 20070802 Nick Gray in India
 Have you been keeping tabs on Nick Gray's blog? It used to only detail minutiae from surburban American South, but Nick's gone up and quit his job in Atlanta to move to Mumbai, India. And despite what you might assume about Westerners in India, be certain that Nick's account isn't the diary of a spiritual journey. It's a testament to the easy and long-range mobility defining our generation. I do not have any plans to become a yoga master or to convert to Hinduism. With any luck, I will even find an apartment with air conditioning and a Western toilet.It's essential reading for me because I'm working to have a global comfort zone, to ween myself off nationalism, to learn the wisdom of other cultures, and to live worldly. My intentions aren't necessarily spiritual either ... I want to be ahead of the game, to be on the ground in opening markets, to develop creative businesses that fairly benefit the supplier and demanders. And, thankfully but bittersweetly, only because I'd prefer to do it myself, Nick is trailblazing. He's attempting to live comfortably in India, not as a tourist, but as a creator. He's a prototype for a new wave of cultural and entrepreneurial mashups. 5
Comments:
Scott Kidder said... I just came back from traveling Europe for a month. I had a pretty small suitcase, my Macbook, a headset, and a few power adapters. I was impressed how easily I could work from almost anywhere. Granted, I didn't actually live anywhere -- the longest I was in any one place was a week. But I totally recommend trying traveling while working. It's a blast. 12:30 AM Nick said... Bad ass! Thank you for the shout-out. 1:18 AM said... Chocolate Rain 'Flippin cars in France the other night Chocolate Rain Cleans the sewers out beneath Mumbai A lot of people move to another country just to get away from the hustle and bustle of their home country, but moving to India is quite a leap in terms of shifting routine. I'm sure he'll enjoy it though, he seems like quite the jetsetter. 3:07 AM said... Funny, it seems only Westerners are concerned with "weening [themselves] off nationalism". Most Indians (and Chinese, and Angolans, and Chileans, etc.,) seem to understand one can have a global perspective while maintaining feelings of nationalism or national pride. What's next, ween yourself off of that most parochial of institutions, the family? After all, like your country, it's just something you happened to be born into. 5:01 PM said... I think what Nick is trying to do is great, but he is embedded in a long line of "trailblazers" before him--make no mistake. At the very least, it sounds like you know you need to get out more, which is a wonderful start. 1:37 PM Post a Comment |
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 Hi, I'm Zach. I grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana and graduated from Wake Forest. After college, I moved to Manhattan to get serious about a company I ran with friends. We sold it to Barry Diller's InterActiveCorp in 2006. I just wrapped up with a project I co-founded called Vimeo and left CV to focus on being a twenty-five year old. I have another blog called Copy and Taste, where I post about learning to cook. I live in Brooklyn now.  Del.icio.us My Flickr Me on Flickr Last.fm Linked in MySpace Netflix History Vimeo  Amir Blumenfeld Chris Bodenner Mareen Fischinger Fort Wayne Observed Nick Gray Hype Machine Jake and Amir Jakob Lodwick Oh My Rockness Jonathan Marcus Youngna Park Megan Scheminske Eliot Shepard Shorpy Signal vs. Noise Alex Soth Stereogum Ricky Van Veen Khoi Vinh Eugene Wyatt   Postal Skype SMS (via AIM) |