This is Santeri
And this is Päivi
Santeri had an open source software company.
And Päivi worked as a management consultant
In 2004 we met each other and moved immediately together.
In 3 months we got rid of our belongings, quit our jobs,
got married and left Finland to travel the world.
We are still on the road.
Our home is wherever we happen to be travelling.
Where the loved one is.
We are seizing the moment and travel to see people, not sights.
We have only one plan: no plans.
Welcome to join us!
Nomads
I was 34 years old when we left Finland in 2004.
I never believed that I would live beyond 30 years and there I was.
I was overweight, weighing about 130 kg (287 lb).
I smoked 3 packs a day and drank a lot.
I had often heartburn and there was sometimes more blood than stool.
I was twice divorced, with one child from each marriage.
This time I wanted to do differently and divorce first my company.
And only after that remarry.
I was a workaholic.
And there was no space for a relationship or love in my past life.
Nowadays love is the meaning of my life.
We left Finland because Päivi wanted to travel the world.
I didn't mind about that.
In the beginning of our journey my old colleagues kept asking
when will we return to Finland and I will create a new startup
or continue working in my old company.
I replied that I rather stick my head into a shitty toilet seat and
lick it clean than return Finland and become an entrepreneur.
I became an entrepreneur in the beginning of 1990s because
of the Republic of Finland.
Recession, no jobs and the collapse of the housing market
forced me to become an entrepreneur to pay back my debts.
After that my greed for money and power kept me in the Rat Race
until we left.
Finally I realised that I was working because of others, not myself.
Money and power did not make me happy,
they gave me stress and headache.
What I myself wanted from my life was very simple.
I wanted to find someone to love and who loves me back.
Päivi satisfied both conditions.
My company was making open source software engineering
and we were adapting Linux to Nokia's products.
The first years of Millenium were critical for the mobile phone business.
Nokia seemed to somehow understand that
their closed source Symbian was dying but
internal power struggles made timely reaction
impossible when engineers focused on protecting
and barricading their own turf.
Symbian became a Holy Cow.
And Nokia made a Symbian-oriented approach
instead of being customer-oriented.
Symbian did not support rotating the display making it
impossible to produce smart phones with touch screen.
At the same time Nokia was claiming that Symbian was
open source which stirred even more confusion.
Symbian became an expensive and elitist option
for the biggest players only.
At the same time Linux was developing rapidly for smart phones.
Google and Apple understood better the advantages of open source
and used it in their own products.
Meanwhile an Operating System war was ravaging inside Nokia.
Now, 10 years later, all app developers are using open source
and Nokia is alone with their Symbian and Windows phones.
It would have been quite incredible if switching
closed source Symbian to closed Windows phone
had helped to compete against Google and Apple
who were using open source.
Expensive phones require attractive apps to sell.
People are often wondering what we do with our time while not working.
I am certain I would get bored if I only believed in time.
Time exists only if you worship it, choose to believe in it,
and make it real for you.
I rather choose a life without a clock and a calendar where
I have all the time in the world for doing nothing.
Happiness can exist only in this very moment.
Here and now.
Not in future expectations or dwelling in the past.
Freeing myself from money was a big step for me.
I own nothing. I have no money.
And I am happy to work but only for free.
Money hampered seizing the moment and caused worries about losing it.
I also felt guilty for having more money than others.
If we want to cure poverty we have to start from the rich
because the rich cause the poverty.
Without rich there would not be poor and visa versa.
The easiest way is to start from yourself, become poor,
and by doing that be an example to everyone else.
People have been asking what has happened to me, why
I quit smoking and drinking, and why I am no longer fat.
The explanation is simple: I died.
My addictions were tied to my ego.
When I was smoking, it made me feel myself important.
Alcohol and overeating was the same.
It's like a big, fancy car that works like penis enlargement.
It help to prove others that I am important and my dick is big.
When I died, I realised that I don't even exist.
My ego was just a figment of my imagination.
I no longer had to be important in my own eyes
or in the eyes of the others because I did not exist anymore.
After that I did not need addictive substances or overeating.
When reading news I have been wondering how media tells
that it is possible to make peace by warring and killing people.
I fail to see how that could work unless you kill everyone else.
I believe that refusing to kill or hurt anyone else
would yield a way better outcome.
I feel strongly that we are all one.
If you hurt someone else, you are only hurting yourself.
The same applies to animals.
I do not want to get animals killed and eat them because
because I don't want to eat myself.
I love them too much to torture them to death.
I've been criticised for abandoning my children.
It was bothering me a lot before leaving Finland until I realised
that it was mostly about my example.
What kind of example I want to give to my children.
Should I remain in Finland and sacrifice my own happiness,
or leave?
I hope that my children will follow my example in their own lives and
make their own decisions by themselves, and refuse to
themselves for anyone or anything.
As an epilogue, a tip for those travelling in India.
You can tell apart right from left if your food tasted a bit funny.
Asses are wiped with the left hand and food is eaten with the right hand.
Toilet paper and utensils are not used in India.
Happy travels!
Nomads Production