Once upon a time, if you wanted to go out and see the world without signing your life away to the military, you got a job as a seaman. Sometimes, young men did this just because they didn’t know what else to do. Others dreamed of it their entire lives.
In any case, it let them make enough money to live while traveling to foreign lands, tasting exotic cuisine, encountering diverse cultures, and generally braving the earth.
Times have changed.
Now the same people who would have taken to the high seas teach ESL. We’re the wanderers and the misfits, the adventurers, the ones who are more scared of “settling down” than not speaking the local language.
Teaching ESL now lets us make enough money to live while, yes, traveling, tasting, encountering, and braving the earth, all without joining the military.
