A question I’ve been contemplating lately is whether we should continue living in the city center or move to a house in the suburbs. The distinction between a city and a suburb isn’t clear-cut. While a city is the core of a metropolitan area, a suburb is an area on the periphery of city limits. Generally, cities have large populations over a small area, but suburbs can have even larger populations of hundreds of thousands or a million residents — just spread across a lot more square kilometers.

Here are a few thoughts on the subject.

Lockdown Experience

The COVID-19 lockdown has given us a taste of how life could be without the noise and air pollution produced by cars, trucks and most of all scooters/motorcycles in big cities. As a person who works from home, it was fantastic to be able to keep windows open during the day, breathe fresh air at any time and even smell the sea when the wind was blowing inland. Along with those novelties, I started to cycle and exercise outside and found it extremely enjoyable. The streets were pretty much taken over by bicycles and runners in fact, and cycling shops recorded record sales during the lockdown months.

The day the lockdown was partially lifted was a big contrast. Cycling suddenly became much more dangerous and frankly, the noise and pollution killed all the joy of it. Moreover, being on lockdown also offered another perspective on how important or not it is to be surrounded by shops and activities as well as the importance of having a home that you enjoy.

I was born and raised in Malta, where the concept of cities and suburbs is blurred since you don’t really have a big central city; there are parts that look more like a city and others that feel more like rural living, but you never get the same feeling as living in a real city. Using personal means of transportation is a must and you get accustomed to needing 15-40 minutes to get anywhere important such as the university, work, beach, gym, etc.

City Life Experience

Although I’ve traveled a lot and visited many big cities, my first real experience of living in one was Barcelona, and I fell in love with the lifestyle instantly. I liken it to the experience of drinking Vodka and Red Bull mixed together (a favorite from back in the clubbing days in my early twenties although I wouldn’t recommend it). It’s exactly that feeling of losing some inhibitions and being more open to new ideas, plus the buzz and excitement of new opportunities that abound in a city like Barcelona.

Chiang Mai was another big city I had the experience of living in, although in a funny way it feels both more rural and way more congested and polluted than the typical city in Europe.

The upsides of living in a city:

• More meetups and new experiences than you can even keep up with
• Possibility of meeting an incredibly diverse set of people
• Being challenged in new ways and possibly having to face some inner demons. I see this as a good thing if addressed correctly.

Looking back, I can see how life in a city has taken all the attributes of my character and amplified them. That meant that I was able to advance very rapidly in work and fitness due to the people I met, inspirational work spaces and meetups, and the wealth of sports facilities, athletes, and coaches. On the other hand, it also meant that some of the weak points of my character were also severely put to the test.

For example, it has always been really important for me to have a safe space, which I usually found at home and more specifically my room at home. As long as I had that one comfortable space where I could shut off the rest of the world and recharge (reading, writing, video games, etc) I felt safe and at peace. I am very sociable but I need to be able to retreat to that space when I need to. Life in the city for the most part robbed me of that space. This brings me to the next point.

Life with Kids

When you have kids, you really need more space, and city apartments start looking much less attractive. Kids can still benefit of the proximity to things in the city and the multitude of things they can do, but home life can be challenging especially if one or both parents are working from home.

Then there’s the question of schools. In our case, we ended up choosing a school that was quite far from the city center. That means a longish commute to and from the school on a daily basis, which gets tiring and expensive if you’re using taxis. I’ve since learned that for young families, proximity to their kids’ schools is usually the number one factor when they choose where to live.

Safety

One can argue that life in the suburbs is safer. There are fewer people, less traffic, and potentially a stronger neighboring community. On the other hand, if you’re being targeted by thieves, a house can in many cases be more vulnerable than an apartment.

Pollution

Suburbs clearly win out on this point. There’s less noise and less air pollution when compared to life in the city.

Transportation

With most suburbs, due to the fact that everything is much more spaced out, you will need to have one or more cars to function on a daily basis. This can mean less time spent walking and biking; two essential activities for health. You might need to regularly drive back to the city if you attend any activities there such as gyms, music or art lessons, etc.

Depending on where you live, the suburbs might also be hilly parts which make moving around even more uncomfortable and oblige you to use motorized transportation. This is the case in Barcelona and its immediate suburbs, for example. Cities tend to rise around flat plains and access to water historically, so they are more or less flat and easy to walk around, although there are exceptions of course.

Bottom Line

The main points in favor of suburb life are less pollution, more space, and perhaps a safer environment. In favor of cities, we have easier access to hospitals, restaurants and other institutions. We have definitely more cultural activities and diversity.

School proximity is also a factor but since some schools can also be within the city it really depends on what school you end up choosing.

I am still torn between the two options, so if you have any thoughts and have tried both, please do leave a comment below.

Over the past years, I’ve spoken to many entrepreneurs and investors in my age group (35-45), and one of the questions I like to ask is what their net worth goal is, irrespective of where they’re currently at. It’s a question that is designed to make them think about what is the amount of money that would cover all their dreams at the moment and foreseeable future, while also being believable.

Interestingly enough, it turns out that almost everyone’s answer falls around the same figure: 10 million dollars.

Now, that’s a lot of money, especially if you come from a modest background. My net worth in my mid-twenties was practically zero, and if you were to talk to me about these kinds of figures they would have been hard to conceive. However, once you start forging ahead in your financial status, you start revising your goals and relationship with money.

Here are a few ways that people in this age group have been able to achieve that net worth figure:

1. Gain leverage at your job: become a unique and indispensable player in your company and in your industry. You can then break free of the typical salary ceilings that exist within any company and industry.
2. Open your own business: here you assume higher risk in the hopes of higher returns. The higher theoric risk is reduced by your mastery and knowledge of the industry. Put simply – you’re more likely to succeed than the rest of your peers, because you are already one of the best people in the space.
3. Start to invest: when the job or business starts to give off more money than you need for your living expenses, invest the rest.

Why is the $10 Million Figure So Attractive?

I believe that it is the most commonly mentioned figure due to being a nice round number, and the fact that most young entrepreneurs and investors tend to have amassed a few million during this age bracket, but have enough knowledge of their skills and the niche they operate in to see themselves getting to that $10 million figure. Sometimes it might mean having to sell their business, and that comes with its own disadvantages, but they typically see it as an attainable figure.

With $10 million dollars, if you have high aspirations and love the finer things in life, you won’t be set for life, but rather you will have a very nice platform to launch off from to even bigger things.

For example, you can afford to:

• Buy a very nice house in a great neighborhood, cash payment
• Get yourself some nice cars and other toys
• Send your kids to the best private schools
• Travel first class or even using rented private jets
• Eat out at fine dining locations regularly

It basically allows you to do whatever you want with your life while also giving you the opportunity to make some expensive capital acquisitions like a house and cars.

I describe it as a launchpad because I wouldn’t personally be sitting on my laurels at that $10m level without having a plan in place to double or triple it within the next decade. Cashflow is extremely important to sustain a high flyer lifestyle, and the biggest mistake one can do is to think they’ve made it when they hit a goal like a $10mm net worth, when in reality they have no cashflow.

That’s why getting a big amount of money from an inheritance, fantastic investment, or sale of your business is actually quite hard to handle. Yes, you end up with a lot of money, but if we’re thinking long term, upgrading your lifestyle to the points I just mentioned means the money will run out in a few years at best, and it’s much harder downgrading your lifestyle once you’ve gotten used to better quality all around you.

Meanwhile, some NFT holders don’t even fancy selling their JPEG profile pic for almost $10m:

Let’s Talk Liquidity

Having a high net worth is great, but unless it is liquid net worth, it can be quite hard to really enjoy it.

For example, you might own a business that is worth $8 million, but that doesn’t really translate into anything practical in your life, since you can’t spend any of that money, and there’s also the risk that the valuation might change at any point in time. We’ve seen how the valuations of public companies can change drastically from one year to another in recent years. For private companies, you have the same story. This is especially true if you’ve been working towards building a company that can be acquired. At certain times the economical circumstances might mean that venture capital dries up, or this is a general dearth of acquisitions in your industry, meaning you’ll need to wait a few more years for the exit. For some companies, this can indeed drive them to the verge of collapse if they haven’t been managing their runway and cash flow property. In short – it’s a treacherous journey and you can’t really change the way you live based on your company’s theoretical valuation.

It’s worth noting that a well-known financial trick of the super-rich (typically $25m+) is to leverage their best assets to obtain loans, but this is not that easy to work out for younger people with lower net worth figures and typically in risky assets. The super-rich can leverage their own private company stock, or their public stock portfolio, real estate, etc, but again they tend to have lower-risk assets and much bigger amounts, making them way more interesting for banks and institutions who are considering lending them money.

In conclusion, the dream state seems to be $10 million in liquid assets plus a healthy cash flow that covers all your monthly costs. Even better if that monthly cash flow is as passive as possible, which would give you the free time to actually use that higher purchasing power and enjoy material possessions, travel and other experiences.

I would also like to add that having lofty net worth objectives does not mean that there are no intermediate stages and that one would only be happy and satisfied if they reach that goal. I do believe that money does buy happiness to a certain degree, but there are diminishing returns the higher you go. Financial strife is one of the most common problems for people, even contributing to the breakup of marriages, and we should all be trying to attain a level of net worth that eliminates or lessens those kinds of basic financial problems.

Once the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs are covered, we’re already in a great position and can now think of fulfilling dreams and ambitions rather than worrying about basic needs. At that point whether it’s time to kick back and relax or continue to work very hard on achieving a higher net worth level depends entirely on one’s dreams.

What’s your take on this topic? Leave a comment below to continue the discussion.

This is a quick post that I hope to be able to expand on in the future. I was inspired to write some notes after an interesting and intense discussion with a communist friend of mine. I’ve gotten similar thoughts and feelings after heated debates with other people who held strong beliefs about certain things, most typically politics or religion.

I am no expert in politics, it’s an area that I’ve always shied away from, rightly or wrongly. I grew up in a middle-class family in Malta, within a fairly religious (Catholic) environment, and I’ve experienced many of the frustrations that typically haunt people in their late teens and early twenties. Ultimately, the biggest mistake that one can do within this period is to think that some authoritative figure, political party, religion or institutions can provide the solution to your problems.

I feel that it is best to have strong opinions that are weakly held. That means that I will strive to reach informed conclusions about things as fast as possible, but be very open to change those conclusions if someone or something comes along that offers better reasoning. Even further, I strive to prove myself wrong by reading opposing opinions and engaging in discussions with people on the total opposite side of my ideas, always in a respectful manner so that I can really understand their point of view and their emotional background for their thinking.

When I’m in doubt about something, I like to go back to basics. One can observe nature and the behavior of animals as well as our historical records and theories of evolution. These usually shed a lot of insight into human behavior that can be used to reach certain conclusions.

For example, it is pretty clear to me that people mostly think and act in self-interest.

The saddest part for me is that I do believe that most people want the same things, but they get really radicalized by these idea viruses that create so much hate and destruction.

Ultimately, the revolution and change that you seek generally lies within. It’s in the way you think and view life and the things that happen to you. Even if deprived of all autonomy and freedom (prison, physical incapacity), people can have vastly different experiences of life depending on what their outlook is.

This is why I abhor ideologies like socialism and communism, and love ideas that promote freedom and individual rights with minimal government intervention.

Socialism and communism have failed wherever they have been tried out, with extreme pain and loss of life inflicted on the people that were enslaved in those regions. It is quite telling that such regimes have to enforce border control in order to prevent their people leaving. Why would so many people want to leave if the ideology’s implementation is so good?

And no, Scandinavian countries are not a great example of the success of socialism. In the Scandinavian countries, like all other developed nations, the means of production are primarily owned by private individuals, not the community or the government, and resources are allocated to their respective uses by the market, not government or community planning.

Socialism is the Big Lie of the Twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.

On the other hand, capitalism, while certainly not perfect, is the only working system we have. The strength of capitalism can be attributed to an incentive structure based upon the three Ps: (1) prices determined by market forces, (2) a profit-and-loss system of accounting and (3) private property rights. The failure of socialism can be traced to its neglect of these three incentive-enhancing components.

As I said, this is mostly a very rough draft of some thoughts I want to continue expanding upon in the coming years. Feel free to comment or ignore as you see fit.

One of the most important journeys we need to embark on throughout our lives is the journey of self-discovery.

I truly believe that many people make big mistakes in their lives due to not having dedicated enough time to themselves and really understanding what makes them tick and what they need to be happy.

Enter Personality Tests

One of the best bang-for-your-buck investments in learning about yourself is to take personality tests. There are many free or cheap ones available online and they can bring out amazingly accurate descriptions of you and your skills.

Tip: Always show the results to someone who knows you well and ask them whether they feel it’s an accurate reflection of your personality. Sometimes we are completely blind to elements of our personality that are very obvious to others who are close to us.

My Results

Here are the tests I’ve tried out and the results.

My 5 major strengths according to the Strengths Finder test:

• Focus
• Futuristic
• Restorative
• Discipline
• Significance

My dominant tendency according to the Grethen Rubin Four Tendencies test: Questioner.

Another popular psychological test is the Myers-Briggs test. My result is INTJ, which stands for Introvert, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging.

According to the Enneagram test I’m an Achiever.

According to 16Personalities, I am now classified as INTP-T (Logician), whereas a few years ago I had been classified as an ENTJ-T (Commander).

Another psychological test you might want to check out is the Big Five Traits test.

How Have Personality Tests Helped Me?

I have used personality tests in multiple ways.

Understanding Myself

Together with other self-discovery practices, like retreats and working with a psychotherapist, personality tests have helped me unearth my internal programming and understand what drives me. This has really helped me to understand what my close circle of friends should look like, as well as what I need to be doing on a daily basis to feel fulfilled.

There were also some behaviors that I saw in a negative light, but within the context of the results of the personality tests, I discovered they are actually strengths that I should potentialize rather than try to suppress, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Lessening Conflict within the Family

Unlike our spouses and close friends, we don’t get to choose our family members, and while typically we feel somewhat similar to our parents and siblings due to genetics and upbringing, there can also be some glaring differences between us.

Within my family, they have helped bring more understanding to certain behaviors that caused clashes between members. They have allowed us to know that there is no malicious intent when someone speaks or acts in a certain manner, but it’s simply a result of how they are internally wired.

On the other hand, once you understand why a certain behavior can be annoying to someone who is wired differently, you can adapt and be better equipped to avoid conflict.

Hiring People

I like to hire people primarily based on their character and not their skill set. I find it extremely hard to work with people who don’t share the same core values as me. Personality tests help achieve an initial understanding of candidates from a mindset perspective and help discover what their aptitudes might be.

Have personality tests helped you? Do you know of any other good tests? Let me know in the comments section below. 

Over the course of my adult life, I’ve come to realize that I really enjoy going on multi-year adventures where I dive in really deep into one topic and strive to become world-class at it.

I guess that in a way it’s similar to those journalists who decide to write a book about a specific niche or industry and spend months or even years getting to know the ins and outs of it, interviewing people etc. Authors like Michael Pollan come to mind as an example.

Through my exposure to NFTs, I slowly got really interested in art and art history. I’ve always been a very visual person, but discarded any interest in art early in my life as I felt that I couldn’t really draw, and art meant drawing in my head.

This interest in art is totally new to me, as I had previously always been more interested in technology, and later on in life in finance and investment.

In recent years I’ve taken an interest in world history, and art is really an integral part of that as well. I feel that the great art pieces that have survived offer us windows into historical daily life and important events, but without knowing how to look at art and appreciate what the artists are trying to say, much of that knowledge is inaccessible.

I’ve since discovered that the art world is so much broader than “drawing” or “painting” – there are many roles to play and art history is deeply fascinating in its own right. As I started to educate myself and dig into the history of art I learned that the art we create is a very sincere reflection of the collective thoughts, struggles and trends of each generation.

I became fully engrossed in learning as much as possible about the art world – the history and different art movements, famous artists, the financialization of art, art fairs etc.

I’ve also decided to teach myself how to draw, as I realized I had never given myself a real shot at it when I was young. Having a young son that is creating his first drawings provides me with the perfect opportunity to learn alongside him and spend quality time together.

Much of my studies so far focussed on the following:

1. Art history
2. The Art Market
3. Creating my own art

The art forms that are most accessible to me as a creator are:

• Generative art (I can code and like to think I have good taste)
• Photography (was big into that when I was younger)
• Simple art with a philosophical message (line drawing and zentangle are of particular interest)

Generative art was how I got started really as it was the most accessible art form due to the NFT connection. I started out by collecting a few generative art pieces as part of my NFT journey, then eventually had the pleasure of meeting some top generative artists whom I found to be really deep humans and supremely interesting in their way of thinking. The fact that generative art is created by code makes it much more accessible to me. In a nutshell, it’s something that I can see myself being able to create, since I’ve studied computer science and spent several years developing software products.

I do know that I am a very creative person, but so far my only real avenue of expression has been writing, and that has its limitations. An image can evoke an instant emotional impact and provide a visual sensorial pleasure that words cannot.

My plan for becoming immersed in this world is as follows:

• Learning the history of art
• Understanding the main art movements to date
• Appreciating the biggest artists and their works
• Cultivating relationships with generative artists
• Experimenting with generative art

I’ve also started my own online community, and one of our subgroups is dedicated to art and NFT collecting, where I’ve gathered a nice group of collectors and artists. If you’re an artist or art collector and want to connect, I’d love to do so, just contact me.

What I’ve done so far

I’ve gone all in on art and am trying to learn as much as possible to get myself to a level of decent understanding. I had zero knowledge of art so far in my life, and I’m working hard to change that. That means reading books, attending conferences and fairs, speaking to artists and collectors, watching documentaries, and doing my own art experimentations.

Keep in mind that, as I mentioned, NFTs were what got me into art, so a lot of what I’ll be doing will probably be skewed toward this space and digital art.

NFTs solve many of the big problems present in the traditional art market. Authenticity, opaque pricing, difficulty in logistically acquiring art, and storing art problems are vastly improved with NFTs. While other NFT use cases are still experimental, the art use-case is the strongest, in my view.

In 2022 I attended some big NFT events, the chief of which was NFT NYC, which was an amazing week. But one of my best highlights was a little-known conference taking place that week, Token Art, where I got to mingle with the exact crowd I was craving: generative artists and early collectors.

I’ll continue to post any highlights of my journey here for accountability and tracking my progress, and also for the benefit of anyone looking to do the same thing.

• Attended conferences:
  • Token Art (NYC)
  • NFT Show Europe (Valencia)

YouTube Channels

I’ve also been going through the following channels on YouTube:

• Antonio García Villarán – commentary on artists and styles (in Spanish)
• Art History School – commentary on artists and styles (in English)
• Perspective – broad analysis of art
• The Conspiracy of Art – explanation of misunderstood things in the art world
• The Coding Train – best free p5js tutorials

Books

Here are some books about art that I really enjoyed:

Art History

• The Story of Art
• Garder’s Art through the Ages

Art Market

• The $12 million stuffed shark
• The Art of the Deal
• Boom: Mad Money, Mega Dealers, and the Rise of Contemporary Art
• 7 days in the art world

Being an Artist

• Steal like an Artist
• How to be an artist
• 7 days in the art world

Art and Mathematics

• Mathematics & Art: A Cultural History
• Math Art: Truth, Beauty, and Equations
• The Golden Ratio: The Divine Beauty of Mathematics

Doodle Art

• One Zentangle a Day
• Doodle Art Club

Websites

There are a ton of websites you can learn from, and Instagram is always a great source of inspiration. Cravepainting has a great post on how to learn drawing where you can find more tips on getting started.

• Cravepainting
• Artwork Archive

Video Courses

• Skillshare
• Khan Academy
• Coursera

Museums

Visiting museums is one of the best ways to learn about art, since they offer you an amazing way to experience art up close and personal, along with snippets about each artwork. Start out by visiting your local art museum, and then aim to visit the leading art museums in the world.

I found it really interesting as a beginner to read about each era of art and the motivations behind the artists who pursued these styles. I think it gives a great grounding in art history to know these more or less by heart, and makes visiting museums a more pleasurable experience:

• Medieval art
• Renaissance 1300–1600
• Baroque 1600–1730
• Rococo 1720–1780
• Neoclassicism 1750–1830
• Romanticism 1780–1880
• Impressionism 1860–1890
• Post-impressionism 1886–1905
• Expressionism 1905–1930
• Cubism 1907–1914
• Futurism 1910–1930
• Art Deco 1909–1939
• Abstract Expressionism 1940s
• Contemporary Art 1946 — present

I’ve been to the following major art museums:

• London art museums:
  • The National Gallery
  • Tate Modern
• New York art museums:
  • MOMA
  • Guggenheim
• Berlin art and photography Museums:
  • Alte Nationalgalerie
  • Neues Museum
  • Pergamonmuseum
  • Bode Museum
  • Hamburger Bahnhof (Under renovation – terrible in current state)
  • Museum für Fotografie

I’ll continue to populate this post throughout my art journey, and in the meantime, please do let me know of any resources you recommend.

Photographing Art

I was initially going to focus mostly on generative art and drawing on my iPad, but I really fell in love with using physical materials to produce art. The problem I then faced was how to photography that art in order to upload it in digital form to the web.

Luckily, I have the latest iPhone as well as a DSLR with a macro lens, both of which do a great job at this task. The trick was stands and lighting. Again, I used what I had handy, two tripods from Manfrotto and Joby, and 2 Aputure MC lights. Here’s a video showing a setup using these lights.

Products

• Canvas
• Neewer Ring Light Kit
• Phone stands

Articles

• 8 simple Tricks to take great Photos of your Artwork
• 4 Steps to Photographing Your Art Like a Professional
• 4 Tips To Taking Great Photos Of Your Artwork

I’m looking forward to being able to focus more and more on art as I re-align my life around this new aim. This is an exercise that is never easy, and there is typically a big trough of self-doubt when the initial excitement wears off. Time will tell how far I can take this, but for now, I’m enjoying the ride.