Some mornings I wake up already thinking. It's funny because my taijiquan practice is usually crap on those mornings but I'm full of thoughts and questions.

I'd like to pull some of our potential topics from my thoughts on these mornings. A very common thought is how to develop financial intelligence and financial independence. At different times in my life friends and family have shared with me their idea that life is essentially work. They believe or seem to believe that our lot is to spend our lives working (and not getting either rich or free). Fuck that!

I'll own my Protestant work ethic as much as anyone because I do enjoy getting things done and learning how to do a job well but I have zero interest in working all of my life for money. I have far more interest in learning how to make money work for me. Learning how to invest and to live well and cheaply are big priorities of mine. So I'd like to have a continuing discussion of financial intelligence and financial independence.

Going hand in hand with this line of thinking is my desire to reduce my impact on the environment. Living in Taiwan I breath heavily polluted air, have to buy bottled water, see locals throw garbage everywhere without a second thought and watch people eat up fish that's loaded with toxins. I know that the problems of the environment are deep and that no one person or group of people is going to cure them but just as I believe in leaving a campsite cleaner than I found it I'd like to live in a way that's more beneficial for the environment.

What that means and how it's done depends on the individual and their situation but there's a lot to discuss there and ways we can all do better.

Also on a technical note we're probably going away from blogger to a different kind of program. This is Phil's call since he knows what he's doing far more than I. He says it's easier so I'm excited to see what can be done.