “visualizing the future,” how I see my life and where I live etc. These articles are usually set three years in the future. I am including one in this blog purely for entertainment though it’s a practice I recommend, visualizing the life you want and things you want to achieve. Whenever I feel stressed it is calming a way I cannot explain. “I don’t miss bad country music, but I wouldn’t mind missing this,” the man says wryly as loud music starts up at a nearby house. “This is why my house is soundproofed, very very soundproofed.” He accepts relatively high utility bills to run the air conditioner rather than have the windows open. “Of course, we have the occational power outages which is where noise cancelling headphones come in.” His first lodging in his new homeland was an apartment in a larger town. “It was very modern and still only five hundred a month,” the man recalls. “Sterile. Built cheaply, but everything worked including the air conditioning. You need it here…” And yet he drives a classic VW Bug, a Vocho, without air. His backup, a Buick from the late 90s, has it. “I’m saving up to have it installed in the VW. You really have to work with the weather here, run your errands early in the morning or at night. I mean, things don’t stay as open as late as the US, more like six or so. On real hot days when I have to be out, I drive the Buick. You reach my age you need an old man’s car, you open the driver side door and yell at kids on your lawn…not that anyone has a lawn around here.” The man’s small house is on a run down looking street, run down to American eyes, at least. “This area is poor compared to the United States, but very safe. Families. Believe me, when I came here I was a bit leery at first, but these are good people. They party…uh, often, but they’re good people.” Like many houses, it is surrounded by a cinder block wall… “I didn’t cement in the broken glass on top, the previous owner did.” …with a heavy, iron gate guarding the driveway and house. “They didn’t bother painting or redoing the stucco, but the electrical and plumbing is solid. The previous owner died and her kids wanted the money instead of the house. She was like me, I guess, make sure the mechanical stuff is taken care of, aesthetics come second.” He has had the house four months. “I bought it because it was a bargain. Living here, I’ve gotten to know locals, people I trust. They introduced me to realtors and lawyers and all that. I was told about this area, that it looks run down but is very safe, family oriented. Working class people. I live around locals, you have to drive fifteen, twenty minutes before you find people who speak English and I’m good with that.” In front of the house are the two cars. In back he has begun planting the basics: A tomato plant. Potatoes. Various herbs and peppers. Cactus. He has also begun collecting rocks from nearby areas. Inside the house is still relatively barren: A blow up mattress on a simple frame for a bed. Work table surrounded by four chairs. Rough bookcase that will eventually be overflowing with books. Eventually one of the two bedrooms will be equipped with a table so he can set up his recording studio. Right now, the only feature is a Fender Telecaster on a stand guarding the empty room like lonely sentinel. His kitchen set up is four pans and a really good knife. His initial “digital nomad” work is being slowly replaced by on line busineses including his books. “It’s frustrating at first,” he admits. “Your videos get only a few views, your books only a few sales. Marketing is…well, it’s not my strong suit. But I’ve been working at it nearly three years. You go from five views or books to fifty, five hundred, and now, three years on, a few thousand views and maybe I’ve sold a few thousand books.” And t shirts. It could be he makes the most money from his darkly humorous t shirt designs. “I knew instinctively there was a pocket of people who would go for them,” he says thoughtfully. “Maybe not millions or even thousands but hundreds. There is this awareness…of my fellow depravites." Three years ago, the man was working as a camphost in Southern California. Disenchanted with the United States, he began planning his escape. “Mexico and Portugal were at the top of the list, along with a couple of other possibilities, but I speak Spanish better than Portuguese and Mexican food is my favorite plus I really like the people. The key or lynchpin, however, was what to do for money; I knew it had to be location independent, that was the hardest thing. Everyone wants to get on the digital nomad train and then you have AI which is replacing a lot of digital nomad gigs…” Late in ’23, he finished his season at the camp. “It was a good gig, I had company housing, loved the place and really liked the people I worked with. The thing is…you reach your mid-fifties and you understand you have far fewer years ahead than behind. At that point I’d never been to Europe or Asia or even Mexico so…it was time to change.” He got work in Quartzsite from December to late March. “I’d never been in the Q when it was at full swing, it was nuts. The owner of the place where I worked agreed I could stay in the lot if I served as security guard, which I did at the campground. So…I was allowed use of the bathroom, made it work. Days off, I’d bicycle out to Hi Jolly and just….walk around, you know, walk, bicycle, just take it all in. Sort of a long goodbye. I say days off but there really weren’t any between my stick and brick job and establishing my on line work.” And that progressed into a long goodbye to the United States, a story captured in the fourth and presumably final American Outback book. “Though…I visit every year in November to see my parents and some other family members. Something could come of that. I fly in, rent a car for two weeks, am reminded why I left but also of things I miss like reliable electricity and convienent shopping and—if you need something done it happens. In my new home, it is wonderfully laid back, slower pace….and things can take a while to get done like processing a document or getting something fixed. So, there could be a fifth American Outback book or it could be another American Outlander book.” The fourth American Outback book, Home?, was about his three month trip around the United States in the late Spring and early Summer of ’24. He had enough on line work to float it along with his savings from working in Quartzsite. The man visited his old haunts west of the Rockies and stayed in towns around the country. He’d pick a small town in Alabama or North Dakota or Maine for a week, taking notes on his experiences and conversations. “Sometimes it was very positive, people befriending me, letting me stay with them. But, I had a few ‘What the fuck are you doing here? You don’t belong here’ experiences. Some towns I ended up staying longer than a week, some towns I left the next day.” In Autumn of ’24 he moved to his new country. He got the apartment and set up a rudimentary homebase. “Everything had been pared down what could fit in my backpack, the largest check-able suitcase, and forty inch by eighteen inch trunk that I shipped along with my Telecaster.” He had enough on line work to float his lifestyle. “I had these websites….cheap flights from the nearest big city. One would come up to Vietnam or Romania or whatever and I was on it. I have ten phases I learn in each language, literally do it en route.” This was the first year of his life after leaving the United States: Spend a couple of weeks in the apartment and then hopping on a plane somewhere….anywhere. These stories were documented in the first The American Outlander book. “I’d have my backpack and round trip ticket, usually for a week. Fly in, make it up on the fly. Find a hostel, take a bus around. Get lost. Sometimes the area would be merciless, sometimes generous, but it was all worth writing about.” In the end, he visited nearly two dozen different countries on four different continents… So, that is how I visualize three years from today. Will it come true? Who knows. The ones I wrote in past had me living on remote land in the United States, the only constant is an overflowing bookcase and collecting rocks… See you next Wednesday! Izaak You can find my books for sale here:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/Izaak-Diggs/author/B00EG7OKUY?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true