Early retirement - Do you know about it? Are you aiming for it?

Since a few years ago, I've been hearing quite a bit about early retirement - the idea of achieving financial independence in just a few years of work, simple living and relentless saving, so that you can retire from the workforce. To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I understand the difference between early retirement and financial independence, if there's any at all.

My brief impression from browsing through some blogs is that those aiming for financial independence focus on growing their assets and generating passive income, while the early retirement folks put a lot of energy into saving and cutting costs. If there's someone more knowledgeable about this, please correct me!

So what do you think about early retirement? Does it sound like a good goal, or maybe you'd prefer looking for a good job/career and sticking with it as long as possible?