Off-Grid Voices - A chat with Juan Gonzalez

Sharing other people's experience with the off-the-grid lifestyle

This week, I’m bringing you the first of, hopefully, many written interviews with other people out there who are living an off-the-grid lifestyle.

Juan Gonzalez from the Supercharged Learning HQ newsletter kindly offered to be the guinea pig for this first edition of Off-Grid Voices. Thanks so much for sharing your story with us Juan!

Let's start off with a proper introduction. Tell us a bit about yourself, Juan.

I’m Juan, a lifelong student who eventually turned his learning "handicap" into a superpower. My newsletter is called “Supercharged Learning HQ” and is a place where I try to combine practical insights developing (or improving) skills during adulthood, personal stories, and a touch of humor/gifs/memes. I'm currently living in the countryside of Colombia.

Can you share your personal journey towards adopting a slow-living lifestyle? What inspired you to make this change?

I now realize it's been a process of many years. My background is in engineering, I was in different startup communities before working full-time in web development. As you can tell, I was the opposite of what "slow living" is. Yet, I've never been a person who's "fast" by nature. One of the qualities most people have known me for is "patience". 

But everything started changing six years ago. I started growing increasingly tired of the "startup hustle" pace and then the tech industry itself. The pandemic was sort of a "wake-up" call. It forced me to reassess my priorities and start looking at the important versus the urgent. Along with my parents, we started moving further and further away from big cities to find calmer and healthier places to live. My self from 2024 is now radically different from the one of 2021. 

I read in your comments that you’re pushing for the off-grid lifestyle now. Tell me a bit more about what that looks like. Which elements of your life are more “off the grid”? What does it mean for you to be “off the grid”?

I'm pushing for the "off-grid" lifestyle and suggesting it to pretty much everyone I talk with now. I've compiled a laundry list of reasons why over the past 2 years. But I know there's no "one size fits all" to this lifestyle. 

I can say my life is now 80% to 90% "off-grid" now. To me, being "off-grid" is not a trend, or something "popular". It's related to a fundamental human right which is independence. For years, many countries have fought independence wars. But in our modern world, we've become increasingly dependent on a bunch of things, electricity being a simple example.

When you're truly "off-grid", you've maximized your levels of independence and self-reliance to the point that no single disaster can throw your life into total chaos.

How do the slow living lifestyle and the off grid lifestyle connect for you? 

Those two things connect like pieces of a puzzle. At the start of the year, I was journaling and discovered that many changes in my life have been building up to this moment. The more puzzle pieces I get, the better I can see the overall picture. After 2020, I started following the philosophies of essentialism and stoicism. That not only brought me peace of mind but it made my life easier to maintain. I found functional physical training to be better than the traditional type I practised several years before and started seeing the "less is more" adage to become more and more real in various other aspects. Through that type of training I found out about different types of breathing, the Wim Hof method, practical meditation, being present in the moment, and becoming more aware of choices and actions. One could say that one lifestyle leads to the other.

I’d love to learn a bit more about which benefits you have seen in your own life from adopting this type of lifestyle? 

The benefits are plenty. Less stress, worry, and sickness. Better mental and physical health. More time for reflection, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Deeper connection with family and nature. Greater appreciation for the things we often take for granted. Rediscovering ancestral practices. Becoming more adaptable and resourceful. Regaining a sense of personal agency. Detoxifying from elements present in foods, items from everyday use, constant electromagnetic radiation, etc. Preparing meals with ingredients you can find outside or that you can grow yourself. Discovering customs or ways of doing things/solving problems you’ve never seen before. There are several people that advocate for a return to practices and customs from our ancestors and you have the opportunity to fully try everything they talk about. You also find out how rewarding it is when the work you put in starts giving results in its due time. There are many others that I’m probably missing in this moment, but the previous ones are a good amount.

We all know life isn’t just about the positives and making changes can come with challenges and frustrations as well. What would be your biggest challenge and how are you overcoming these challenges? What is your biggest challenge right now?

Employing a "slow living" and/or "off-grid" lifestyle has its quirks, particularly if you've been living most of your life on the "fast lane". For starters, getting used to the change is difficult. You have to retrain your instincts. You realize that all things require work, either done by you or someone else. You have to get used to different activities you've never done or even seen. You have to deal with the consequences of your choices mostly in real time. Keeping a tidy home is a constant chore you have to do either on your own or coordinate well with family members.

One of my biggest challenges is that there's always something to do for which I don't have the dexterity, knowledge, or strength enough to do myself. Fortunately, I'm not on my own. But communicating well with others, be it family, neighbors, or farm workers, is not my strong suit.

Another challenge is learning to deal with unexpected situations without any previous context. Sometimes things don't work and you don't know why or how to fix it. Sometimes there is an issue with one of the basic services (water, gas, electricity) and having a proper solution can take hours and sometimes days. You have to get used to the fact that everything takes time. It's not as "instant" as in a big city.

Another aspect that can be considered a "negative", especially coming from a "city-like" type of life, is the lack of entertainment activities. Everything is either work, eating, sleeping, or going to a store and drinking beer or whatever other alcoholic drink. There are people who you cannot establish relationships with because they have a completely different mindset; it’s almost like talking at a different frequency. But you have to keep good relations with neighbors because it’s better to have allies and not make a couple of enemies inadvertently.

What advice would you give someone who is looking to adopt this type of lifestyle?

The best piece of advice I can give is to treat it like a new habit. Take it slow (no pun intended) and one step at a time. It's easy to get excited by the new and the prospect of a better lifestyle and then overdo it by selling a bunch of stuff, grabbing a backpack with remaining possessions, going to a cabin or farmhouse for a week, doing "monk mode" and then realizing you are so bored out of your mind that you need to go bungee jumping or to a NASCAR race to balance out the level of activity.

That was it for our very first edition of off-grid voices, where you can hear all about how others are embracing this lifestyle. Hope you enjoyed it!

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Something that inspired me this week:

This video is a great watch. It covers the story of Dr. Goobie, who was a neurosurgeon, but then decided to quit his job and spend time in the mountains with his dog. I love what he shares about the medical system and how society looks at health and healing. His story is very inspiring for how he decided he wasn't going to live a life that wasn't aligned with his core values.

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This is what you can expect from me every week! A long-form article related to a reflection or life lesson on personal growth and one thing that inspired me this week. If you liked this, don’t keep it to yourself; share it with your friends:

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