I would be a modern day philosopher/thinker (like Taleb, Dawkins, Harris). I would start with the classics and read everything, learn ancient Greek, Aramaic, as well as Italian, French and German (maybe Russian also, who knows)
I would study the first proof in mathematics all the way up through modern probability theory.
I would throw away my cell phone and do all of this work from a nice modern loft in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome - starting every morning with an espresso, and ending it with good food and two bottles of Red French or Italian wine.
I can see how this would be a heavenly existence, but it seems like a stretch to call it a "career," in the sense I think the original poster meant. Sure, there are some people who have managed to become famous authors doing those things, but this basically seems like saying "I would switch careers to being a celebrity."
No need to quit your job or move to Italy. Turn notifications off on your phone, get an espresso machine for your home, buy some decent table wine. Get the books you want to read and start reading them. Go to the library on the weekends. Arrange to get to/from work on public transit and your commute turns into reading time (90 minutes a day for me).
I have a full-time job and read as many philosophy/sociology and math books as I ever have. You can actually try out your plan of full-time study on your next vacation - I bet you will bore of it in three or four days.
In a sense, I do this. I work/earn 10% of what I could, and spend 90% of my time studying all the things I want, moving around different countries. On one hand it's very nice but on the other, earning little gets tiresome (especially now in my 30s). My 2017 is for reversing the percentage.
How do you find consistent work doing that? I try to work part time as a developer and usually either my clients pressure me to full time or hire someone else who will.
I'm a VA with one long-time client who can only offer me part-time work, plus the occassional small project related to the work. I also sometimes get a few side jobs from previous employers. For the last several years, I've generally worked an hour per day, M-F.
Living abroad on dollars, and staying out of native-English speaking countries and Nordic ones, it's quite easy to live an average lifestyle on around $600/mo. However, to live like this you end up going through a few dry periods where you really are struggling. Three-fourths of the time, I'm living the same lifestyle as I did in the US, except it's more interesting and I'm not working a full-time job I don't like just to make ends meet.
My free time is spent exploring cities, learning languages which I teach myself and then practice in-country, reading and watching documentaries about everything that interests me (I was born curious), volunteering and working on some online side projects (non-monetary) related to growing my knowledge.
If this were a few hundred years ago, I would be the first person to sign up for overseas voyages, but since there are no more unexplored/untouched lands these days (barring the final frontier), I try to do the next best thing - explore subjects and places that are, in the least, not previously explored by me. Another way to look at it is to say I was born (SF in the early 80s) a few decades late, otherwise I would have grown up hippie and probably fit right in (rather than have friends who make amounts I can't even comprehend).
Thanks. I've definitely got to live the life that everyone back home can't, but the reverse is true as well. After doing this for several years and realizing what kind of lifestyle I really want, I'm ready to do a trade-in this year. Contrary to a 10-year old car with 200K miles on it, I'm hoping my value has actually appreciated in this time. The thing is, it's not on a resume, it's not in the form of a house. Any value, real or imagined, is invisible to the naked eye, and so by returning to "real life" it can appear that I've got nothing to show for the last decade.
I understand. You carry your experiences on your back, in your mind.
I wonder if you COULD document that in a physical way though, maybe build a website using a free host like Wix.com loaded with photos from around the world, organized chronologically by country.
That would be amazing. Maybe even organize a speech about "What I have learned by traveling the world" (with cool photos)
Even if you didn't take photos, you could find photos of the places you lived at on Google.
I think many people would be interested by a talk like that.
I appreciate your experience, and I think employers would also.
You have proven you can relate and survive in many different cultures and you are adaptable. I would imagine that would be valuable in an international position in a big company like Pagonia, or a safari travel company, or even a local company with a diverse workforce.
I would study the first proof in mathematics all the way up through modern probability theory.
I would throw away my cell phone and do all of this work from a nice modern loft in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome - starting every morning with an espresso, and ending it with good food and two bottles of Red French or Italian wine.
Back to work ..