Reinventing oneself

Last Saturday me and a few others had lunch with Stephen Davis who used to teach political thought at uni, and who has since reinvented himself as a maritime historian. When he left HKU he set off to sail around the world with his other half, and he had done exactly that. For 15 years. He looks greyer and chubbier, but otherwise not much seems to have changed.

Apparently he made his living writing articles for yachting magazines. Basically this guy managed to reinvented himself at the age of 42. He said the key to looking and feeling young is to have no money.

I remember being really impressed by the fact that he was the ONLY lecturer who wrote formal lectures, and he wrote them ON A COMPUTER (!!) and dished them out prior to each class. I kept all his lecture notes for years after I've graduated. I also kept lecture notes of Maxian Thought, a course I didn't even take.

Anyhow, I'm still considering the possibility of reinventing myself. Writing for a living sounds attractive but Stephen said writers are at the bottom of the food chain and they always get paid last. Mental note - if write for a living, make sure you live close enough to the editor so that you could remind him/her to pay you regularly.