AE's Journal Round 6 - Navigating the Liminal Space

[Ego]

The problem with working from home is that I'm spending all day alone and having to think about difficult, unfun engineering problems, and I don't think this is great for my mental health because I end up exhausted in ways that make it difficult to do the things that bring me energy, such as relationships or my hobbies.

And

I'm trying to balance "feeling my feelings" via Jungian work and lots of journal with "stop stewing in personal problems" via cognitive behavioral therapy. It's this delicate balance of trusting myself but also not too much.

The new series of Norwegian studies on CBT have several interesting insights...

https://sciencenorway.no/mental-health- ... st/2247420

[ertyu]

Read the article Ego posted. Relevant quote from elsewhere:

“At the University of Chicago and elsewhere in the past fifteen years, a group of colleagues and I have been studying some questions that most psychotherapists don’t like to ask out loud. Why doesn’t therapy succeed more often? Why does it so often fail to make a real difference in people’s lives? In the rarer cases when it does succeed, what is it that those patients and therapists do? What is it that the majority fail to do?

Seeking answers, we studied many forms of therapy from classical approaches to recent ones. We analyzed literally thousands of therapist–patient sessions recorded on tape. Our series of studies has led to several findings, some very different from what we and most other professional therapists expected.

First, we found that the successful patient—the one who shows real and tangible change on psychological tests and in life—can be picked out fairly easily from recorded therapy sessions. What these rare patients do in their therapy hours is different from the others. The difference is so easy to spot that, once we had defined it, we were able to explain it to inexperienced young undergraduates, and they too were able to sort out the successful patients from the others.

What is this crucial difference? We found that it is not the therapist’s technique—differences in methods of therapy seem to mean surprisingly little. Nor does the difference lie in what the patients talk about. The difference is in how they talk. And that is only an outward sign of the real difference: what the successful patients do inside themselves.”

Excerpt From
Focusing
Eugene T Gendlin
This material may be protected by copyright.

tl;dr journaling, certain styles of meditation/introspection, different therapy styles, etc can all get you there because each of these facilitates actual self-knowledge - unearthing and processing the psychological manure - in its own way. Book is recommended. The first edition is from 1978. The questions these norwegian guys are asking themselves have already been answered.

[zbigi]

My personal theory is that therapy works best on people who have very simplified and/or wrong models of themselves or reality around them (this can be caused by low IQ, abusive background, general youth and lack of experience in life). In such case, the psychotherapy can correct those models, and people can function better. But, in majority of cases, the issue is not that people don't know what to do - their models are roughly correct, and they know what actions would help them - but in that they don't want to do this. In other words, psychotherapy does not seem to be that great at creating actual motivation. That's why e.g. psychotherapy is not great at helping in getting out of addiction.

[7Wannabe5]

@zbigi:

Yes, but EVERYBODY has a very simpified and/or wrong model of themselves or reality around them. One problem with therapy is finding a therapist with a more complex model than yours. However, a personal trainer with a K.I.S.S. motivational poster on the wall of her cage might still prove helpful for short-term motivation.

[jacob]

Yes, but EVERYBODY has a very simpified and/or wrong model of themselves or reality around them.

Everybody relative to who/what? Sure, to an imaginary super-intelligence, all humans may appear very simple, only occupying a narrow range of intelligence (modelling capacity) that includes apes but exists above horses and rocks. However, within the human range, that is, relative to any therapist, the complexity range is substantial and material when it comes to understanding themselves and other humans. For example, Kegan5 is very many variables, connections, consequences, and perspectives beyond Kegan2. Further, while the average human may not know much about objective reality, some humans know it to 10 decimal points, and others are able to manipulate it to great effect. Again, a super-intelligence may say that puny humans only master physical matter in 4 dimensions as opposed to that and dark matter in all 26, but that seems like a semantic point if any.

Insofar this argument is normalized to human capacity, the intra-human range is rather large, especially when it comes to mental complexity. Even physiologically, you need a factor 10 to include 99% of humans. (Gather 100 random humans and the strongest will be 10x stronger than the weakest.)

[Lemur]

@AnalyticalEngine have you tried finding a Russian subreddit for comprehensible reading input? I don't know why it took me so long to think of this but I am, for instance, finding the Philippines one to be super useful....and I'm comprehending quite a bit from just having been studying basic survival words and phrases my first two months.

Benefits would include - very relevant conversational language...possibly engaging depending on topics you like, lots of short sentences and phrases, modern with the current lingo, idioms, and colloquialisms of the day,

[DutchGirl]

The problem with working from home is that I'm spending all day alone and having to think about difficult, unfun engineering problems, and I don't think this is great for my mental health because I end up exhausted in ways that make it difficult to do the things that bring me energy, such as relationships or my hobbies. But again, I make too much $$$ and a 50% pay cut is unappealing.

This was the same for my guy (who is a computer programmer). He ended up renting a small office about a mile from home with a few friends, so that for about $300/month (business expense) he had that office to go to for a few days per week, with like a 70% chance that he would meet one or more of his friends there who would be working on their projects/tasks but who would also be available for coffee small talk, to listen to laments about the job (and provide helpful suggestions).

Maybe something similar is an option for you? Find a coffee shop that is cozy and that will let you sit there during the morning on two cups of coffee and a cookie? Or find a place (an office, or a desk) to rent for one or more days per week?

[zbigi]

I second that. Sometimes, when coding from home got too monotonous, I went to a coffee shop to work from there instead. I usually did it in binges (e.g. going every other day for a month) and then got it out of my system and was ok with working from home again. It wasn't frugal, but I considered it a cost of doing business - it decreased the odds that I'll burn out and quit the job.

[Ego]

...all get you there because each of these facilitates actual self-knowledge - unearthing and processing the psychological manure - in its own way.

Self-knowledge is good. At what point does the pursuit of self-knowledge become harmful?

If it is true, as the Norwegian research shows, that talking with anyone is as good as talking with a professional, then maybe the solution is to get out of your head and go talk to a friend. If their research on the potential damage of trauma debriefing is true, then processing the psychological manure may be the worst thing you can do.

[7Wannabe5]

Further, while the average human may not know much about objective reality, some humans know it to 10 decimal points, and others are able to manipulate it to great effect.

True, but humans do nothing absent emotional motivation. Hanzi's model suggests that the form of therapy (cognitive, emotional, physiological/somatic) that will best serve any individual is the form to which they are least attracted. So, rationals would likely be best served by therapy that is some combination of emotional or physiological. For instance, it does not take a very high level of cognition to wrap your mind around the exercise of a Trust Drop, but you might still be surprised by your emotional reaction. The depths of emotion, inclusive of the subjectivity of others, are an aspect of reality. Therapy can be a safe space in which to explore, not just a fix-it shop. Asking why do therapy if you are already functional is like asking why do exercise if you are already fit.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@Therapy discussion - It's useful to keep in mind therapy is incredibly broad and what one hopes to get out from it often depends on individual circumstances. For people who grew up in dysfunctional environments, they often never learned the skills required to have healthy connections with other people. Thus the therapeutic relationship can be the first actually supportive relationship someone ever has in their life, and with it, they can start to heal and learn the skills to make more healthy relationships.

Because negative experiences are a part of life, learning to grieve them and find closure is an important skill because that's how one moves on in the present. Again, if someone has had a dysfunctional background, they will have a lot to grieve, and grieving is not really fun, but there is a difference between completing the grieving process or doing enough self-reflection to realize one's own blind spots to then take action on them and endlessly rehashing every negative experience, which is called rumination.

You can also have very different goals with therapy. One reason I've enjoyed hanging out with the criminal justice system so much is it's a very clear example of "the bottom." Being a Kegan2 drug dealer with an extreme trauma history who's just been thrown in prison is a whole other beast than trying to go from Kegan3 to Kegan4 (aka becoming self-directing/Jung's process of differentiation). Being clear with one's goals is going to lead to far better outcomes because you don't want to treat the drug dealer with self-actualization training and the person who's trying to self-actualize doesn't need to go to rehab.

ERE is skewed toward high achieving people, which creates its own blind spot. If you're already operating at a self-directing level, it's easy to forget there are people who are not, and there's a reason they're not, and if they're ever going to raise their condition, it's going to require addressing skill deficits. This may require being specific about missing skills and how to learn them in a way that a higher achieving person doesn't always grok because they're already there.

However, a personal trainer with a K.I.S.S. motivational poster on the wall of her cage might still prove helpful for short-term motivation.

This sounds like the kind of therapy I need.

@WFH discussion - I actually went to a WFH meetup at a coffee shop yesterday, which did indeed help with the monotony. I've also thought about renting a coworking space for the same reason, but they're a little pricey (few hundred a month) and the nearest one to me is a bit of a drive. That being said, there's a definite advantage to coworking spaces if you can get networking out of them. At least in tech, entrepreneurs are more prevalent in these spaces, which can lead to other opportunities.

I've considered going back into the office, but I'm also starting to think learning how to manage relationships without a script like work is an important skill if you want to go off and do unusual, adventurous things with your life. Getting a more social job, like bartender or similar, might also be an option. Software development requires a lot of heads down focus time, so it's not always a place to have a party, even if you work in an office.

Another option is to go start my own WFH meetup closer to me, which is also not a bad idea.

@Lemur - I haven't been able to find something on reddit, but I have found resources elsewhere. I've only found r/russian on reddit, which isn't comprehensible input focused unfortunately. But Russian is a major language, so there's a few YouTube channels I've been using, and RT has a free "learn Russian" website that's been really good.

Actually this is one reason I was considering volunteering to each ESL at the library. Russian is actually the 3rd most commonly spoken language in Denver, and this particular library has over 7k+ books written in Russian, and the librarians are all Russian-speakers. So I was hoping that I might be able to practice my Russian if I teach English. I also thought it might be a good test-run to see if I want to do this in another country eventually, as going to the library is low commitment. (I'm also waiting for the war to end before I go anywhere Russian-speaking, for obvious reasons).

I've also made some friends who speak Russian, but they also are fluent in English, so we end up mostly talking in English. Still, they will listen to me squeeze together sentences, and it's usually pretty funny due to my limited ability. It is fun trying to express myself when I all I can say is "я не люблю работать." ("I don't like working")

I'll scout around and see if I can find something on the internet (reddit or elsewhere) because practicing output is important, and feedback is also important. Conversations are naturally more engaging than just consuming input, so I think you learn faster that way.

[ertyu]

I love your ESL volunteering/Russian language exchange idea, it hits so many goals at once - socializing, future optionality (experience so you can teach ESL elsewhere), networking, language learning, variety... keep in mind that there are many places russian is spoken that are not necessarily directly involved in the war, e.g. kazakhstan comes to mind, as well as some of the other republics. A friend of mine went on a hiking trip through a bunch of them, beautiful and at the same time not often traveled. The war isn't necessarily an obstacle.

Would running your own co-working space be a thing you'd be interested in? Renting and office then subletting and getting to use a coworking space for free

[AnalyticalEngine]

@ertyu - Volunteering to teach ESL does hit a lot of goals, so I think it's worth a shot. Even if I am over-committed, it's important to keep trying things because finding solutions will let me drop other activities.

I do know there's a person in my Russian class who is planning on moving to Georgia soon to teach English there, and my Russian teacher mentioned there is a huge demand for English teachers right now in Georgia, although I assume this also applies to pretty much the whole region given the global demand for English. It's a region I would love to visit, and turning it into a hike trip would also be a great way to experience all the nature there too. I want to get my Russian a little bit better before I go though because I feel like I would get more value out of it if I'm at least a B1 level.

Running a coworking space is an interesting idea. I actually just went to another event at MMM HQ in Longmont yesterday, which got me thinking. MMM HQ is a great coworking and community space, and there's a lot of people who have moved to Longmont simply to be a part of the FIRE community. And because everyone is a transplant, people aren't already tied up with existing family connections and looking to build new relationships. It reminds me of college where it was easy to make friends because you're all in the same demographic and have time on your hands. That particular style of friendship has been hard to mimic in adulthood because everyone is so busy with work and family, so it was cool seeing how that problem was solved with this coworking space.

Of course, the FIRE community has the advantage of being widely advertised with the MMM blog. I could move to Longmont myself because I think that would solve my entire social problem, but I'm not quite ready to give up the cultural scene in Denver, nor do I want to move away from the Russian area at this time, which I happen to live close to. But I think it could be worthwhile to keep attending events in Longmont then seeing if I can copy the best parts of it into a South Denver FIRE scene or coworking space down here.

[jacob]

MMM HQ is a great coworking and community space, and there's a lot of people who have moved to Longmont simply to be a part of the FIRE community. And because everyone is a transplant, people aren't already tied up with existing family connections and looking to build new relationships. It reminds me of college where it was easy to make friends because you're all in the same demographic and have time on your hands. That particular style of friendship has been hard to mimic in adulthood because everyone is so busy with work and family, so it was cool seeing how that problem was solved with this coworking space.

I was wondering how that went. We tried something similar here around a decade ago called the "ERE City" project. However, this was modeled on the Free State Project minus the politics. Basically, the idea back then was just to increase the density for a chosen city. Never occurred to me to go directly for the jugular and pick a specific building. This is great and likely the way to go.

FWIW, I'm also aware of a "FIRE" retirement community up near Lake Geneva (WI).

[AnalyticalEngine]

Never occurred to me to go directly for the jugular and pick a specific building. This is great and likely the way to go.

From my experience with it, it's been a huge boon for the FIRE community in Longmont. The building is already there, the community is already there, so it's extremely easy for anyone who wants to move to just move in and plug directly into the FIRE scene.

From what I gathered, there are roughly ~100 people who subscribe to the coworking space on a monthly basis and pay the fee of $53/month for the space. However, they are also very generous about hosting events anyone can attend. There's a whole library of skill books, a tool library, weights, a full kitchen, a bar, a fridge of beer, internet, plenty of space to work. They apparently also host potlucks there weekly and even holidays like Christmas eve because there are so many transplants from other states. They do hikes every Thursday and routine happy hours on the weekends. Sometimes members give presentations on skills for other people to learn, like TedTalks or lectures. People have also slowly been buying up the houses around Pete's or Carl's neighborhoods, so you've got this whole community within minutes of each other. Many people there mention going months without driving because there's so much FIRE community and events that they have all their needs met.

It's so great that I am even tempted to move there. I know Carl had mentioned they were looking for a community organizer to give free membership to if they were willing to take over organizing events and schedule more of them. But I also think that if we had something similar, like ERE Coworking in a fairly major city that people would want to live in, people might move there. Or it might just attract local people who are compatible with the vision. Of course, FIRE has the advantage of being a much larger movement, but it's a great space for an example of what's possible.

[ertyu]

So, basically a crowdfunded community center. Nice.

[jacob]

But I also think that if we had something similar, like ERE Coworking in a fairly major city that people would want to live in, people might move there. Or it might just attract local people who are compatible with the vision. Of course, FIRE has the advantage of being a much larger movement, but it's a great space for an example of what's possible.

Another potential difference is that $100/month would be 10-15% of many ERE budgets, whereas the average FIRE person likely wouldn't bat an eye over that amount. Also, coworking space screams "screen worker" and I suspect maybe FIRE/Denver-area has more of those jobs than most places. In order to start something, it's likely more effective to attract local people to the vision. People are not going to relocate from faraway unless there's already something in place at the destination.

[Jin+Guice]

I think therapy depends on the person. If the goal of therapy is to change your inner emotional state, probably to change some action or behavior, you've got to be committed to change and willing to experiment. Therapy was the highest ROI activity, both monetarily and personally that I've ever engaged in. When I was forced to go several times as a teenager it was worthless. The popularized version of therapy was effectively nothing like my experience. So many times I hear people say "XYZ NEEDS to go to therapy." To me the follow up question should always be does XYZ want to change?


When I get tired of being alone at home doing solo work I go to the library.


I feel like the MMM community center is a potential example of ERE2. I'm very interested to check it out and a bit jealous... although I don't think it will be completely my scene.

[berrytwo]

Super interesting to hear about your experience with MMM headquarters. I feel like this MMM headquarters conversation relates a lot to @Axelheist current projects for an ERE version(especially EREsidencies and the 2024 skillathon share + Fest.) Fest was a reminder of how beautiful it is to connect with so many like-minded people on the internet here and also sad to then look around and be like "Wow I wish I could hang out with these people every day in meatspace!"

There have been jokes about ERE ecovillage. I wonder what that would actually be like (as someone who lives in an ecovillage-ish place now). There could be sister ones in other parts of the country/ Europe?! If/when DH and I have established our own I can let people know

@AE Do you feel a potential for there to be strong connections to the people at MMM headquarters? It is an interesting question of where you want to create friction/ ease. There is potential to live in MMM neighborhood/ have connections there and then commute to your Russian community, if there would be enough positives for doing that.

[AnalyticalEngine]

I'd suggest looking at the MMM HQ on Google Maps if you want to see some pictures. It's pretty cool. It seems like it's attracting more interest with time, as I was reading that a local book shop has recently moved their events there too.

@berrytwo - I think the MMM HQ is a strong possibility for better connections. The main thing about it is that I have a much better chance at running into the same people frequently with low friction, which I think is my number one problem socially right now. I'm having to drive everywhere all the time, and meeting one person once at a meetup often doesn't go anywhere because you need to spend many hours and months with someone to become friends. Also meeting people at classes isn't working that great either because the class ends and I never see them again, and also everyone spends more time doing class stuff than socializing. So moving somewhere like Longmont with close access to a community like MMM HQ would make it way easier to get that frequent contact with the same people enough that you become friends. (Other options that might include this are work, sportsball team, or taking 100% initiative in setting up a bunch of meetups and inviting people to stuff. Hell, I am even considering some type of fucking new age church at this point because I am getting desperate.)

Longmont and the Russian community are about an hour apart, so it's a doable drive but not overly close. I'm about 25min from the Russians at the moment and an hour from Longmont if I spring for the $10 toll road (an hour and a half with no toll road), so you see the driving problem here. Other options are to live in Denver or Boulder, which would put me at 30-45min from both. But given my current location is a sad old people suburb, I'm driving everywhere anyway, like at least an hour a day round trip to some of these meetups/classes, so not having to drive around Longmont with an occasional (1x/week) long commute to the Russians would probably be an improvement.

One thing I might do is spring for an AirBnB in Longmont for a month, just to see how I like it. It might be worth doing that for parts of Denver too, even if it would be a little pricey.

On a side note, seeing the MMM HQ and comparing it to SoloFI, and it's a HUGE difference. Being around people who support your lifestyle and don't think you're crazy makes it WAY easier to do what you want to do. I never realized how much of a toll it was taking on me to constantly feel like I have to translate whatever I want to say or do into Normie Approved Messaging. The lifestyle difference between being FI by yourself in the suburbs, with no one to comfort you but your cat and Skyrim, is massive compared to being around people your age who have actual free time and actually want to do things other than drink expensive bar alcohol.