New Escapologist : June 2026

Is there a whole population of cruiseniks out there?

Hello everyone,

Holy mackerel, New Escapologist Issue 19 is out now, as is a lovingly-restored tenth-anniversary paperback edition of Escape Everything!

Escape Everything! is my book from 2016. It’s the core text of Escapology, which was an easy thing to accomplish since Escapology a thing I made up. Result!

Thanks to 65 members of this mailing list who pre-ordered their copy via Kickstarter, I can now afford to send copies to shops and libraries all over the world. I want people to find it in real bookshops when they are least expecting to have their lives turned sideways. Maybe some of them will join us here in THE CULT.

Thanks for reading but that’s enough plugging for one month. On with the show…

Robert Wringham
Editor, New Escapologist
www.newescapologist.co.uk

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The Outdated World of Work

In the news:

An “anxious generation” of young people is struggling to adapt to the outdated world of work, according to the government’s jobs adviser.

Alan Milburn, a former Labour health secretary, will say this week in a report that businesses must adapt by offering more flexibility and mental health support for young people to stave off an “economic catastrophe.”

We’ve finally been heard. It has taken generations of loud objections to work, but Gen Z might have finally broken through. They have pushed over the line the idea that Wage Slavery isn’t all it cracked up to be.

That the UK government are worried about “economic catastrophe” tells us an interesting thing. That they know people can say no. That they know we can walk away, escape. If we did this en-masse, there probably would be an economic catastrophe. And there should be one really. We need to stop trying to grow the economy unsustainably, stop fretting about GDP, and start measuring value differently.

“Almost 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds,” the article says, or “about one in eight” are “not in education, employment or training” because they’ve secured doctor’s orders to stay at home.

Said jobs advisor has observed: “a rising tide of mental ill-health, anxiety, depression [and] neurodiversity” is driving the abandonment of economic activity.

Not to imply than a single one of these kids is faking mental ill-health (who could possibly feel mentally well given the squandered world they stand to inherit?) but, you know, one probably could. Escape route identified! Wibble.

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Nothing Could Convince Me to Stay

Here’s a nice description of a Tokyo job quit from Haruki Murakami’s latest novel, The City and its Uncertain Walls:

And then one morning I handed my boss a letter of resignation. I couldn’t go on doing this job. I had to remove my body and mind from the track I’d been on — even if I hadn’t found a new track to try.

My boss was surprised by my sudden request. Up until that moment, I’d given no indication that I was unhappy. He thought I’d been recruited by a rival company. I tried to explain as best I could. Not an easy thing to do, but somehow I did end up convincing him. His next gambit was speculating that I must be having some psychological issues — a breakdown or midlife crisis.

“If the work’s wearing you out, you should take some time off,” my boss said, calmly trying to convince me. “You have a lot of accrued paid vacation time, so why don’t you go to Bali or somewhere for a couple of weeks, let your hair down, recharge, then come back? And then you can think it over again?”

I had a pretty good relationship with my immediate boss, and I think he kind of liked me. So I felt bad telling him this. But nothing could convince me to stay. This was as clear to me as the first rays of morning light.

After a brief period of indolence — “I thought about nothing, and did nothing, just hanging out, alone, in my apartment” — our narrator takes a job in a small rural library. He reduces his expenses massively by leaving Tokyo and can therefore shoulder the reduction in income. He also sells off or gives away most of his possessions:

everything I had fit into a small moving van, and I felt, for the first time in ages, free.

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No Schedule, No Plan

I’ve always been a traveller. Not full time or all the time, but every ten years or so my feet start itching and I want to quit the job, flat and place I’m in and head off somewhere entirely new.

This comes from Fergie, someone I used to w-o-r-k with in real life. We’d sometimes sneak off for forbidden pints at lunchtime, and she was the one person in the office I could talk to about escape. We were both heavily depressed, I think, but at least we’d both seen other parts of the world. You could hold that inside yourself when listening to the thrum-thrum of the photocopier and the glubble-glubble of the watercooler.

Apparently her itch to “head off” happens every ten years. I expect that’s only natural and true of everyone, but it takes someone like Fergie — someone who sees that the bars of the cage are largely imaginary — to actually act on it.

Here she posts a nice long rumination on her various escapes, starting with an impromptu trip to America in the ‘90s:

Exciting, terrifying, I almost chickened out at the airport. Once there, I adored the freedom. No schedule, no plan. A couple of days in New York then heading to the Greyhound station with my backpack and seeing where the buses went. This was back in pre-internet days when you couldn’t spend hours and days poring over websites to see where you might want to go, which buses go there, when they leave and arrive. You couldn’t scrutinise online maps and book accommodation. Instead, you’d have a Lonely Planet guidebook – mine likely covered the entire USA – and a long distance phone number to call a hostel ahead.

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Cheaper Than a Life on Land

This couple — who met on a cruise ship and later got married on one — sold their possessions and even their freakin’ homes to book fifty back-to-back sea cruises.

Neither of our families thought it was strange that we were now living full-time on cruise ships. With our savings we were able to fund our life onboard, which, thanks to loyalty discounts and the rising cost of living, is cheaper than our life on land.

Even one cruise sounds like a nightmare to me, never mind fifty. But it’s amazing to know this could be done. To live in a state of constant voyaging” And in luxury too.

At 54, I’m living my dream. Soon we’ll be heading to Europe, Mexico and Bermuda, and I can’t wait. I hope our life on the water goes on for ever.

I wonder if many other people do this. Could there be a whole population of cruiseniks out there, drifting around the world’s seas and oceans without a care?

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The Happiest Guy in the World

To answer my question about cruise ship people, Readers R and A say that, actually, yes! There are loads of people who do this:

Adopting a cruise ship life is basically escaping from reality. You are basically exiting the world as you know it on land, and you’re saying ‘I don’t want to be a part of that anymore.’ I want to create my own new world.

This comes from a short film called The Happiest Guy in the World. And here it is:

This was eight years ago and he’d been at sea for nineteen years! He describes being on land (i.e. normal life) as “pure hell.”

Reader R’s link took me a brochure for long-term cruise ship travel. It boasts that their service costs “just $91 a day”. Insanely, that actually is cheaper than a normal life “on land.” The average cost of living per day in the USA is about $120. It actually could be done.

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Ancient Qualities

Here’s the author Elif Shafak on Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing (2021), a book we also liked and reviewed at length in New Escapologist Issue 16.

It is a fascinating take on how and why we need to resist the relentless demands of our hyper-information society. It reminds us that our value as human beings is not dependent on our productivity levels or amount of consumption on any given day. It recognises that solitude, compassion, friendship, introspection, contemplation – all these universal and ancient qualities – are inalienable rights. Inviting readers to become better observers, better listeners, it encourages us to slow down. To pay more attention to the seemingly small, “insignificant things”, reconnect with each other, with nature and with ourselves. In a world where there is constant clamour, too much rigidity, polarisation and tribalism, this book shows us that you can be gentle, calm, nuanced and still be political, attending to the local, to the humble, and to what makes us human.

She’s right, you know. Not just about Odell’s book but about things of value in life.

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More-Akami

Here’s some more from that Murakami novel:

there isn’t just one reality. Reality is something you have to choose by yourself, out of several possible alternatives.

He’s talking about a mysterious semi-fictional town that appears in his latest novel. But he’s also talking about free will. Every choice you make creates, in a way, a new reality.

Escapologists are keen to choose one of the myriad paths into a reality of self-directed fun and to avoid one of the myriad paths back into The Trap.

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Happy Anniversary! 🥳

Look at it. It’s a thing of beauty. Get it here if you would like to.

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Like Rose Petals

The more we engage with real things the more we can remember that we are not machines.

The machine does not want you to have the full set of stimuli or emotions. Real life has such a rich variety of experience.

Thus spake blogger Alastair Johnston who, in a rage against the machine, says some beautiful things about his dog, Benson.

The dog lovers amongst you will be able to deduce that he’s a Whippet from his photograph. You can recognise his breed by his bony shape, long legs, pointy head and beautiful curves over his back and under his flattened but enlarged chest. He’s quite a goer.

But what you can’t do is hear the whining he makes when he’s desperate for a walk or his “happy growl”, which sometimes scares people, but in reality means he’s full of joy and really pleased with you. You cannot feel how soft his ears are, like rose petals, and perfect to stroke during stressful times.

Remember the real. Go to live music. Read real books. See real paintings. Hear real birdsong. Feel the connection to other people, other creatures, other times.

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Letter to the Editor: To Make the Trap Seem Inevitable

To send a letter to the editor, simply write in. You’ll get a reply and we’ll anonymise any blogged version.

Reader B writes:

I purchased a used copy of Escape Everything! and am devouring it. It’s remarkable how much I can read once my time and attention are not being sucked into The Trap.

I have also ordered copies for my parents — for them to acquire the understanding and vocabulary your work establishes — and for my classmate who is taking a “mini-retirement,” and whom I think would really be guided by your writing.

May I ask a question that you are uniquely able to answer, as both the editor and a former librarian? From page 92 of your book: “An Escapologist is a person who has become aware of The Trap, who has considered its mechanisms, and has resolved to escape.”

You acknowledge that most people are unaware of The Trap, but does your work analyse the mechanisms through which The Trap keeps itself obscure? I found a partial answer on page 154: “The reason so many people think they need to work full-time is because of the staggering number of obligations they have: television licenses and/or satellite television packages need to be paid for, as do cars; home entertainment;…

This makes sense, but surely there are other strategies the ruling class uses to make The Trap seem inevitable — like school curricula and Hollywood — that normalise the consumer economy. But what else do you see that keeps The Trap so undetectable?

I suffered for decades from what I believe is toxic indoctrination first in the Northeast USA and then in a multinational professional services firm, and had to overcome resistance before I even knew to seek out works such as The Idler and the New Escapologist. My goal right now is to better understand how The Good Life was hidden from me to find any remaining “manacles” that still limit my thinking.)

Admiringly yours,
B

Wow, what an email. Please don’t get me in trouble with your parents.

Your question is huge and all-encompassing. The Trap captures us as soon as we plop out of our mums. I remember a “Tom the Dancing Bug” comic from about 2002 (I tried to find it today but couldn’t) showing a baby with a barcode on their forehead and someone off-page saying “don’t worry, little consumer, we’ve got it all planned out for you.”

You mention school. They say school is there to prepare us for life and yet most of it is algebra and gym class and oxbow lakes and all manner of nonsense that will never come up again. It’s a surreal place really. We aren’t generally taught how to cook, to change a lightbulb, to respect our lovers, to balance a household budget. Whether that’s by design or simply how it has evolved, school basically gets us used to the idea of sitting still, doing what we’re told, and not thinking about whether an experience makes a blind bit of sense. Just like at work!

I suppose television is another thing. Ever since starting the magazine, I’ve suggested people don’t bother with TV. Read books instead. You’re more likely to come across a plurality of ideas in books than on TV, which (high-quality dramas, comedy and documentary aside, which you can watch in different circumstances when you want to) tends to parrot the usual old shit without question.

Social media obviously. Much has been written about how it establishes and distorts norms. Supermarkets because they present a limited choice and too many tempting ultra-processed foods that are bad for you. Toxic masculinity. Advertising. Certain phrases in language (“there is no alternative”) that people rattle off unthinkingly. Urgh. The list goes on.

It’s best not to get paranoid about this stuff though. Escape it the best you can, look into (or invent) the alternatives, and move on.

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Crumbs, that was a long newsletter. I hope it wasn’t too much. But if you have space for more, please remember to grab your anniversary edition of Escape Everything! and to be free and to rejoice. Issue 19 will soon drop in our collective lap too.

You might also consider joining my new free Substack Concern, Wringham Wreview, and/or, if you’re in the UK coming to see the film I’m in.

Your soft-boiled egg,

Robert Wringham
www.newescapologist.co.uk