Kept trying of a way to make the title more succinct but eventually gave up on it. So what are we talking about here? I’ve talked a lot recently about moving, finding a place to live, the differences between places, and how one place might be one person’s hell and another person’s heaven. What I want to cover here is somewhat related to all of that but more of a mind exercise than anything else.
I want you to think of your ideal space. Let’s say that you could have your own private decent sized island. One that’s at least a couple miles wide and long. Or your own mountain or hill or whatever your ideal location would be. Let’s say that you had the land and had money to build your ideal space on it.
You could build a school, a monastery, an estate, whatever you wanted. What would it be. What would it look like? Would it look like an old medieval monastery? Would it be a great sprawling homestead? Would it be a tiny nestled village with your family and select friends? Or would it look more like Hohenzollern Castle in Germany? We’ll take this step by step to make it easy.
We’ll start with land.
Money Not An Issue Where Would You Live?
I prefer to hills to coastal areas, I prefer the rivers and lakes to the beaches or “low country” and I lived both so this isn’t just speculation. I prefer rural to urban. I prefer mountainous terrain to flat country. If I had a choice between owning my own mountain, island, or sets of hills I’d probably choose hills most likely. Good tradeoff between protection and isolation.
Can grow some crops and more importantly raise some animals in the hills, becomes harder in the mountains, though if game was plenty and had some grazing areas might switch to mountain. Again what we’re trying to find here is your ideal situation your ideal life is money wasn’t an issue. This is a mental exercise to learn more about yourself, iron our your goals for life, and spark the imagination.
Which may very well be the most powerful force that you posses. But that’s another story for another time. Point is, think about your ideal, what it is. What you want from it. Don’t be realistic, not in this case, really think of it. What “land mass” for lack of a better term best suits you. What geographical location? It could be something from a book, something from a tour you took, or just living experiences in general.
Think about it and come up with an answer.
Type Of Place You Would Reside
So now that we have geography or “land mass” out of the way what about type of living? Would it be in a castle? A great estate? Or would be a more “humble” place? A few log cabins and barns? A great mansion with pools and fountains? Really think about this. For me personally there are three things I know I’d want to have. I’ve leaned between a sort of school of sorts and a rural cabin.
Regardless I want a place to train fighting, a “dojo” of sorts but with a cage, mats, ring, and all of that. I’d want a place to roam, camp, and hunt. So plenty of nature and the beauty of nature around me, it’d be nice if a stream ran through it, a bigger stream preferably. And then it’d have to have a honking library. So because of all of this I don’t know how viable the “log cabin” idea would be.
Would have to spruce it up. Make it more of a “fancy” cabin just for the space that would be required. Which made me lean towards the more “school” function of it. Not horrible American school but a real school like the ones in Dagestan where they train fighting and a rigorous curriculum. On a side note I’ve been thinking of how viable it’d be to start a school like that in the Western world.
What that focused on a classic curriculum, combat sports, and traditional morality and masculinity. Of course it’d probably never work because the West is antithetical to all that is good and healthy but who knows?
Anyways think of what your ideal setup would be and what you’d want.
The Practicality Of All Of This
Now at first this may seem like a foolish exercise because most likely you’re never going to own your own mountain or island or anything of that matter. But don’t let that keep you from doing, because you’re figuring out some important things with all of this. You’re figuring out what you want out of life, what your ideal life is, you’re getting a “feel” for what that life would be like. Don’t underestimate how powerful feeling something is.
Subconsciously you’re setting your sights on something, you’re starting to work things out and come closer to achieving your goals. Focus is powerful and gets results. Thinking about the life you want to live, even if idealized, works wonders. Those vision boards may seem cheesy but there’s some solid science and experience behind them. This is a sort of vision board of the mind.
Think about these things and see where they lead you, you might be surprised.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it.
-Charles Sledge
