How I Became a Gentleman

Reading other blogs, it seems to me that much of the process of blogging is "thinking out loud". Forgive me then if that is what I do. Hopefully it will help keep me on track & focused on this project.

What got me started on this? I'm in the fortunate position that I don't need to work for a living. I describe myself as a "gentleman historian". In reading Australian history I found that 100 years ago the term gentleman was used to describe what we now call "self funded retiree". People, well ok... men, over a period of years would go from listing their occupation as farmer, shopkeeper etc to gentleman, meaning that they now had sufficient funds to not have to work any more.

I kind of liked the sound of that. Having quit full time work at an age too early to want to refer to myself as "retired" I'm always a little hesitant when people ask me what I do. "Self funded retiree" always makes me think of folk who write grumpy letters to the paper starting "As a self funded retiree....", going on to complain about being the most neglected group in society in some regard and I didn't want to be associated with that.

Gentleman sounded a little more cheerful and optomistic, as well as pretty smooth. A bit wanky I know but I I can be a bit of a wanker at times. Gentleman historian seemed to reflect how I was spending increasing amounts of my time.

However, the down side of being a gentleman is a lack of focus. I'm not looking for sympathy and know I won't get it but not working isn't all its cracked up to be. It's been said that the key to happiness is someone to love, something to do and something to look forward to. I am fortunate to very much have the first in my wife and family. I made an effort to find the second as much as possible but the third was eluding me until I read Edward's diary and was struck with the notion of recreating his trip. It gave me both something to do and something to look forward to. I am happier as a result.