In the summer of 2023, I wrote about the nomad life—or at least, my nomad life. I tried to explain what it’s like to live in colivings and why it maximizes enjoyment (of life). I even drew a diagram to sway people into believing I was right. I also touched on the idea of a “covillage”: a village built around a coliving. At the time, I saw that as my potential end goal.

Somehow, this article reached PRF (Post-Reader Fit—like Product-Market Fit for the startup world). People started sharing and re-sharing it without me asking for anything. I mostly write for myself—to organize my thoughts or just to vibe (the article about Nordic skiing is proof of that).

https://mirror.xyz/penseur.eth/UqHOUvmLF0A6l-Nw8eKxkEPSCuAehgAftIcf1YJl_Bc

This gave me an idea: maybe I could write a book about the nomad life. Some kind of self-fiction, covering the good things but also the challenges of this lifestyle (pro tip: don’t stay at a coliving with two exes at the same time!). Like all book ideas, I wrote some pages but struggled to keep the momentum. I might take a sabbatical at some point to start/finish it.

I digress.

I’m writing again now because, in the year 2025—almost six years in—I realized that I’ve been lying to you. I’m not a nomad.

According to the internet, a nomad is

“a member of a people having no permanent abode, who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock.”

Ignoring the fact that I don’t have livestock (I wouldn’t call my friends that, jajaja), I’m also not traveling to fresh pastures—or at least, not most of the time. Unlike some nomad friends who travel like crazy, counting countries in their Instagram bios (#cringe), I always go back to the same places. It’s like always going back home, always staying at home… I’m a sedentary nomad! I know, confusing. That’s the point. I’m not sedentary, but I’m not a nomad either. I’m a sedentary nomad.

This explains why something felt off when people who just discovered my lifestyle asked me—after the mandatory combo questions: 1) What’s the best coliving? 2) How long do you want to live like that?—how many countries I’ve been to. The answer was always underwhelming for them.

Most of the time, I’ve been between Spain, France, Switzerland, and Bulgaria (I have a pending post about Bulgaria and what I call “Toshkolandia,” an imaginary village-state with the motto Liberté, Amitié, Ébriété—don’t ask).

My current rotation looks like this (only the best community-focused colivings—I cannot tolerate anything less than exceptional) with a note on what my activities (important aspect) look like there:

• Winter at Alpiness in the Swiss Alps. More nordic skiing than what is socially acceptable.

• Spring at Nine in Tenerife. Chill, yoga, and also —as recently discovered in the holy town of La Orotava — skateboarding.

• Spring at Cloud Citadel in Briançon. Mountains, Génépi, and… skateboarding in the indoor skatepark.

• Summer at Château in Normandy. Castle life (waving at your servants from four-poster beds), oysters and wow there’s a skatepark now in 🪂 Sainte-Mère-Église.

• Summer at Burgas Coliving in Bulgaria. Summer camp for adults, napkin-throwing sessions and a yoga deck that became my skateboarding playground.

I keep the autumn months out of rotation to step out of my comfort zone and try new colivings (shoutout to To Hani in Cyprus and Nooks in Seoul). It’s also my opportunity to embody “life grabbing” or “grabbing life by the balls”—making sure life is never dull. Boring is the last thing you want (after champagne in a plastic glass, of course—don’t do that... ever).

“Life grabbing isn’t about recklessness or urgency—it’s about recognizing that life is finite and choosing to live it with vibrancy, authenticity, and purpose. It’s a mindset of gratitude, courage, and action, making every moment count.”
— From an Instagram post that was way too long

I also spend time in big cities to remind myself how much of a scam they are. I’ll quote myself here again because it’s the best paragraph I’ve written in the last 10 years, jejeje.

“Humans seem to be seeking privacy and then develop a Stockholm syndrome with big cities. Living with so many neighbours that they’ll never talk to. Surrounded by so many places they’ll never visit. Close to friends they’ll only see once in a while. Netflix is the blue pill.”
— From “Nomad Life” again, sorry

So, I rotate between five homes—five great colivings. Here are the obvious advantages:

• Feeling at home.

• Meeting the same people again.

• Building stronger relationships.

• Living like a local.

• Coliving owners appreciate it too: Returning colivers align with their values, require less effort, and can help onboard new people (or play house cop: public shaming on Slack works wonders).

But if it’s so great, why stay for only two months and not longer?

Very good question indeed. Coliving owners can best answer that. Time and again, someone staying too long at a coliving becomes a liability—doing their own thing, not participating in house life, behaving as if they have more “rights” than others.

And that, my friend, is why your sedentary life in a big city SUCKS. It only takes two or three months to become a worse version of yourself, swallowed by the comfort of routine, closing yourself off to new people, and ending up looking for a romantic relationship to fill the void. (note: will it be my next favorite paragraph?!)

Ok, I might be exaggerating—but not by much. Loneliness is the disease of the century, and it’s probably already killing more people than a glass of pastis per day (not sure—just don’t drink it alone, duh!).

Cool, bro, but your sedentary nomad concept isn’t new. Any rich enough family has a house in a big city, a ski flat in the Alps, a beach house somewhere, and maybe a few extra pieds-à-terre in cute European spots—or even in the Southern Hemisphere to avoid winters (La Réunion is a great option, France away from France).

Yeah, yeah, true. My life is like that, but without the ownership and hassle. I rent rooms in colivings. No need to own or maintain real estate assets. Thank God. I’d rather spend my money on experiences. And when it comes to investments, I do other ‘tings where my knowledge and experience can hopefully give me a better edge.

Oh, and one big argument against the rich people concept—you can’t buy friends. So, you have your flat in Courchevel, but no friends around. You have your villa in Saint-Tropez, but no friends around. No, the guy cleaning your pool is not your friend—though he’s probably the closest thing you have to one. Of course, you have your family. Good for you. But when was the last time you had time to miss them? Two months turned into 20 years.

So, to insist: it’s 100% about friends. Then about activities. Then the location. Then, in the end, the amenities. A condo in a big city flips those priorities upside down, and that’s why we get this simple equation: LIFE IN A BIG CITY = SUCKS BALLS.

Fuck definitions, just live your life. But if you insist—I’m a sedentary nomad. Will I keep doing this? Yes. What a stupid question. It’s like asking Federer, “Do you want to keep winning?”—okay, Federer actually retired, but only because he couldn’t win anymore.

So, what could make me stop this life? Time to assess the attack vectors on my winning-at-life situation:

• Good colivings closing. Running one is super energy-intensive, and there aren’t many out there—especially if you have sports requirements. You can build a skatepark, but Nordic skiing slopes? I don’t have oil or AI money.

• AI stealing my job. Most likely to happen. As a software engineer, I’m cooked. Maybe I’ll have to figure out how to survive on less money (this lifestyle isn’t that expensive, but still more than a long-term rental or living under someone’s staircase waiting for that prized letter from a bloody white owl).

• A girl messing with my mind. Unlikely. I’m a strong, independent man with scars.

• Two girls messing with my mind. Okay, now we’re talking. Sedentary non-nomad ménage à trois—good for my book.

• Global pandemic. Can’t travel if China keeps releasing viruses willy-nilly.

• Death. Can’t win if you’re compost. Don’t be compost.

When I try to use more than two brain cycles on it, I start seeing how the “Sedentary Nomad” looks like a contradiction but is just an apparent one.

The same way I always say that my biggest contradiction is that I spend my life in colivings although I hate people in general (living up to the French stereotype I guess). But it’s also only an apparent contradiction: colivings are an incredible filter to get the top 0.01% of the population under the same roof. Kind, attractive and non-boring people willing to shag (sorry had to use that word again, just love it too much).

By the way, I recommend asking people about their biggest contradictions. You’ll learn a lot about them, but in a non-boring (again) way. Another prompt that I fancy is: “if you were to become the president of your country what would be your first ICONIC move?”. I have some controversial answers to that one (even for this safe space) but these two options are becoming my favorite: 1/ Forbid cars in cities 2/ Close all supermarkets.

I digress, again.

I’m thinking about software programming now. There was something a bit similar in my journey in the sense that you start working with some tools, with some programming languages, in some environments, in search of fresher pasture:

• I was always trying new things (like trying React in 2014) until I found Clojure (and ClojureScript). This was the end of the journey, I didn’t feel the need to find something else. Unfortunately I’m not using this language these days but deep down I know & feel that this is THE answer for world peace and more.

• When it comes to the format of the web itself (what I call the environment) we are not there yet. I tried really hard to explain why we are stuck in this static format in a dynamic world, but couldn’t get other people’s brain cycles to grasp it… C’est la vie, amigo.

[CHECKPOINT A]

Damn I realized that I haven’t touched on the “Wolf/Dog dichotomy”. Might need another post on this one, but the TL;DR is:

• Dog: no freedom but free food every day 🐶

• Wolf: full freedom but can spend days without food 🐺

You’re either a dog or a wolf. You know what you are. You’re an employee, having to ask “your manager” for a day off? TOTAL DOG. If you’re going months without paychecks, working on something you believe in? TOTAL WOLF.

But the key to this “Sedentary Nomad” lifestyle is to aim for that sweet “Stray Dog” spot: you have relative freedom, and some villagers know you and leave some food outside.

Ok just go back to [CHECKPOINT A] and forget about this dog/wolf dichotomy and jump directly to [CHECKPOINT D] (if you’re thinking “where are checkpoints B and C”, then you’ve just lost 2 brain cycles, sorry!).

[CHECKPOINT D]

Ok that was a lot of rambling, and not enough images, so only my most hardcore readers must have reached this part of the article. It’s time to reward them with a picture of a Capybara:

the end.

In the summer of 2023, I wrote about the nomad life—or at least, my nomad life. I tried to explain what it’s like to live in colivings and why it maximizes enjoyment (of life). I even drew a diagram to sway people into believing I was right. I also touched on the idea of a “covillage”: a village built around a coliving. At the time, I saw that as my potential end goal.

Somehow, this article reached PRF (Post-Reader Fit—like Product-Market Fit for the startup world). People started sharing and re-sharing it without me asking for anything. I mostly write for myself—to organize my thoughts or just to vibe (the article about Nordic skiing is proof of that).

https://mirror.xyz/penseur.eth/UqHOUvmLF0A6l-Nw8eKxkEPSCuAehgAftIcf1YJl_Bc

This gave me an idea: maybe I could write a book about the nomad life. Some kind of self-fiction, covering the good things but also the challenges of this lifestyle (pro tip: don’t stay at a coliving with two exes at the same time!). Like all book ideas, I wrote some pages but struggled to keep the momentum. I might take a sabbatical at some point to start/finish it.

I digress.

I’m writing again now because, in the year 2025—almost six years in—I realized that I’ve been lying to you. I’m not a nomad.

According to the internet, a nomad is

“a member of a people having no permanent abode, who travel from place to place to find fresh pasture for their livestock.”

Ignoring the fact that I don’t have livestock (I wouldn’t call my friends that, jajaja), I’m also not traveling to fresh pastures—or at least, not most of the time. Unlike some nomad friends who travel like crazy, counting countries in their Instagram bios (#cringe), I always go back to the same places. It’s like always going back home, always staying at home… I’m a sedentary nomad! I know, confusing. That’s the point. I’m not sedentary, but I’m not a nomad either. I’m a sedentary nomad.

This explains why something felt off when people who just discovered my lifestyle asked me—after the mandatory combo questions: 1) What’s the best coliving? 2) How long do you want to live like that?—how many countries I’ve been to. The answer was always underwhelming for them.

Most of the time, I’ve been between Spain, France, Switzerland, and Bulgaria (I have a pending post about Bulgaria and what I call “Toshkolandia,” an imaginary village-state with the motto Liberté, Amitié, Ébriété—don’t ask).

My current rotation looks like this (only the best community-focused colivings—I cannot tolerate anything less than exceptional) with a note on what my activities (important aspect) look like there:

• Winter at Alpiness in the Swiss Alps. More nordic skiing than what is socially acceptable.

• Spring at Nine in Tenerife. Chill, yoga, and also —as recently discovered in the holy town of La Orotava — skateboarding.

• Spring at Cloud Citadel in Briançon. Mountains, Génépi, and… skateboarding in the indoor skatepark.

• Summer at Château in Normandy. Castle life (waving at your servants from four-poster beds), oysters and wow there’s a skatepark now in 🪂 Sainte-Mère-Église.

• Summer at Burgas Coliving in Bulgaria. Summer camp for adults, napkin-throwing sessions and a yoga deck that became my skateboarding playground.

I keep the autumn months out of rotation to step out of my comfort zone and try new colivings (shoutout to To Hani in Cyprus and Nooks in Seoul). It’s also my opportunity to embody “life grabbing” or “grabbing life by the balls”—making sure life is never dull. Boring is the last thing you want (after champagne in a plastic glass, of course—don’t do that... ever).

“Life grabbing isn’t about recklessness or urgency—it’s about recognizing that life is finite and choosing to live it with vibrancy, authenticity, and purpose. It’s a mindset of gratitude, courage, and action, making every moment count.”
— From an Instagram post that was way too long

I also spend time in big cities to remind myself how much of a scam they are. I’ll quote myself here again because it’s the best paragraph I’ve written in the last 10 years, jejeje.

“Humans seem to be seeking privacy and then develop a Stockholm syndrome with big cities. Living with so many neighbours that they’ll never talk to. Surrounded by so many places they’ll never visit. Close to friends they’ll only see once in a while. Netflix is the blue pill.”
— From “Nomad Life” again, sorry

So, I rotate between five homes—five great colivings. Here are the obvious advantages:

• Feeling at home.

• Meeting the same people again.

• Building stronger relationships.

• Living like a local.

• Coliving owners appreciate it too: Returning colivers align with their values, require less effort, and can help onboard new people (or play house cop: public shaming on Slack works wonders).

But if it’s so great, why stay for only two months and not longer?

Very good question indeed. Coliving owners can best answer that. Time and again, someone staying too long at a coliving becomes a liability—doing their own thing, not participating in house life, behaving as if they have more “rights” than others.

And that, my friend, is why your sedentary life in a big city SUCKS. It only takes two or three months to become a worse version of yourself, swallowed by the comfort of routine, closing yourself off to new people, and ending up looking for a romantic relationship to fill the void. (note: will it be my next favorite paragraph?!)

Ok, I might be exaggerating—but not by much. Loneliness is the disease of the century, and it’s probably already killing more people than a glass of pastis per day (not sure—just don’t drink it alone, duh!).

Cool, bro, but your sedentary nomad concept isn’t new. Any rich enough family has a house in a big city, a ski flat in the Alps, a beach house somewhere, and maybe a few extra pieds-à-terre in cute European spots—or even in the Southern Hemisphere to avoid winters (La Réunion is a great option, France away from France).

Yeah, yeah, true. My life is like that, but without the ownership and hassle. I rent rooms in colivings. No need to own or maintain real estate assets. Thank God. I’d rather spend my money on experiences. And when it comes to investments, I do other ‘tings where my knowledge and experience can hopefully give me a better edge.

Oh, and one big argument against the rich people concept—you can’t buy friends. So, you have your flat in Courchevel, but no friends around. You have your villa in Saint-Tropez, but no friends around. No, the guy cleaning your pool is not your friend—though he’s probably the closest thing you have to one. Of course, you have your family. Good for you. But when was the last time you had time to miss them? Two months turned into 20 years.

So, to insist: it’s 100% about friends. Then about activities. Then the location. Then, in the end, the amenities. A condo in a big city flips those priorities upside down, and that’s why we get this simple equation: LIFE IN A BIG CITY = SUCKS BALLS.

Fuck definitions, just live your life. But if you insist—I’m a sedentary nomad. Will I keep doing this? Yes. What a stupid question. It’s like asking Federer, “Do you want to keep winning?”—okay, Federer actually retired, but only because he couldn’t win anymore.

So, what could make me stop this life? Time to assess the attack vectors on my winning-at-life situation:

• Good colivings closing. Running one is super energy-intensive, and there aren’t many out there—especially if you have sports requirements. You can build a skatepark, but Nordic skiing slopes? I don’t have oil or AI money.

• AI stealing my job. Most likely to happen. As a software engineer, I’m cooked. Maybe I’ll have to figure out how to survive on less money (this lifestyle isn’t that expensive, but still more than a long-term rental or living under someone’s staircase waiting for that prized letter from a bloody white owl).

• A girl messing with my mind. Unlikely. I’m a strong, independent man with scars.

• Two girls messing with my mind. Okay, now we’re talking. Sedentary non-nomad ménage à trois—good for my book.

• Global pandemic. Can’t travel if China keeps releasing viruses willy-nilly.

• Death. Can’t win if you’re compost. Don’t be compost.

When I try to use more than two brain cycles on it, I start seeing how the “Sedentary Nomad” looks like a contradiction but is just an apparent one.

The same way I always say that my biggest contradiction is that I spend my life in colivings although I hate people in general (living up to the French stereotype I guess). But it’s also only an apparent contradiction: colivings are an incredible filter to get the top 0.01% of the population under the same roof. Kind, attractive and non-boring people willing to shag (sorry had to use that word again, just love it too much).

By the way, I recommend asking people about their biggest contradictions. You’ll learn a lot about them, but in a non-boring (again) way. Another prompt that I fancy is: “if you were to become the president of your country what would be your first ICONIC move?”. I have some controversial answers to that one (even for this safe space) but these two options are becoming my favorite: 1/ Forbid cars in cities 2/ Close all supermarkets.

I digress, again.

I’m thinking about software programming now. There was something a bit similar in my journey in the sense that you start working with some tools, with some programming languages, in some environments, in search of fresher pasture:

• I was always trying new things (like trying React in 2014) until I found Clojure (and ClojureScript). This was the end of the journey, I didn’t feel the need to find something else. Unfortunately I’m not using this language these days but deep down I know & feel that this is THE answer for world peace and more.

• When it comes to the format of the web itself (what I call the environment) we are not there yet. I tried really hard to explain why we are stuck in this static format in a dynamic world, but couldn’t get other people’s brain cycles to grasp it… C’est la vie, amigo.

[CHECKPOINT A]

Damn I realized that I haven’t touched on the “Wolf/Dog dichotomy”. Might need another post on this one, but the TL;DR is:

• Dog: no freedom but free food every day 🐶

• Wolf: full freedom but can spend days without food 🐺

You’re either a dog or a wolf. You know what you are. You’re an employee, having to ask “your manager” for a day off? TOTAL DOG. If you’re going months without paychecks, working on something you believe in? TOTAL WOLF.

But the key to this “Sedentary Nomad” lifestyle is to aim for that sweet “Stray Dog” spot: you have relative freedom, and some villagers know you and leave some food outside.

Ok just go back to [CHECKPOINT A] and forget about this dog/wolf dichotomy and jump directly to [CHECKPOINT D] (if you’re thinking “where are checkpoints B and C”, then you’ve just lost 2 brain cycles, sorry!).

[CHECKPOINT D]

Ok that was a lot of rambling, and not enough images, so only my most hardcore readers must have reached this part of the article. It’s time to reward them with a picture of a Capybara:

the end.