I have resurrected the idea of buccaneering for the modern era. It once referred to men who sailed about the Spanish Main, attacking mainly Spanish ships, and hijacking treasure. The buccaneers were independent-minded people. They were fortune hunters who lived by their wits. Yet they were capable of organizing, too. They established a culture for themselves.
Buccaneering could exist back then because, in the 17th century, there was a power vacuum in the Caribbean. Today there is also a sort of vacuum. But it’s an idea vacuum, not one of physical force. Major corporations no longer control the expression of ideas. Anyone with ideas may prosper. The Internet has made this so. And since no corporation or business will offer much job security, anymore, it’s becoming increasingly attractive for eager minds to live and learn independently.
I thrive in a rough habitat. I am self-employed and self-educated. I have been a consulting software tester for many years, and that’s fine. But now I’d like to expand my horizons and start talking about thinking, learning, and explore the true nature of education in the modern world.
A buccaneer-scholar is anyone whose love of learning is not muzzled, yoked or shackled by any institution or authority; whose mind is driven to wander and find its own voice and place in the world.
This way of being has sometimes been called autodidact, individualist, anarchist, non-conformist, contrarian, bohemian, skeptic, hacker, hippie, slacker, seeker, philosoph, or free thinker. None of those terms quite fit for me.
In this blog I will be exploring and exemplifying what it means to be an intellectual buccaneer. I hope to meet other buccaneers along the way.
Welcome aboard.