What do you miss from your pre ERE life?

[Scott 2]

Every relationship ends. People grow and change. Holding steady at work doesn't keep your social group static either.


I miss the ease of access:

1. Heavily screened, high quality people
2. Top tier insurance, health care and benefits
3. Equipment and tools at the top of my field
4. Conferences, workshops and social events
5. Virtually unlimited money, to solve any problem

Work got my best hours, but the sacrifice definitely offered perks.

[ducknald_don]

@unemployable That has been at the back of my mind for a while.

[IlliniDave]

To me FI was a continuum rather than an event. And I continued to work for a few years even after hitting an arguably reasonable degree of FI relative to my anticipated future. FI in and of itself didn't change anything for me, so there was nothing to miss.

I'm relatively new to the RE half of the acronym, barely over a year. About the only thing I miss is the decrease in interaction with some of my colleagues. I relocated soon after I bowed out of the corporate grind, which exacerbated that and put me further from one of my daughters but also put me closer to my dad and other relatives. And the relo is sort of a separate thing from retirement.

[Jean]

the fact that one actually miss things means that the pre retirement time wasn't completely wasted.
You can miss an ex even if your current relationship is much better.

[7Wannabe5]

exactly.
I always consider work as a consequence of bad design.

Right, but even with your very frugal design, you still had to work long enough to pay cash for the house you rent out. So, the question is whether there is a strategy that would allow one to avoid even the initial phase of work-full-time-to-acquire-capital?

(below not directed at Jean in particular)

I'm kind of tangled or lost in my thinking about this because of recently reading Graeber's thoughts on the origins and meaning of "debt" and "freedom." If you don't believe that you have a "right to eat" then it's kind of like you believe that you are born "in debt" or "in sin" from which you must seek at least minimal redemption. Of course, if your perspective is also that you are likely to be "taxed" with the feeding of others, then issues related to the desire for respect and acceptance of one's own essential vulnerability come into play.

[Jean]

my ancestor designed there life badly enough so that i got born without a hunting ground like they did at some distant point in the past.

my ere strategy is just a temporary fix to this broken system.

[IlliniDave]

I'm kind of tangled or lost in my thinking about this because of recently reading Graeber's thoughts on the origins and meaning of "debt" and "freedom." If you don't believe that you have a "right to eat" then it's kind of like you believe that you are born "in debt" or "in sin" from which you must seek at least minimal redemption. Of course, if your perspective is also that you are likely to be "taxed" with the feeding of others, then issues related to the desire for respect and acceptance of one's own essential vulnerability come into play.

Interesting thing to think about. At first blush, thinking of adult me, I think I have a right to eat--I have a right to eat and a responsibility to feed myself. Along with that responsibility I have freedom to grow, capture, procure, and keep food in many different ways. I'm a little less comfortable thinking I have a right to being fed by others. That might be why I leaned towards supersizing the stash--knowing that keeping my belly full is on me, and wanting to avoid irresponsibility in a decision to retire early. Never thought of it as a debt, more like weekly protection money to keep entropy at bay.

[jacob]

Right, but even with your very frugal design, you still had to work long enough to pay cash for the house you rent out. So, the question is whether there is a strategy that would allow one to avoid even the initial phase of work-full-time-to-acquire-capital?

The basic constraint on reality is output = labor * capital = effort * tools, because food is not going to walk into human mouths.

The only argument about rights, debt, etc. comes down to who owns the capital and who provides the labor. In a capitalist system, there are a couple of solutions. You can own the capital and you can provide the labor. You can also just own the capital. Or you can just provide the labor. The two are separated under the concept of "ownership". Under socialism (US vernacular), the government owns the capital and people are required to labor. In a social democracy, you can own capital but it's taxed; but you're kinda expected to labor, which is taxed too, and those taxes go to "the common good", where "rights" determine what that good is. Feudalism is similar except the taxes go to the king to pay for wars. And so on and so forth.

Basically, nature does not give humans rights to eat beyond the output that's limited by the reality-constraint. All solutions have to be found inside of that. Human culture and politics rests on top on the basic reality constraint further constrain the allowed solutions. E.g. maybe you have the right to own capital or maybe the right to welfare or whatever a given society allows.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Right, but even with your very frugal design, you still had to work long enough to pay cash for the house you rent out. So, the question is whether there is a strategy that would allow one to avoid even the initial phase of work-full-time-to-acquire-capital?

From my observation, the difference between "capital-ERE" and "non-capital-ERE" is that one may be subjected to other limitations if one has not saved enough financial capital. What I mean is that, while one may avoid the formal economy by trading a series of barters, bartering may in turn limit you in other ways, such as the need to hustle, or to network, or to still be subjected to the demands of others in a non-monetary fashion.

It is therefore the "F-you" money, so to speak, that liberates one from a sub-optimal situation and gives one the optionality not to be taken advantage of inside any setting. Having non-financial "F-you" capital may be a more difficult solution, especially as one ages.

[zbigi]

If you don't believe that you have a "right to eat" then it's kind of like you believe that you are born "in debt" or "in sin" from which you must seek at least minimal redemption.

This is the very common sense conclusion. In Judasim/Christianity, having to work to have food is part of the punishment for the original sin ("In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread").

[zbigi]

my ancestor designed there life badly enough so that i got born without a hunting ground like they did at some distant point in the past.

My ancestors were illiterate peasants exploited by ruthless Polish feudal lords - so they didn't get to design much. I'm thankful to them that they manage to survive through their often absolutely brutal and miserable lifes, so that I was born.

[jacob]

Absolutism makes any solution much harder. I'm reminded of a comment in Country Living (Carla Emery) that the main thing that makes homesteading economically hard is not feeding yourself but making enough from selling produce to pay for the few things one has to or can't make oneself. This is because selling produce is a very inefficient and unreliable way of making money. What kills farming as a strategy is not having a cash reserve or any other source of income for that money. Mortgages are even worse.

Insisting on "living without money/investments" or insisting on "living without self-reliant skills" (like a consumer) makes everything much harder than it needs to be. Ditto when insisting that everything either needs to be a 100% individual solution (you'll never finish) or a 100% collective solution (you'll never get started).

So yeah, there are solutions, but why blank out rows and columns in the skill/capital matrix to deliberately make it harder for yourself than it has to be?

[7Wannabe5]

because food is not going to walk into human mouths.

I'm a little less comfortable thinking I have a right to being fed by others.

But food does "walk" into the mouths of infants, the very old and decrepit, and the otherwise ill or disabled. So, it touches on our feelings of self-respect and vulnerability. When we are dying, will we accept being fed as a loving gift or will we still insist on paying our way to the bloody end (as my multi-millionaire friend for whom I provided hospice care did.)

This is also related to the sort of upspringing of gratitude that Vicki Robin felt when she challenged herself to only eat locally and put herself in the hands of a local friend/farmer for the provision of the majority of her food.

my ancestor designed there life badly enough so that i got born without a hunting ground like they did at some distant point in the past.

lol. I also was thinking of the "right to eat" as being more like the "right to forage."

The only argument about rights, debt, etc. comes down to who owns the capital and who provides the labor...Basically, nature does not give humans rights to eat beyond the output that's limited by the reality-constraint.

True, and since I realize my question was more about avoiding the initial kind of boring step of "getting job working for other " or "high paying career in tech field" , the obvious solution is to start by providing your own labor to yourself while using only what is available on the "modern commons" as capital. For instance:

1) Pick up returnable bottles and mulberries from park. Retrieve stale donuts and blanket from dumpster.
2) Use cash from returnable bottles to buy book worth $20 for $1 from thrift store.
3) List book for sale on internet using computer at library.
4) Sleep huddled in blanket under highway overpass.
5) Wash, rinse, repeat.

while one may avoid the formal economy by trading a series of barters, bartering may in turn limit you in other ways, such as the need to hustle, or to network, or to still be subjected to the demands of others in a non-monetary fashion.

It is therefore the "F-you" money, so to speak, that liberates one from a sub-optimal situation and gives one the optionality not to be taken advantage of inside any setting. Having non-financial "F-you" capital may be a more difficult solution, especially as one ages.

True, but it might also be the case that losing your "hustle" is what makes you feel old.

This is the very common sense conclusion. In Judasim/Christianity, having to work to have food is part of the punishment for the original sin ("In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread").

Yup, so it might influence your perspective on, for instance, whether or not the Church Food Bank Giveaway or the Student Loan Jubilee is fair game for your modern forager hustle.

[7Wannabe5]

So yeah, there are solutions, but why blank out rows and columns in the skill/capital matrix to deliberately make it harder for yourself than it has to be?

For fun OR maybe because you suffer from some mild form of cuckoo bananas.

[zbigi]

True, and since I realize my question was more about avoiding the initial kind of boring step of "getting job working for other " or "high paying career in tech field" , the obvious solution is to start by providing your own labor to yourself while using only what is available on the "modern commons" as capital. For instance:

1) Pick up returnable bottles and mulberries from park. Retrieve stale donuts and blanket from dumpster.
2) Use cash from returnable bottles to buy book worth $20 for $1 from thrift store.
3) List book for sale on internet using computer at library.
4) Sleep huddled in blanket under highway overpass.
5) Wash, rinse, repeat.

This is more fun than a tech job?

Yup, so it might influence your perspective on, for instance, whether or not the Church Food Bank Giveaway or the Student Loan Jubilee is fair game for your modern forager hustle.

There's an even easier way to determine this Just ask people who give out their food for free whether they think you qualify for it or not. Describe your situation and your life choices. If they think you do qualify, then it's fair game. If not, then it's closer to theft I guess? It becomes more complicated if the whole thing is ran by a large organization and the people you can talk to just work there. I guess they can then direct you to their website, where you can read about their values etc. and do the moral math to determine if you qualify for their help.

[Jean]

My ancestors were illiterate peasants exploited by ruthless Polish feudal lords - so they didn't get to design much. I'm thankful to them that they manage to survive through their often absolutely brutal and miserable lifes, so that I was born.

The screw up happened much earlier, and i probably wouldn't have done better.
But we went from a time when humans could just hunt, to a time when most were serf.
And being able to just hunt is what i wish for myself and all my future bloodline, and what i'm willing to work for.

[7Wannabe5]

This is more fun than a tech job?

Yes, because more like what humans are wired to do. More variable feedback. OTOH, less comfortable and more anxiety-provoking, so it kind of depends on where you fall on the risk-aversion spectrum.

OTOH, any activity or new realm is fun to explore while you are still climbing the learning curve. And being on the learning curve even makes submitting to direction from others semi-tolerable. Kind of like how taking direction from a man in bed on a third date is fun, but taking direction from him on how to load the dishwasher three years into a relationship makes you want to stab him with a fork.

If they think you do qualify, then it's fair game. If not, then it's closer to theft I guess?

But it's also the intention of people who put valuable stuff in dumpsters that it should be buried in a landfill. So, I think the decision has to be made more on the basis of whether you agree with their intention. IOW, whether their intention is also in alignment with your ethics and/or take on reality. Also, there are some situations in which testing out the boundaries can be fun or interesting. For instance, do you have the right to eat whatever you like from the refrigerator of the man with whom you just had sex? Can you make use of office supplies to construct a variable feedback sports game that is more fun than your current programming assignment? Will you go to the grocery store and only buy the loss leaders? Will you apply for the Student Loan Jubilee if the cut-off is $125,000 year income and you make $120,000, but you know the intention is to help those having difficulty making payments?

Anyways, getting WAAAAAAY off topic, so will stop here.

[guitarplayer]

I think pre-ERE was also "simple" or "obvious", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework ... and as such there wasn't much to focus on. This was a good thing because it made it possible to be quite effective: "You had one job!" I think consumer/career-humanity mainly live in the obvious and complicated quadrants where answers are given and easy.

This line of thought fares well with the idea of the majority of population being dead-players, since simple / complicated are the non-living systems.

From elsewhere, going 'live' can be seen as breaking Plotkin's (Whyte's) promise "it will kill you to break".

And the point is as "you" don't "do" anything for a living since meaning-making is not based on survival.

Not that he is an expert or anything, but

https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a ... -universe/

The opening goes like

At higher levels of the Maslow hierarchy, imagination is a survival skill. At the apex, where self-actualization is the primary concern, lack of imagination means death. Metaphoric death followed by literal death of the sort that tortured artists achieve through suicide. Less sensitive souls, such as earnest political philosophers and technically brilliant but unimaginative mathematicians, seem to end up clinically insane and institutionalized. Or as ranting homeless psychotics.

Also, operating in a loosely coupled linkages environment on the edge of complex and chaotic feels akin to hunting or foraging. Probably more hunting, but I know none of it, @theanimal could say more about it. With foraging, sometimes it is long spells of nothing or lousy results and then one strikes a bounty.

Hunting/foraging for ideas, live players, new structures that might emerge from the remaining huffs and puffs of the energy abundance.

[Lemur]

I've gained too much from FIRE/ERE to miss anything from pre-ERE life. Still on a nice trajectory up the learning curve and self-actualizing.

Though timing was significant - my Spouse was pregnant with our Son when I first discovered ERE. I sometimes wonder if we would've delayed, or never had kids, if we'd came across ERE first. Even today we always say if we didn't have kids we could "retire now." Its possible that is also just an excuse to stay in the Cave? It is easier to be non-tribal if it is just yourself but when you've young kids that grow up with normies...it gets much harder to be societal outcasts.

Another possibility would be would I've chosen a different career path altogether (before I left military and went into data analysis / finance) had I discovered ERE knowing that absolute dollars and investment growth does not matter enough as the savings rate itself? I had a couple of years of brutal consulting and stress but I grew from that and now pretty much coast in a government job making 6 figures. Again another situation that worked out.

I think both these situations worked out because it was in the realm of "normal" and what everybody else is doing. Going against the grain is hard but can be rewarding. So yeah I'll conclude with not missing much from pre-ERE life. Seeing the world as it is now, outside looking in, just being an observer...I'm glad I'm not so overly invested in that. Career ladders...EWWW. McMansion with Mortgage? EWWW. No thanks. I still shudder to think I spent the ages 18-23ish blowing every dollar I had. Sure there was some fun memories there but none of those decisions help me in the present.

[IlliniDave]

But food does "walk" into the mouths of infants, the very old and decrepit, and the otherwise ill or disabled. So, it touches on our feelings of self-respect and vulnerability. When we are dying, will we accept being fed as a loving gift or will we still insist on paying our way to the bloody end (as my multi-millionaire friend for whom I provided hospice care did.)

Well that's true regarding childhood. But I took the context as pertaining to adults deciding what lifestyle path they might take. Regarding when I'm old I'd most likely be paying someone to help me eat food I ultimately pay for. Or that at least was my goal when rightsizing my finances for the out years. If it happens that family members provide care to me, it's a gift, but I don't think I'd ever feel I have a right to it.

Oddly, at the same time I feel I have a responsibility to provide at least some amount of charity to those in legitimate need of it. I guess I impose tougher rules on myself than I do on others.