by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 26 Nov, 2025 | 12Jobsin12Months, Advice for Future Travellers, Journeys, Psychology of Travel, Travel Advice & Skills
Photo: Dylan Thomas by Lee Miller.
There’s plenty of videos, articles and books about how to write a book, make a video, do any kind of art form, or even learn a trade — and this is great as it gives people enough of an insight to try things out.
But I’ve never come across anything that discusses why we should work. Maybe it’s so embedded in our culture, from our earliest years, all through school and over family meals, that it’s just taken for granted that we simply have to get a job after our educational process. Like walking or breathing, we just do it. But why?
Why do I work?
The starting point for me was when I was 9 years old, the age that I became aware that I was an independent entity and didn’t have to rely on my parents for everything. But I had a problem with school — I didn’t understand why I was there or what was going on. I felt stupid, bored and angry. I took out my frustrations on my three brothers, all of whom got on really well at school, and we fought like cat and dog most days of the week.
I knew I had to get away from the toxic family environment I had created and the first opportunity was to visit my aunt Virginia in England (we lived in Scotland). I was allowed to get the train to visit her and nobody blinked an eyelid that I was travelling alone. This, to me, was excitement and independence and when my cousin taught me how to smoke cigarettes I felt very grown up.
At around that age I realised that work (doing a job) was another means of getting away from my brothers, from boredom, and the expectation to do homework. It was also what adults spent their days doing so it had, for me, a certain allure, an attraction.
My first “job” was more like a short lived company: I would cut down Christmas trees in the local woods — we lived in deep countryside near the Scottish town of Peebles — and sell them to neighbours. It was a powerful moment as I was proving to myself that I could take a step towards independence.
My next big moment was at university in Liverpool where I realised that going to lectures, reading books in the library, and hanging out with my geeky colleagues was really boring. I met a relative at a wedding who put me in touch with a property developer who hired me as a labourer on his building site — and I was in heaven as most of the tradesmen on site were ex-cons and the banter was hilarious. Lunch break consisted of going to the pub and drinking as much beer as we could. One of them later told me, “What we like about you Rupert is that we can take the piss, but you don’t take offence. It’s like water off a duck’s back.” That was high praise from a tough scouser who’d spent three years inside for burglary.
By this stage in life I had worked out how to play the educational game — a minimal effort would see me through. The burden I’d carried through my first 10 years of school — that I’m an idiot — had been replaced with a powerful confidence that I could do anything I put my mind to — and a drive to help others get over those same barriers. The fact that I’d been able to get work easily — driving a truck for my Dad and selling books for my Mum’s publishing company were other jobs I did when a student — added to my self confidence. And confidence is a key requirement when travelling independently or getting jobs.
After university I avoided the siren call of big business and decided to hitchhike to Shanghai, and prove to myself that I’d be able to get a job without the benign influence of my parents. I never made it to Shanghai as I fell in love with Tibet where I found work as an English teacher, got kicked out by the Chinese police and ended up falling into journalism.
Since then I worked as a volunteer aid worker in Romania and Bosnia-Herzegovina and, after getting married, I realised that I needed to earn some real money. I managed to worm my way into working as a consultant for EU and British government projects in Romania, Russia and the former Yugoslavia. I also worked as a PR consultant and, since lockdown, as a painter/decorator and gardener.
If I look back and ask myself why I did all those jobs, and what drove me, the main answer can be summed up in one word: independence. It’s all very well wanting to be independent but how can you survive for more than a few months on your savings? You may have rich parents but they’ll probably be worried, nagging you to come home, find a suitable wife, get a well paid job (“Daddy will arrange it!”) and settle down. You’ll soon realise that the only way to stay on the road, to maintain your independence, is to not only get a job — but learn how to get jobs quickly, anywhere.
But that’s not a complete answer; there’s something else at play here. I need to work or I get bored, lazy and depressed. The fact that work gives me motivation to get up in the morning, and provides an easy-to-follow programme for the day is what I’ve grown up with. It’s a part of my culture.
I first became aware of this problem — the sloth that comes with unemployment — when I finished running an EU project in Romania. The project had been really demanding, it required all my energy and time, and I was looking forward to a few months off when I’d be able to catch up with my sleep, hobbies, house repairs etc. But what happened? Nothing. Doing the most basic tasks seemed to take forever. All my energy, drive, and focus just evaporated. Why? Because I didn’t have anything I had to do every day; I had no reason to get up in the morning. When your intention is to do hobbies or exercises you always have a choice: shall I do it today or not? With work you don’t have that choice — you just have to show up.
In order to stay motivated, structured and focused I realised that I need a job — or an intense project — or I would enable the lazy part of my character, get nothing done and end up being miserable. I need a job of some sort to get out of bed in the morning.
Retirement is a useful concept to end this article on, but I think that it’s a trap. If I stop working in four years time, at the age of 67, as one is supposed to do, it will emotionally disable me and probably lead to an early grave. I intend to work until I drop, or have to be carried off, gibbering and dribbling, to a care home.
So, in conclusion, why work? I do it so I can live happily and longer than I would do otherwise.
Now it’s over to you: Will you leave a comment below? Most comments add to the richness of my articles. Maybe you could explain what motivates you to work? Or not; I’d also be interested in any comments that explains the rationale for not working, or describing something other than work which can provide the daily motivation we all need to go on. Or maybe you could just tell the story of your first job?
My book 12 Jobs in 12 Months will be published in February 2026, by Stone Books (Edinburgh).
Final note: the photo associated with this article is of the great Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, by Lee Miller.
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 6 Nov, 2025 | 12Jobsin12Months, 9 Months in Tibet, Advice for Future Travellers, Journeys, Psychology of Travel
If you're pressed for time, scroll down and see links to some really useful resources.
What does “The Psychology of Travel” mean? Is it some weird form of therapy? Am I a psychologist? The answer to these questions is NO, but I used to get mistaken for a therapist when I worked for a rehab clinic.
The psychology of travel is a means of preparing mentally for independent travel. It's valid for students about to leave education and embark on the great journey of life, as well as older people stuck in jobs or worrying about what to do in retirement.
I think the psychology of travel the most important thing to do before embarking on a long journey. It took me years and I wrote about it in my first travel book, 9 Months in Tibet.
When travelling for up to a year, or leaving home, you need to prepare psychologically. This is very different from “normal” travelling when you know exactly where you’re going and for how long. When you go on holiday, or a short trip, you don’t need to make any internal changes to the way you approach life. But when travelling properly you need to have no deadline; you may be travelling indefinitely -- or at least until you find a place that fits.
I developed the term after getting back from a trip to Thailand and India and suffering what is known as “culture shock”. Thailand had been so exotic and India so amazing that getting back to a grim and freezing homeland (Scotland) was really depressing. I also wanted to avoid what happened to me after that trip which was to become a pub bore on travelling in Asia, in fact that was why I started writing (to get the experiences out of my system and move on).
I went through a big learning curve after my first Asian trip and I really want to help people overcome the fear of travelling alone -- which held me back for many years -- share my experience of humility (which is essential for getting along with random strangers and also how to get jobs in foreign countries. My new book is called 12 Jobs in 12 Months and its aim is to help people realise that getting a job is easy if you have the right attitude.
Phases of Independent Travel
I think there are three phases of independent travel:
- Before – Mentally preparing for your journey into the unknown;
- During – The attitudes you need when you’re on the road;
- After – How to deal with the shock of coming home after a long time in somewhere totally different.
Each one of these phases is critical for the independent traveller: if you don’t learn how to “let go” of things at home you’ll never get away; if you don’t develop the right attitude towards people you’ll meet on the road you risk getting ripped off; and if you don’t prepare for the psychological shock of coming home you could end up in a depression.
If you want to travel independently you’ll need to develop a series of skills that will help you to cruise through these challenges, but like any new skills you need to practice them.
When I first wanted to travel independently I had three big problems: fear, no cash and no source of inspiration. I overcame my fear by a series of near-death experiences, all described in my Tibet book; I earned cash by driving a truck (and realised that earning money was the easiest problem to overcome); and I found inspiration by reading Bruce Chatwin and Ryszard Kapuscinski.
If you need inspiration to get up and go you might like the following articles, all of which have been written for people who want to start travelling independently (or escape from home):
Sources of Inspiration for future travellers
Get in Touch
I set up this blog to inspire people to travel independently, find work and get into their creative groove. That's what I've been doing for the last 40 years -- travelling, working and writing. I’m keen to write more articles about the psychological issues around travel, so I’d be very grateful if you would suggest a topic you’d like to learn more about. You can suggest a new topic, and experience or insight, by leaving a comment below this article.
First published in 2021, revised and updated in 2025.
#thepsychologyoftravel
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 4 Apr, 2024 | 12Jobsin12Months, Journeys, My books, Psychology of Travel
This is a difficult question to answer. It was easy enough to make the decision to do 12 jobs in 12 months, but now that I’ve done them (I finished in December last year) and have to write up the stories, I’m faced with strong internal reluctance to get started. Part of me knows that what I did last year was unusual and people, presumably, will be interested.
I’ve just finished a decorating job and it’s always really hard to transition from “normal” work to the introspective task of writing. I feel a strong pull towards YouTube, catching up on the news, sharing silly messages on WhatsApp, organising my next journey, cleaning the house, washing up, going for long walks — doing anything other than looking into my thoughts, feelings and memories. Avoidance is the name of the game
They say that money makes the world go round but the same could be said for jobs. Without jobs people would be broke and they’d also be without a daily structure, a routine that gets them up in the morning and pulls them through life.
Most jobs last for years, some for decades, and wouldn’t it be interesting to read about someone who did 12 of them in a year? When I’ve mentioned it to people they often ask questions: What was your favourite job? (Catering). How did you get jobs? (Networking). Did these jobs take you abroad? (Yes). Were you well paid? (Sometimes). Did you get fired? (Yes). What gave you this idea? (A conversation).
Funnily enough nobody has asked me why I did 12 jobs in 12 months or why I’m writing a book about it, and that’s why I’m writing this article as I think it’s an interesting question.
I haven’t come across many books written about jobs, which is odd considering how much of our lives we dedicate to them. One of the most interesting aspects of jobs, in my view, is HR (Human Resources) — how companies recruit people. Everything I’ve seen and heard about HR professionals is appalling: their approach to recruitment is often idiotic, their value is questionable and if you ask someone who works for a big company they invariably have nothing good to say about HR. This gives me an interesting feature for each chapter — how did I get the job? The characters I worked with will be another interesting element in the book.
In terms of political context an interesting factor is A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) which is so clever that it threatens to take away many types of jobs. One of my jobs (working for the Post Office) felt like it was a role that will soon be replaced by machines; I felt like I was being trained and managed like a robot and the job itself (delivering parcels) is so micromanaged that when the machines take over they’ll know everything their human predecessors did, and do it better (at least in terms of maximising profits).
Maybe all jobs will be replaced by AI and robots soon? This doesn’t worry me as there’s enough money in the system to pay every citizen a Universal Basic Income and people could work as carers, artists/writers/musicians, community entrepreneurs, charity workers, academics, or just follow their dreams. It just needs a change of attitude that fits with new technology, and if you think about jobs they are just tasks that were developed during the industrial revolution. Their central function in our society is never questioned. The technology has changed but our attitudes haven’t: to be “normal” you must get a job.
I still haven’t answered the question about why I’m writing this book about 12 jobs? It feels rather arrogant to say “I’m writing it for people to learn about jobs!” Am I? How do I know if anyone is interested? What if they’re not? I don’t have an answer for these questions but what I can do is make it clear that I’m writing this for my own selfish purposes — because I think it’s interesting and I like to share my experiences in written form– and if nobody else agrees it won’t affect me too much. My pride, vanity and ego won’t be too bruised.
The other purpose of this book is to let people know what I’ve been up to (a nasty voice in my head says “Nobody’s interested and you’re an arrogant shit for assuming that anybody is!”) I have learned to ignore these naysayers in my head. As someone who is always on the move I like to let people know what I’ve been up to. I do this with updates on Instagram, this blog and, sometimes, books.
I find this blog a useful place to discuss ideas, some of which won’t make it into the book, and also my struggles with sloth, complacency and procrastination. You, the person reading this article, can help by writing a comment under here. Comments can help make the book better, as they sometimes challenge my thinking.
Finally, this is a good place to launch my new hashtag: #12×12
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 28 Feb, 2023 | Journeys, Other People's Stories, Stephanie Wolfe Murray
First of all, I want to ask if you’ve seen this film we made of my Dad, using footage from the sixties and some video shot about 10 years ago when he was obsessed by hens and living with my Mother again.
Secondly, if you’re interested in my Dad you might like to see this article and especially the 57 comments that are posted below it. It was a blog-based appeal for testimonials about him and they show dimensions of my father’s life that we never knew. (more…)
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 1 Feb, 2022 | Bosnia, Journeys, My books
I’m working on an epic book that’s coming out in May this year: Bosnian War Posters, by Daoud Sarhandi. It’s an incredible collection of propaganda and art that he and Alina Wolfe Murray, my ex-wife, collected just after the war in Bosnia Herzegovina. It’s taken a long time to come to life but that’s another story.
The posters are arranged chronologically, with long captions, and it tells the story of Bosnia’s war. Young people in Bosnia Herzegovina are particularly interested because they don’t learn about the war in school – it’s too recent, too raw, too politicised – and they want to learn about it so they can avoid the mistakes of their parents. Young Bosnians also want to see how people communicated before the internet.
Many of the older Bosnians I’ve met, those who have experienced the war, don’t seem very interested in it; on the one hand they want to forget, while on the other hand they can’t stop thinking about it (or so I’m told).
Could we do books like this in other war-torn countries?
The reason I’m putting this article together is that I got a very inspiring audio messages from the author, on WhatsApp. It was in response to a discussion about possible future projects we could do in other parts of the world. “Surely”, I asked Daoud Sarhandi, “we could repeat what we did in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Surely there would be great material in other war zones, as good as what we had found in Bosnia?”
Daoud’s audio message (which I’ve transcribed below) gave me the insight I’d been looking for; it answers the question I’ve been asking myself: what makes our book, Bosnian War Posters, unique?
This is what Daoud said:
“The thing about Yugoslavia is that all the stars were aligned. We were in the right place at the right time, in a country which had a conscious design memory – or history – connected with Europe and Russia. One of our contributors, Bojan Hadžihalilović, says the war happened just before the internet and social media came into its own. I think the great poster campaigns the world witnessed in the past are over. Bosnia may have been the last war that used posters to such effect.
“Artists like Began Turbić, Asim Đelilović, and others are valuable as their posters and concepts are original, unique, and self-generated. I was recently thinking about doing a similar book about the Spanish Civil War as some of the work is beautifully drawn and designed. However, Spanish Civil War posters were produced by propaganda agencies on both sides rather than individual artists. They were just churning out very formulaic stuff and you actually learn very little from this material about the war as a whole, or what the people were really feeling. That’s not true about the posters we found in Bosnia Herzegovina. I think Began Turbić’s work, for example, is stunning compared to anything that came out of Barcelona or Madrid.
“Also, the only surviving Spanish Civil War posters are from the conquered cities. There’s almost nothing from small places and nothing independent left. This is not true of the material we found in Bosnia Herzegovina, as we were able to visit the most remote locations just after the war as well as scores of individual artists.
“What we found is absolutely unique. Not only in terms of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but in terms of world heritage. I can’t think of any war in history that generated such a rich heritage of original poster art, and the interesting thing is that it was genuinely independent in that most of the work we collected was produced by individual artists, working alone, and the government and army seemed to ignore them. It was a moment in time that’s not going to come back. It was something that doesn’t happen everywhere and probably will never happen again.
“In 2004 I went to Palestine to investigate doing a poster book about the Israeli/Palestine war. I travelled with an expert in the field, Dana Bartlett, an American design professor teaching in Prague. She’d already done an art book on some of those posters called Both Sides of Peace. At my suggestion, we went to do another book, a bigger one, and I spent two months in Palestine, mostly in Ramallah, talking to artists and designers, as I had done in the former Yugoslavia (in 1997/98). I thought I could repeat the process in Palestine.
“But all I found was visual dross. A lot of great people, for sure, and some great artists – but no inspiring design. What I found was loads of photoshopped posters with the words Islamic Martyr in Arabic, and a young guy holding up an AK47. After you’ve seen a hundred of these posters – which are more of less the same – you realise there’s no story of design here. I understand it culturally, and I respect it, and in its own way it is interesting, but it isn’t artistically inspiring or even very educational.
“But my Palestinian trip wasn’t wasted as I ended up making a great documentary film, The Colour of Olives.
“Sophisticated design doesn’t really happen in most countries. You could go to loads of conflict zones – Iraq, Syria, Rwanda, Yemen, wherever – and I’m sure you wouldn’t find much – you wouldn’t find a body of design work expressing lots of different aspects of the experience. You might find one or two artists doing something interesting, or quirky, but you wouldn’t find enough for a book. And then you’d have to know a lot about the war. To do what we did with the captions, you’d have to know all the ins-and-outs of that conflict.
“Islamic countries are particularly problematic in this design regard, which is why Bosnia Herzegovina was such a unique situation because there’s an Islamic element in this very special European country. But Islam generally is not very encouraging about modern graphic design. It’s just a fact. If you look at the history of Islamic art, it’s mainly decorative. When I met graphic designers and illustrators in Palestine they complained to me about this, that Islam doesn’t doesn’t like art to be confrontational. Art in Islamic countries celebrates the divine; flowers, symmetry, and non-human representation. You get lots of floral motifs, and calligraphy, and very little that is confrontational in the way that western audiences understand it. It’s a different thing altogether.
“Could we do a poster book in Lebanon? I doubt it. Syria? I don’t think so. What’s more I’ve got no motivation to do a big investigation, going round knocking on doors in another country. I don’t have the energy for that, plus I have a young family that I can’t just leave.
“I’m very, very proud of Bosnian War Posters. As a book it’s beautiful and we managed to save so much of the Bosnian’s wartime experience that would undoubtedly have been lost. As far as I know, we were the only people going around collecting all this material in a systematic way. I think the Bosnians didn’t quite appreciate its value, plus they were exhausted after the conflict. They’d had enough of the whole bloody mess. Sometimes outsiders see things that locals don’t in this regard – the distance helps. I knew from the go get that it was all very special and I’m glad we helped to preserve this bit of their cultural heritage.”
What’s unique about this book of posters?
There is a second part to answering this question: putting it into context. This was done rather brilliantly by Carol A. Wells, who runs the Center for the Study of Political Graphics in Los Angeles. She wrote a foreword which puts the book into historical and artistic perspective:
“It is not surprising that so many artists made posters during the Bosnian War as they are one of the most accessible, easily disseminated, and popular art forms to express conflict and resistance. What may surprise those who are seeing these posters for the first time is their variety, abundance, and often extraordinary design…
“Although few of these Bosnian posters are well known, many of them may look familiar because they incorporate images from advertising, fine art, film posters, album covers, and popular culture…
“The Bosnian posters in this book incorporate Western art from prehistoric to Renaissance, from Pop to Punk. The referenced art includes work by Massacio, Durer, Leonardo, Picasso, and Warhol. Posters that were originally made for World Wars I and II, and the Spanish Civil War, were ‘redesigned’ for the Bosnian War. The familiarity of these shared cultural references draws us in.”
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Artists in Bosnia Herzegovina were able to draw on this rich history of ancient and modern art as many of them had been through a classical education at Sarajevo’s renowned School of Art, where great art is studied over many years. I was at this art school recently and can confirm that it’s still going strong — and the students I met are very keen to see our new book of wartime posters.
My own interpretation of the Bosnian War posters is that it was the only way that artists in Bosnia-Herzegovina could protest about what was happening. As electricity was heavily restricted, the only mass media they had occasional access to was the radio. These shortages made the poster all the more powerful as a means of communication. The same didn’t apply to the other warring parties, Croatia and Serbia, which had fully functional mass-media and national propaganda systems. Although we collected some posters from these countries, very few wartime posters were produced as they didn’t really need them. But we got a few from the start of the war in Croatia as well as some interesting magazine covers from Belgrade.
What I didn’t appreciate until very recently was the level of freedom Bosnian artists had to express themselves – which is ironic considering that the Bosnian people were effectively hemmed in, geographically, by their enemies. They were imprisoned by external forces but their spirits were free.
A Sneak Peak
Finally, I’d like to share with you a couple of images from the book, and I’ll quote from Carol Wells’ foreword which puts them into context:
“A poster titled ‘HEEELP’ by Began Turbić used photomontage to transform an Orthodox Christian-style cross into a swastika by attaching traditional peasant-made brushes to the ends of the cross. Sixty years earlier, the German artist John Heartfield used this technique to create a swastika out of four bloody axes. Heartfield’s 1934 work was ironically titled ‘Blood and Iron,’ which was the motto of the Third Reich.
“Heartfield was one of the originators of photomontage, and made many anti-fascist magazine covers and posters using this technique. Turbić’s use of photomontage to create a swastika thus connects the past with the present. The average viewer may not have known this reference, but it would have been recognized by other political poster makers, as Heartfield is often considered one of the earliest designers of mass-produced protest posters.
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John Heartfield’s 1934 poster “Blood and Iron”
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Began Turbic’s Bosnian wartime interpretation.
Find out more
We’ll be launching a crowdfunding appeal soon, to offer discounted copies of the book to Bosnians everywhere as well as anyone who supports this great country. If you’d like to get more information about this please send me (Rupert) an email: wolfemurray@gmail.com
The headline photo of this article was produced by Trio studios during the war. It’s a re-interpretation of the Coca-Cola symbol and it’s printed on the back of an old army map, as paper was in such short supply.
If you’d like to see more of the Bosnian War Posters just follow this hashtag on Instagram: #bosnianwarposters
As always, I’d be most grateful if you could leave a comment under here. All feedback is useful, every voice is valid and every perspective is true to itself. I’m particularly keen to hear from young Bosnians as I’ve been so impressed by those I’ve met so far. I intend to give more talks in Bosnian schools when I go back to Bosnia Herzegovina later this month.
Finally, if you’d like to know why I got involved in this project, see this article: Why I moved to Bosnia
by Rupert Wolfe Murray | 11 Jan, 2022 | Journeys, Opinions
Daniel Craig was a good actor before he got turned into a bad-tempered robot for the Bond films. A great film he starred in, before the Bond franchise gobbled him up, was Layer Cake. It’s one of those clever-witty-vicious crime films that the English are quite good at. Daniel Craig plays a hip, likeable London-based cocaine dealer who does “one last job” before retiring. This is a tried and tested formula in film – the hero does one last job before dropping out of his life of crime – but, as you can imagine, there’s no way that the scriptwriters are going to let our hero retire quietly into wealthy obscurity.
I’m thinking about this plot because it’s a good way to explain why I moved to Bosnia Herzegovina. Although there are some big differences between me and Daniel Craig’s character – I’m not a bigshot coke dealer and not about to retire – there is a similarity which is that I’m trying to finish doing what I would call my “normal” work in consultancy, PR and publishing projects. In short, I’m doing one last job before getting into a life of independent travel, volunteering and writing books.
The job? Raising money to publish a book that contains a unique collection of posters that were made during the Bosnian war. There are a few Croatian and Serb posters but most of them are by Bosnian artists, graphic designers and various organisations that wanted to protest about their nation being ripped apart by the neighbours – as Poland was in 1939 as a result of the Nazi – Soviet pact. The author — Daoud Sarhandi — has assembled the war posters into chronological order and written long captions that tell the story of each one. The effect is a graphic history of the war and it’s relevant to young Bosnians as they don’t get taught about the Bosnian war in their schools — the issue is to recent, too close to the bone, too divisive — and all the young people I’ve met in Bosnia Herzegovina seem really keen to get the book, get an objective/graphic view of the war and learn from their parents’ mistakes. I interviewed over 30 young people in Sarajevo, Mostar and Tuzla and found a remarkable lack of hate towards the other ethnic groups in their country. This gives me a lot of hope.
The reason for telling you all this is because, just before leaving the UK, an English friend called Gwen asked me why. In particular, why will I be raising money for a book about posters that were made during the Bosnian War (1992 to 1995)? “If you’re going to raise money,” she said, “it would be good to know the background. Answering the ‘why’ question is a good place to start.” Gwen used to run environmental NGOS so she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to fundraising.
You might be wondering what it is about this Bosnian poster book that made me uproot myself from England, where I had a good life. The simple answer is that when Daoud Sarhandi told me that he’s working on this poster book I wanted to be part of it. My first response to hearing that he was working on a book of Bosnian War Posters I offered to fundraise for it. Illustrated books like this are very expensive to produce and getting some heavy-duty cash behind it is essential.
Having worked on many NGO and consultancy projects over the years I’ve developed a sort of sixth sense in knowing if a project is good or not. It’s a sort of instinct and is rather like that first impression one has upon meeting someone – is this person inspiring, or to be avoided? It’s the sort of instinct I used to ignore, only to later realise that “if only I’d listened to my gut instinct I wouldn’t be in this mess now.” I’ve worked on so many bad projects and it’s essential to avoid getting involved with one that will only bring frustration, as the people in charge are unable to listen to new ideas (this is perhaps the most common problem). Even if you’re getting well paid, you’ll probably lose about two years of your life working on it.
So, when Daoud said he’s re-doing his Bosnian poster book I instinctively took two decisions: to fundraise for it and to move to Bosnia Herzegovina. I knew there was no chance of raising money for this book in UK, where it would be competing with a million other good causes, and the only place I’d stand a chance is Sarajevo where they’d appreciate its relevance. The idea of hawking it round London and the big western capitals was deeply demotivating, and even if I did get a big grant I’d be subsequently beholden to the donor agency and drowned in their bureaucracy (foreign aid and development work, of which grant funds are part, has become depressingly bureaucratic). This book represents a part of Bosnia’s heritage – posters that were produced by over 40 Bosnian artists as a reaction to the war – so it makes sense that Bosnians fund it rather than one of the international grant funds. This book needs to develop its local roots rather than be another bright idea imposed from outside.
Daoud didn’t ask me to fundraise for it (and this, in itself, is a sign of a good project) but I knew the book needed it and assumed there would be nobody else vying for this non-job (i.e. voluntary) position. It was an instant, instinctive decision that became embedded in my plans for the future. It took me over 6 months to disentangle myself from a comfortable life in the UK: I sold my van, got rid of my precious touring bike, gave away my books and all the excess baggage one builds up – and above all made sure I wasn’t leaving any loose ends behind. I came to Bosnia Herzegovina at the end of July 2021 and don’t know how long I’ll stay. When people ask, I say, “for as long as it takes.”
What’s interesting for me in answering the question – why did I come to Bosnia Herzegovina? That instant decision to support the poster book, was buried deep under a whole pile of other stuff, like an important piece of furniture that’s somewhere under a house that had suddenly collapsed. I had to pick through the debris, sift through lots of other, more superficial, reasons for coming here (escaping from Brexit-land), in order to find that kernel of decision making that was at the heart of it. I’d written an earlier draft of this article, then discarded it in frustration as I hadn’t found the real reason. Now I realise that as soon as I took the decision to work on the poster book it immediately became part of my future plan – to move to Bosnia Herzegovina – but the actual decision making process was so quick and instinctive that I really struggled to find it when someone asked me the most simple of questions: why?
Another reason for moving to Bosnia Herzegovina is that I used to live here, just after the war, for two and a half years. It was a tale of riches to rags and back to riches. During the Bosnian War my NGO/charity, Scottish European Aid, grew huge in the Tuzla region, doing water supply infrastructure under the dynamic leadership of my brother Magnus. Although I was in charge of the NGO back in Scotland, we didn’t manage to get out hands on even 1% of the millions that Magnus was raising for his water engineering projects. I was like a waiter in a smart restaurant who handles big payments but gets paid peantus. So I resigned, got the bus to Sarajevo just after the war ended (winter 1995), spent my last pennies on getting a bus to Tuzla, where a friendly soul had offered accommodation. There’s nothing as motivating as being flat broke in a strange foreign city (ask any immigrant) and within a year I was making a fortune by writing, publishing and selling books to the vast American army that had just landed at Tuzla airport.
Making lots of money for me, myself and I doesn’t feel right so I set up a new NGO/charity with my wonderful mother and we distributed English language books to schools and libraries all over the land. For two glorious years we didn’t need to go cap-in-hand to the donor organisations as we were raising all the money we needed by selling my books to the NATO troops. The last project we did was to finance Daoud Sarhandi to drive around the country collecting Bosnian War posters from local artists, designers and printers. He did this with my very-well-organised ex wife, Alina, and a brilliant photographer called Stephen Gordon. I left Bosnia Herzegovina in early 1998 and never returned until now (2021). Coming back has a curious feeling of homecoming; the first week was a confusing rush of disjointed memories and new impressions.
Thinking about the difficulty of finding the real reason for coming here, and exposing my own decision making process, brings me back to that great English film Layer Cake. Criminal organisations have a strict policy of never keeping a record of their decision making process, for the simple reason that it can land them in jail. Everything is done verbally on the basis of trust (“honour among thieves”). One of the best things about being a non-criminal is that I can be open about all aspects of my life without fearing the consequences. I’ve got nothing to hide.
If you’d like to see some samples from our poster book, which we’ll be publishing next year, follow this link: My Publications | Daoud Sarhandi (jimdosite.com)
I took the photo that illustrates this article in Sarajevo in July 2021. Bosnian Kingdom is the name of a shop.
As always, I’d be very grateful for any comments — however negative, long or crazy they may be. The truth is that us wannabe writers couldn’t go on without feedback.
I first published this article in August 2021, but re-posted it in January 2022 with some revisions. It still stands as the most relevant article about why I’m currently based in Bosnia Herzegovina.
