Oh it’s easy to get pulled into the modern day, everyone’s a CEO models, where everything is a hyper kinetic blur. But what about the older, more relaxed models. With the right intention and focus that is possible and almost guaranteed if you filter your vision. Part of my vision is to create an ivory tower for innovation and unmanifest possibility.
I was thinking about this asking this question about the information needs of the independent researcher. Most researchers and articles near the top of search engine results talk about needing, funding . Not surprising and an even bigger challenger if you are not tied to University Inc.
To me the monkish, ivory tower researcher is still needed. The researcher’s funding dream is when funding is deposited by a distant patron who requires no reciprocal results. Nowadays, public goods such as education are mutated by the false promise of running your (non-profit, university, government) like a business. This is a good way to run a rock band and most authors should have a run -like-a-business mentality but not medicine, education or government. Profit and loss is the second best way after the best way which is measuring public good.
Creating your own ivory tower starts with simplicity. Got to go to Thoreau here, who found a cheap lease from a good friend on some land near a pond. It was the simplicity of expenditures and single-sourcing that Thoreau emphasized. Walden is a business book besides it being everything else it is, with Economy being my favorite chapter. Thoreau publishes even publishes his profit and loss from his ivory tower experiment.
I find selling books a stable risk, low-return foundation for supporting the ivory tower time, the time for innovation, for working on my enterprise, to be freed up. When I rely on simple, basic techniques of business principles and an emphasize on maximizing time, I get to work on research projects on broad-thinking topics like energy, same delivery of online goods, awesome books clubs etc, all things of no current value.
Treat your research and research business like an ivory tower creator.