Comment by lithocarpus

Music has been a huge discovery and joy for me too.

I left the tech world seven years ago after a "career" of five years, not super wealthy but having enough saved/invested that I could live frugally and it would grow slowly on its own. I've been doing a wide variety of things mostly outdoors, but these last three years I've been learning to play the fiddle and it's took over my life in a good way.

It's been a rich seven years and aside from occasional brief moments of doubt, I'm very glad I did what I did. I have had time to focus on:

- health (most awesomely, my eyesight has improved dramatically)

- family and community and relationships

- simply being in the real world (nature)

- learning about and changing my behaviors/habits to be more who I want to be

- passions - particularly trying to protect habitats from being destroyed, which is very rewarding even if they might still get destroyed someday, they've gotten to exist for years longer than they would have.

- each thing that's caught my curiosity: gardening, forest conservation, foraging and cooking, building and carpentry, learning various skills and now most of all, the fiddle.

I won't say it's all been easy. I've wrestled with a lot of questioning of what matters and what to give myself to - because I have the choice and there is no obvious default path anymore. But I always feel my way into an answer - even if it has shifted around over time.

I don't have kids, I want to, and I think about how I'll find someone to do that with. I bet it will happen, I live in a rural area though so I pretty much have to travel to meet someone. Meanwhile, I have a sweet nephew and I get to spend a lot of time actively being his uncle.

The world is far more interesting and wild and beautiful than I think most of us have been led to believe.