The Education of Axel Heyst

[AxelHeyst]

Axel Heyst: Attractive post-industrial solarpunk-Renaissance aristocratic permaculture rogue. Bam. That's the vision.

[7Wannabe5]

Yes! If you want some new solid Deida-level sex moves to exhibit in alignment with such a persona, I highly recommend the the Cynster series of novels by Stephanie Laurens, a professional scientist who had a very interesting life before she turned her hand to romance writing in mid-life. I have read quite a few novels in this genre, but some of her "scenes" are quite memorable, especially the one where the aristocratic rogue says, "No, just keep looking at the tree."

[Jin+Guice]

but crossing the FI threshold might help me feel like I've completed phase 1 of adulthood (secure your household) and am ready to explore whatever the next phase is.

The trap is that nothing is ever quite secure. But you're talking about crossing an imaginary threshold, with some times to the real world, to capture a feeling that you're chasing. If you think crossing that threshold would give you the feeling of completing that phase of your life so you can move on, I think it's worth it. As always, the risk is 1 more year syndrome, in this case 1 more year until your "house" is "secure."

If you want some new solid Deida-level sex moves to exhibit in alignment with such a persona, I highly recommend the the Cynster series of novels by Stephanie Laurens

Noted.

[AxelHeyst]

@7 my librarians are going to be very confused with me. Thank you.

@jng yes... in the same way that being bored in retirement isn't one of my problems, I doubt that one-more-year-syndrome is a trap I'm likely to fall in to. My risk tolerance is high and security isn't actually what I'm solving for. Let it hereby be noted, though, so if I do fall in to the trap you can I told you so. (and come save me!)

The trick with these sorts of introspections is that the logical reasons for a decision require only a sentence or two to QED. The emotional rooting around takes (for me) paragraphs of meandering. That gives the false impression that the feelings are what dominate my attention.

I am pursuing this side hustle because it's a no-brainer opportunity. There is almost no downside - a slight opportunity cost, because I'm going to spend less (but not zero) time on e.g. skillathon and writing and some other things. It's possible that if I were already FI, I'd do this for a year or two anyway because I'm having fun with it.

And also, blah blah my culture never told me I was an adult so I'm having to DIY that shit and oh hey this gig kind of aligns with that inner work, neat etc etc.


ETA:
Relatedly, and possibly taking your post out of context, but it related to the above:

@AE: Interesting. In many ways I see coasting for 15ish hours a week as an ideal ERE/ artist job. I could basically do anything for 15 hours a week as long as it wasn't actively harming me. Is it psychologically actively harming you if you just take the attitude that your work doesn't really matter?

My answer is yes. Coasting makes my skin crawl. I'd go through a lot of trouble to avoid this sort of situation. As such, my semiERE income earning opportunities are somewhat limited compared to people for whom this doesn't bother.

[Jin+Guice]

I think using FI as a symbolic goal is actually a better way to do it than using it as a marker to indicate your freedom. As I have argued over and over again, a high earning potential, track record of high savings rate, money in the bank and a low expenditure rate or more than enough to set you free. There is no magic number to reach for freedom (though I understand all of the practical arguments for getting there as long as it aligns with your WoG).
But symbolically and emotionally it is nice to have a symbolic goal.


I also wouldn't discourage you personally from turning down this work, whether or not it would get you to FI, based on what you've said about it. In this way it upholds the "FI is a byproduct of your life" paradigm.



Re: Coasting. I am influenced by the fact that I tried to find 1) fun and 2) meaningful work in two separate careers before my current coast trajectory. By far the most success I have found is in working meaninglessly for money, but not working very much. I'm constantly on the lookout for greener pastures, but also content with the one I am in. I'm not saying this is the only way to do it though.

[AxelHeyst]

To be fair, I've never actually had a job that was meaningless, <20hr/wk, and required little from me. So I don't actually know.

[Scott 2]

Having crossed the FI threshold, I have to say, it was anti-climatic. I looked around and realized I never grew up. Maybe very similar to the feelings you have now.

My post-retirement activities did diminish that feeling. Though sometimes, especially here, it feels like I'm pretending to be an adult.

Between the workaways, bike packing and ERE fest - I'm surprised you still get that sense. Each of those events could be seen as crossing the threshold.

So - IMO - relax the expectations on a full FI net worth. It's nice, but more novel than life changing.

The opportunity does sound great for other reasons. Congrats.

[berrytwo]

The Levels of Wanting What You Have

The thing that the book helped me realize is that at this level, the human instinct for *striving* and wanting More hasn't been replaced or reduced at this level, it's only been displaced. The More has shifted from consumer goods and experiences to freedom, stash/col ratio, winning FIRE, earning postconsumer status points, etc. It's just a sneaky version of the same More mentality.

I've just redefined what it is I'm trying to achieve. It's only superficially different than when I spent all my time thinking my life would be perfectly dope when I finally got my truck and lived in a shack in the desert.


And I 100% have been assuming that once I hit 5k, or 2.5k, or whatever, then I'll be calm and blissed out and *then* I'll be content. Partly because that would mean that money is a solved problem, but also partly because of what it will take to get there - who I'll have to become, what skills I'll have to learn, what mindsets I'll have to adopt to hit these numbers.

However, in part due to this book I'm beginning practices aimed at getting me to spend time in a state of contentedness, a state of knowing that nothing is ordinary and everything is magnificent. If we want to be content we have to actually work at it with deliberate practices and train ourselves to be in this state).

Been appreciating sitting with this post the last few days, and the thread that has followed. Enough-ness is such a rich topic. I have been thinking about how I want to proportion time focused in the present vs. the future. Quality in both matters. I have been into the concept of "romanticizing your life," finding small and big moments to soak in pleasure, awe, and reverence much like you spoke about in the Want What You Have book. Likewise, I concluded that rituals = routine + spirit (or intention). Can you make something climactic that could have otherwise be anti-climactic? I don't think there is any harm in building towards a rite-of-passage moment, as long as in the process you are taking intentional time to be grateful and present where you are, in your shack in the desert, building skills/ engaging in the world in ways that feel meaningful to you.

Thank you for sharing your journey, as always.

[jacob]

If you are running semiERE (as I have been since June 2021), some of your attention has to remain in 'earning' mode. It's not about the amount of bandwidth this requires, it is the idea that it might serve as a cognitive anchor in 'earning' phase of life, preventing you from further phase exploration. This would seem to be no big deal because the only thing after earning is 'being retired' right?... but Jacob has an excellent post, that I think of often, that I can't find now for the life of me, where he posits the existence of multiple life phases beyond 'earn' phase. I don't want to be subtly held back from exploration, and I don't want to have to worry about solvency. I want to be able to go deep.

Thinking more about it, the idea of industrial society (12 years of school followed by 40 years of job) causing a form of arrested development has actually been discussed in multiple threads. There was literally a thread (my google-fu constantly fails me on the forum these days. I don't know what magic @mathiverse wields) on "when you realized/began to feel like an adult".

Otherwise,

• Plotkin discusses how most grownups (for lack of a better word) are stuck in "adolescent mode"
• Cook-Greuer and Loevinger, who both interviewed A LOT of people (born after 1900, both genders), identified some 10 different ways of introspecting/extraspecting about the world and that these would typically evolve in a sequence of stages. The majority of grownups sit in stage 3 ("The Specialist") and stage 4 ("The Achiever"). I remember being in those stages 25 years ago and I don't recognize the person I was back then(*)(**).
• Kegan also has his famous levels. A big part of the conclusion of In Over Our Heads is that humans simply don't have time to grow mature enough to have a majority in Kegan 4 and 5 instead of 3 and 4. He hints that it was worse (dominant Kegan2 society -> lots of murdering) when lifespans where shorter.

Both theory and personal experience leads me to believe that higher education and careerism is a trap that people can stay in for way longer than they need.

(*) In contrast, it's relatively easy to find an old person who still feels the same way as when they were 19. They're essential a child in an old person's body and not in a good way. This saddens me.
(**) I can attach subsequent stages to other transformative life experiences. They don't all last equally long.

[Ego]

We have been trained by school to think in terms of stages or modes, so it is no surprise that we continue to do so after school.

The trick is not to graduate to higher, more convoluted stages. The trick is to think in terms of skills. Skills extend beyond the artificial indoctrinated modes and stages. They allow us to simultaneously be the person who can laugh uncontrollably like a third grader, dive deep into areas where expertise is limited but our mind naturally wanders, and chop wood carry water.

Stages contain. Skills unleash.

[jacob]

Stages refer to the framework someone uses to construct their worldview or what matters. It is how someone thinks about their bag of skills---not another skill in that bag. For example, the "conscientious-conformist", which is the preferred stage of the salaryman---what our culture raises humans to become---thinks of their skillset in terms of their job performance. "How can I do a better job?" "How can I be the best at what I do?" "What is the best skill to put on my resume?" Whereas the "individualistic" stage would see their skills as something people choose to explore and enjoy for themselves. "How can this skill lead me to new adventures?" "What will this skill teach me about myself?" "The world is full of opportunities to learn about myself and others" "There are so many different ways I can be me and you can be you so there's no right way to be". The "individualistic"-stage typically comes after the "conscientious conformist"-stage.

Frameworks are the water the fish swim in and becoming aware of it---specifically how it's constructed, typically by others---happens pretty late in one's development if it happens at all. I'd note that stages are not really something one can or should think of graduating from in the sense of passing a test and then taking a class in the next stage. Taking a class or reading a book may lead to knowing-about that stage, but it's unlikely to lead to really knowing that stage. A new stage appears when the person is ready for it. Not before. Stages are fundamentally about how one sees the world. They do tend to come in order because 1) It's hard to unsee something you've seen(*); and 2) Seeing something in a new perspective requires being very familiar with an old perspective to the point of exhausting what it has to offer.

(*) For example, it would be hard for me to have the goal of "becoming the world's expert on relativistic hydrodynamics" again like when I was 24. My present self sees this kind of goal as naive and self-limiting. OTOH, it is certainly possible to spend an entire lifetime striving for such a goal---and most adults do---just as it is possible to spend an entire life exploring and adding skills to one's ever-growing list of skills and experiences.

[Henry]

(*) In contrast, it's relatively easy to find an old person who still feels the same way as when they were 19. They're essential a child in an old person's body and not in a good way. This saddens me.

Well it's not exactly sunshine and rainbows for me either.

[Ego]

...it is certainly possible to spend an entire lifetime striving for that goal---and most adults do---just as it is possible to spend an entire life exploring and adding skills to one's ever-growing list of skills and experiences.

The secret to asking the right questions is to first know all the answers. This requires becoming thoroughly familiar with the object of study. In CCCCCC-language, you need to copy, compare, compile, and master simple "computations" before the fun stuff starts. This can be done systematically---some use notebooks and have methods; it can be done by throwing mud on the wall and hoping for the muses to sing; or it can be done with lots of experience. "Lots of experience" goes by different names. In mathematics it's called "mathematical maturity" and in physics, it's called "physical intuition".

Tools are only as good as how people use them. While the stages/levels/modes work well for some, they are just higher level puzzle-play for others. Certainly, a few graduate from completing the crossword daily to concocting crosswords. They are able to make it the thing that gets them out of bed in the morning. But for most, the secret to a really good life is not found in knowing all the answers.

[7Wannabe5]

In contrast, it's relatively easy to find an old person who still feels the same way as when they were 19. They're essential a child in an old person's body and not in a good way. This saddens me.

Hmmm...I think the feeling I experienced while watching "The Golden Bachelor" was more like schadenfreude.

OTOH, I would note that some personality types are more inclined towards retaining "child-like" perspective, which is not to be confused with never moving past "child-ish" perspective. For example, the inner child of an INTJ is an older child, maybe an 8-10 year old, whereas the inner child of an ENTP is more like a 3 year old, but an INTJ who was not yet cognizant of his own more "serious" older inner child would likely be less far along the Adult Development model(s) than an ENTP who fully recognized her inner 3 year old. IOW, having an "old soul" vs. "young soul" is not necessarily correlated with development along the adult spectrum. And I think this may be partially towards what Ego is attempting to communicate.

In simpler terms, "having fun" and "experiencing joy" may not come as easily to INTJs, but they may not recognize that this represents an opportunity for growth for them, as opposed to aspects of being "stuck in childhood" for others.

[AxelHeyst]

Between the workaways, bike packing and ERE fest - I'm surprised you still get that sense. Each of those events could be seen as crossing the threshold.

Each of those events have definitely contributed to my sense of personal growth. Pulling in what @berrytwo said, I agree that a missing important element is ritual and also, perhaps, social recognition. I don't mean admiration, but literal explicit recognition. Rituals of threshold-crossing used to involve a ritual that signified the threshold was being crossed, and part of that ritual was members of your community all saying "Yep, look, you're an adult now", or whatever the event was. The new reality was socially constructed as well as internally.

When I got back from some of my travels, it was common to get the question "what was your favorite part of your trip?" like I was a kid coming back from his first trip to Disneyland. I think this contributes to the sense of anti-climacticism and, maybe, ambivalence about what it all meant, anyway.

I was feeling pretty good about my semiERE status and then a neighbor asked what I was up to. I listed some of my projects. He said "I notice none of those involve making money." Another neighbor offered me some minimum wage yardwork and commented "I know you need the money." I'm getting (incorrect) social recognition of being a failure to launch, because that's what adult humans living on the same property with their parents *means*.

On the one hand I truly don't care what these boomers think, and I have compassion that they maybe are incapable of understand what I'm doing. I don't ruminate over it. That said, the only place I receive any kind of informed and positive recognition for what I'm doing is a small band of internet weirdos. Insofar as I'm wired like most humans to be effected by signals and lack of signals from humans in my social group, this poses an issue/obstacle for my development.

Can you make something climactic that could have otherwise be anti-climactic? I don't think there is any harm in building towards a rite-of-passage moment, as long as in the process you are taking intentional time to be grateful and present where you are, in your shack in the desert, building skills/ engaging in the world in ways that feel meaningful to you.

In short, I think this^ matters a good deal, and I also think that involving other humans in this process is important. Maybe not for everyone but for me, yes.

--

A big part of the conclusion of In Over Our Heads is that humans simply don't have time to grow mature enough to have a majority in Kegan 4 and 5 instead of 3 and 4.

I see this in my own life already. I didn't make serious progress on resolving codependent behavior patterns until after I got laid off. This was due in part to having a codep relationship with work itself, and needing distance from it in order to even see the patterns I was enmeshed in. But it was also due to having great gobs of time to myself that I devoted to the inner work.

You can certainly do a ton of inner work with the amount of freedom you get from semiERE, and I suspect even more so if your income generation gig is either entirely non-demanding *or* you found a unicorn that is very aligned with your values/purpose/etc. But I keep coming back to the "the difference between 20% and 0% is qualitatively different than the difference between 100% and 20%" idea.

[jacob]

Tools are only as good as how people use them. While the stages/levels/modes work well for some, they are just higher level puzzle-play for others. Certainly, a few graduate from completing the crossword daily to concocting crosswords. They are able to make it the thing that gets them out of bed in the morning. But for most, the secret to a really good life is not found in knowing all the answers.

I agree with all that except maybe calling it "puzzle-play". It's more that later stages are better able to make sense---better at sense-making---than earlier stages. Similar to how those who can concoct a crossword understand more about how crossword puzzles work than those who just do them. OTOH, understanding how a crossword puzzle works may very well take the fun of doing them. So it is with a lot of things. Someone who is oblivious to concepts like temperament, culture, development, etc. (or simply in denial of these concepts in order to further maximum inclusiveness) will encounter each new human as a unique mystery for conversation and story-telling ... in contrast to a predictable utterance of talking points after identifying their category five minutes into the conversation.

Perspective matters greatly. For example, when I was 5yo, I found it greatly entertaining to hit +9 on my dad's electronic calculator to see the single's digit decrease by one each time while the tens-digit went up, except every 10th time. After I understood how multiplication worked, I lost interest in hitting +9. It's kinda the same feeling now with normal conversations...

The fundamental debate is summarized by:

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.

The choice between the two is non-trivial and comes down to what makes a "good life". Ignorance XOR bliss? Stuart Mill certainly has his opinion, but that just might be sour grapes or regret of losing his relative innocence. Personally I'm not so sure. Simplistic sense-making can have adverse real-life consequences though. For example, a substantial fraction of grown-ups for one reason or another remain in the "ego-protective"-stage. "Don't tell me what to do. I do what I want." "Rules are for other people. It's surprising to me and oh so unfair when rules are also applied to me." This worldview might be fun for them (until it isn't) but it's not great for others or society as a whole(?) Maybe more precisely, the kind of society we live in is very much determined by how people make sense of the world. A society, where the "good life is not found in knowing all the answers" sand the focus is on "compiling a bag of skills", struggles with having a void of meaning or purpose ("Surely there's more to life than just adding skills or experiences for shits'n'giggles?!"); it struggles with paying the bills ("Following my passion to become a youtube influencer(*) didn't work out despite me being extremely passionate about it"); and it struggles when taking a ridiculous amount of time to agree on what is should be obvious when making sense from a later stage.

(*) The #1 career choice of American younglings. Contrast with the Chinese younglings whose #1 career choice is to become a taigonaut (specialist). Culturally, America is further ahead than China and Scandinavia is further ahead still.

ETA: Edited for clarity.

[candide]

I was feeling pretty good about my semiERE status and then a neighbor asked what I was up to. I listed some of my projects. He said "I notice none of those involve making money."

Damn, that is just some ice cold boomer shit right there.

I don't know if it helps, but there really is nothing you can do. I have a friend who is an optometrist who is contribute his side of the household bills working two days a week. Oh, the boomers hate that. All you can do to get them off your back is to maximally working to support the System and then with lots of dashes of performative work on the side. Even then, they still put you under siege, always looking for ways in to make you feel small.

[Jin+Guice]

@candide: semi-ERE is better for this because if you want them to leave you alone you have a job. No one forces you to tell them how much you work. "Oh, what do I "DO?" I work in brain surgery." Thankfully I live in a place where it is usually considered rude to ask about someone's job.


@AH said that he is free of care from the "what do you do?" people.

@AH I give you explicit permission not to have to cross the FI threshold if you don't want to. I assure you we are all or mostly very jealous of your solar punk lifestyle, living on $5k a year while building skills. I also give you permission to use it as a ritual to complete a stage of your adulthood, if you so chose.


I reiterate that I support and congratulate you taking the gig, no matter what the meaning, because I think it will fit into your current WoGs and also you said you wanted to.

[jacob]

I don't know if it helps, but there really is nothing you can do. I have a friend who is an optometrist who is contribute his side of the household bills working two days a week. Oh, the boomers hate that. All you can do to get them off your back is to maximally working to support the System and then with lots of dashes of performative work on the side. Even then, they still put you under siege, always looking for ways in to make you feel small.

I think most of them (except for the trolls) are not trying to make you feel small as much as they want to avoid making themselves feel small. It's a kind of [ego] self-defense to avoid having to question their own life-choices.

In terms of getting them off your back, ... one way is beat them within their own value-system.
The Orange boomer game is about becoming a millionaire. A standard that only 10% of them eventually meet. "Nah, I saved up most of what I earned and I already have a million bucks (shows young face) so money isn't really a priority for me anymore. I mean, if you offer to pay, I'll take it ... but otherwise what's the point of earning more money when you already have enough (also see tap water metaphor)".
The Green boomer game is about an unspoken social contract and the duty to pay it back (in the form of working a job) for all the privileges that society has provided. Response: "I wanted to get more directly involved than just paying taxes or giving to charity. We've outsourced so many community functions to the market and I'm working on getting that back. I'm privileged to have very low expenses, so I can dedicate my time to ... [solving problems otherwise corrupted by evil money]".

Millennials and Zoomers require different arguments having different value-systems. One size does not fit all.

[AxelHeyst]

Yes, being exposed to people who judge me by standards I don't care about is the price for playing alt games, and one that I happily pay. One of the benefits of playing an alt game, though, is having an alt community that recognizes what you're actually trying to do, which offsets the judgement. This is one of the reasons why this community (the forum, the MMGs, fest, meeting people IRL, thinking up other games to play with yall) is so important to me. (I also get recognition from EREadjacent people, to be clear, and these relationships are also very important to me).

@jng: <3