That Shipping Container Life Thou
so ever since i knew you could make houses from shipping containers i've wanted to have one. i'm not like the average joe, i've had the house, the killer mortgage/rent, bills, neighbours and all the other garbage that goes along with it. it's a stress and anxiety i can do without. anywhere where i can rest my head, feel safe and warm is home. i don't like bills and charges outside of my control, especially when inflation does not match the wages. i felt like i was constantly fighting to stay alive.
some weird universe things happened which made me start looking at shipping containers, how much, where i could put on, how could i ship it somewhere, how big would i need, how could i stop it going damp and ultimately the big question, could i really do this, was this possible for someone that has no skills as diy, building and such like. i still don't know. i've not progressed it anywhere as yet but that does not mean that i've been waiting around either.
over a there year period living in a city only an hour away from here i learned a lot about shipping containers. where i wanted to put it and why. how much i wanted to pay for land, how much i should consider needing for the purchase of one and the work required to make it work for me. i even went as far as have a friend at the time mock me up these renders of a forty foot by eight foot (standard) shipping container with a (fairly) too size smart car stuck in the end of it.
my smart
the smart came about as of my sale of the domain name to to twitter in 2011. i bought it from a fairly rotund character outside of derby station. the story was that his wife had just died and he could not stand it being in the driveway. it had done 10,000 miles and was only used once a week for her to 'run to the shops' and back. for the money it was a steal in anyone's books. i had to have it. i had the money, i needed transport and and the time i was the on the backend of two years of having nothing. dead inside, recovering from depression, losing a version of my life with my daughter i thought i was going to have and i was at reset.
i had been travelling by train an hour each way every weekend for those two years to see my daughter once a week. it was hard work, she was always worth it but it was hard work, chasing bits of money to afford the train ticket and to be able to do things with her so she was not bored. i felt like a fucking failure, some times i still get those feelings. this was not the life i had seen for her. i guess we repeat those things that our parents do after all.
the car was a god send. it was me and my daughter. two seater, cheap to run, a bitch (excuse me) to insure but with the help of the friends we made it work, around this time i also bought the caravan, something i'm still living in today - bought to be the middle ground between the shipping container and my alternative life.
the concept
the plan in my head was pretty clear, this smart was reasonably solid, it could deal with monthly drives across portugal into spain to the shipping container and back and i would get the ferry to head out to do work on the container. my daughter lives with her mum now so i wanted to make sure i could get back and forth into england at least once a month. spend a week on the shipping container, videoblog the whole experience from purchasing the land, shipping the container, working on bringing materials to work on the container and generally turn it into the centre piece of an alternative way to live.
the area i had initially looked at came from the suggestion of friends, they had made the move five years earlier and were living off the land, making olive oil and teaching kids how to carve and make things from bamboo. they had a pretty lean life and they looked healthy and happy. i'm guessing it was all that local spanish faire that was bringing them happiness - that and the lack of a commute, council tax and all the other addon 'standing order' dangers we have as a human being with a normal job.
all i wanted to do was to have somewhere i could turn into 'storytelling' to start with. to be able to record the journey across the sea, driving across portugal and into spain, to document my state of mind and to arrive at the shipping container once a month for a week to work on it until it was ready to be lived in full time - at the time we mocked up the smart because that's what i owned (still do) but looking back really to make all this happen i would need that vw t5 transporter i am now desperate to aquire.
if i can live onsite, do a little bit each day and document the challenges, feel safe and secure about the contents when i'm not there. i have ideas of cutting it into the land, burying it almost or making sure it's fairly invisble to the outside work. where i want to go is fairly remote. it should scare me but it actually excites me. i'm one to always be finding ways to optimize so the notion of solar power, olive groves, well water, good soil are great base platforms for me to work from.
dare to dream
it is rare that a day goes by where i don't think about this project because it really is the starting block of a bigger project. you might not be aware but the unemployment rate in spain is around 60% for the 18-24 age bracket. in my country (england) once you are over the age of 24 if you have not got a job, made some money, pulled in the grants or have some special student loan agreement then basically your stuffed. it's hard to get grants after that age and work is difficult to find unless you move to the middle of a big city with all the costs that go along with it.
in the three years i was based in one of those cities here in the uk i got to playing around very briefly with a laser cutter and loved it. my creativity had returned, i started making a boot liner for my smart car that was removable that i could put in a tent or caravan. i never realised it then but i was making the optimized elements for that future life but also at the same time considering how i could possibility sustain myself making custom items. if i could do this, sell them on fiverr and built up a customer base then maybe i could help those unemployed to have some kind of digital skills and confidence to chase their own dreams?
the apiary haus
out of the laser cutting weekly events the apiary haus concept was born - a shipping container with making facilities, coffee and mini co-working for a maximum of four people was an idea building on my original housing idea. what if i could develop units that could be part of a digital nomad retreat where burnt out nomads could come and get together in the middle of a remote part of spain. i had dreams of seperate units where people could learn cooking skills, crafts, manual non digital tasks that helped us reconnect as people again.
bolted onto that we could have events and challenges there. long distance wifi hacking from the lowest wattage to see who could bring in connectivity from the furtherest away, ted style talks in the middle of nowhere. just another but the built up, anxiety laden, stress ball of inner shitty life (not a typo) - apiary seemed perfect and i quickly built a website around the idea and then my creative took a plummet. four years before i had suffered what felt like depression that got so overwhelming that i did not know who i was and where i was going. i had to maintain some level of centre to make sure i could be a father to my daughter.
ella bella chella bon bon
my daughter today is nine, she is going to be ten next may. scary, but awesome at the same time. she's amazing, every parent probably says that of their kids. she's great, she is kind and loving and understanding. i've said it before she is the best thing i will ever do. i want her to live her life full of creativity, art and expression and allow herself to fly into whatever she desires to do with her life.
of course the idea of her potentially having a 'get out of dodge' place in the middle of europe appeals as well and it is something i want to share with her. i live very close by now compared to four years ago, no more travelling on trains. i'm literally ten minutes away, i often pick her up from school and we are incredibly close. you could say that she saved my life in some regards. i don't think i would be her without her. all of this makes more sense when she is in the mix.
we already have a great weekend life when she comes to stay in the caravan. the second home as she loves to call it, she's really taken to it and i'm glad i've got share that part of my life with her. the last year has been tough but not like years previously, i'd like to be in a different place money wise but switching to working solely from web work, digital money if you like and no longer working in a 'watercooler' environment have made me more relaxed and less stressed. i've switched stresses in some ways.
no longer am i worried about working manual jobs on four on and four off shift patterns in pain at the end of a twelve hour day on my feet and almost passing out in the car on the drive home to just eat something and go to bed to do it all over again the next day. i was healthy then however but it was effecting me and my daughters relationship when i would be tired on the days that i had off and when it effected our usual weekend routine. i'm glad i'm not doing that anymore.
so this is why you turn up everyday
i have to believe that i'm getting somewhere everyday. i'm not expecting not to work for it. things cost and dreams cost more, i have to put in the hours, i have to make the money, i have to spend it wisely and i have to keep my overheads low. i've always believed that good comes from doing it and sharing what i have learned along the way. i've met some amazing people in my life and they have shaped my direction and they will continue to do so.
we are heading into uncharted territory i feel in our everyday life. it's obvious that not only the planet but the way we live together is not sustainable. we cannot keep adding zeros to an excel spreadsheet somewhere in europe and claiming that things are not broken, damaged, past repair. we can only prolong i believe what we have left. we have to make our time and make those memories, our personal journey in life. the one we take without distractions.
skipping the sheep culture
it's easy to lose your way and go with the crowd, to trot in the same direction as the rest of the sheep. it's much harder to stop and go the other way when everyone is in free fall towards a cliff. if anything has shown me about how life can be saved with the right people coming up with discussion and ideas then it's technology. blockchain alone seemed like a technological marvel sent like a digital arrow from the gods when it arrived, bringing with it notions of the matrix and a technology layer that stripped away the middleman and exposed the transaction of life along with it.
so, i'll leave you with this, it's been something that has stuck with me for a long time while dreaming about my shipping container life in the middle of a deserted space, invisible to the world, hacked together solar panels and cellular internet blasted in from madrid or barcelona, trips out to co-housing, co-working, co-living spaces across the country. connected with people with new ways of working. search out the mavericks, empower the digitally brave and give voices to those wanting to tell their own story. ..
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Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light;
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
- W. B. Yeats
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