Bansko Nomad Fest '25 evaluation

Yes, as I said in my last video, here's a little rundown of my first Bansko Nomad Fest.

This year's BNF saw 500 of us from 56 countries. I've met and befriended people from every continent (except Antarctica, duh), and a couple of them were even fellow nomad metalheads. Finally, my intended target audience sees some proof of concept!

We digital nomads are a funny demographic. Our biggest shared value is freedom. Many of us are entrepreneurs or at least freelancers, and many are a bit of both. And obviously, we all love traveling. While many of us invest in real estate, many of us also have no steady address.

However, we are outliers for better or worse, and there are also some who have followed their philosophical basis of the lifestyle to its more or less extreme conclusion. At one far end of the spectrum, you'll find people who are completely anti-government and claim that "taxation is theft" and other black-and-white extremist hooey. And perhaps on the other far end of said spectrum, you'll find people (i.e. girls) who hold reiki and meditation workshops; who are all about healing and connection and SpiRiTuAliTy and that whole woo-woo scene.

As much as I love the abundance of expert knowledge, surprising stats, and inspiring insights presented both on- and off-stage at an event like this, I can't believe the amount of bullshit that's going around in our community. One guy claimed that the amount of people who died and suffered side-effects from the COVID vaccines is just as high as the number of people who died and suffered side-effects from the actual disease, but that Pfizer is covering that up by simply hiding the official figures from us. Right. And the Moon landing was faked, aliens walk among us, the Earth is 10.000 years old and shaped like a disc, and it's secretly governed by an undercover elitist cabal of lizard people who control your mind through 5G signals, airplane emissions, and toothpaste.

Just as bad, or perhaps even worse, is the chocking prevalence of AsTrOLoGy. For fuck's sake, people: Just because our scientifically illiterate and ignorant ancestors imagined that a handful of stars vaguely resembled some animal or some shit, that does NOT mean that some human quality or set thereof is exclusive to people who happen to be born between the middle of one month and the next one. If it were possible to say anything certain about one's future prospects by the way the stars happened to be aligned during our birth, insurance companies would be capitalizing off that shit. It would be on the fucking news.

If you wanna learn about how and why you are the way you are, look at your DNA; your parents; their income level, social class, personalities, and behavior; the size of your city; the culture and political system in your country; your peers, teachers, and other role models; your number of siblings and your number in the line thereof; your media exposure and consumption, and any other imaginable relevant social, cultural, political, psychological, and/or cultural factor.

The apparent constellation of an arbitrary bunch of celestial objects at the time where you and hundreds of thousands of other babies happened to be born – objects that are hundreds of thousands of light years apart and ONLY aligned in your one alleged manner in height and width, and ONLY when seen from this particular corner of the Milky Way where life at this level of consciouness happens to have evolved over the last million years out of the 4.54 BILLION years that this planet has existed – means jack-all for how and why you are the way you are. All your pattern recognition, bias confirmation, cognitive dissonance, and subjective experience do not change anything. Jesus Christ, learn to use just a modicum of common fucking sense.

*Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.........*

Yeah, sorry for the sidetracking, but that's been festering powerlessly inside me for the whole week. Apart from any and all shortcomings, I've had an absolute blast, and I wholeheartedly recommend Bansko Nomad Fest if you're a digital nomad or just thinking of becoming one. Some people started their nomad journey here and got a network of fellow nomads up front, and in hindsight, that's exactly what I should've done. (However, that would've meant I'd've missed out on Copenhell 2022.)

Here's the Bansko Nomad Fest website. They've got an early bird discount going on right now; I'd take advantage of it if I weren't planning on becoming a speaker for next year's line-up. To be continued!