This one was the first so it is a little rough. The next one will be better.

Very nicely put together with good transitions. Nice one John.

I didn’t mean to suggest that it is impossible to be frugal and break out of societal norms in your home country. I always thought I was one of the freaks or outliers in Canada because I didn’t want to get sucked up in a corporate lifestyle after university.

However, it wasn’t until I started living abroad that I fully realized just how much I was influenced by society (Canada). Even when I thought I was charting my own path, I was still following a subset of my own culture. Life abroad changes you in ways that are difficult to imagine.

That is the point I was trying to make with the tattoos and body piercings. People are making superficial changes to make themselves part of a group in the guise of being unique or rebellious. In reality, we all want to conform to the ideas of some group because we want to belong to something. Now I am part of the traveling tribe, so I have adopted their values and consumption patterns. It is socially acceptable for me to be part of that group. If it wasn’t, I would probably be a middle level manager in an oil and gas company in Canada.

Actually, I am not a big fan of extended video either. Watching someone talk doesn’t really add much to the message; other then seeing what the speaker is like.

However, images can often communicate much more than words. I am not sure I accomplished that goal in this video but that is what I am aiming for with these animations. They are meant to be half entertainment, half education.

Of course, I have a friend who was all in that lifestyle AND traveled extensively around the world, until he got addicted to coke and his entire life shattered. Now is is a lot happier with a lot less.