Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Note that what you're masking is NOT mutable if it's an actual neurodivergence (or sexual orientation, for that matter). You can certainly learn to cope with it better and learn to communicate your needs better, but it's important not to mix the metaphor of neurodivergence and MBTI too much. Someone...

In this case, being type-tall WILL BE your defining characteristic. You're playing on hard-mode. Similarly "tall" cognitive functions is the same way except unlike height the difference is not immediately apparent. It's not like you can't figure it out, eventually. It's just that you're p...

@AH - Do you feel like you're masking often? Pieces of your post sound like masking to me (feeling pressure to act inside of social norms that don't feel authentic). The thing about neurodivergent labels is they sometimes let you stop masking sometimes (aka they give you an "excuse" to fai...

Well the thing about this (and why it took me awhile to understand) is that it's not really that difficult at its core. This is just strategic thinking applied to how you live your life. It's not really any different than how many business or the military try to operate. I think the trap I've fallen...

Thanks, that makes more sense. It seems like, then, the WOG is a specific tool for a specific problem (how to align actions to objectives inside a complex environment) and trying to apply it to unrelated paradigms just muddies the water. It's therefore less about capturing everything with the WOG an...

So I recently re-watched Jacob's STOA talk , and it made a lot more sense to me this time around. In particularly, I liked the advice about trying to do two things at once instead of only one thing at once, as that seemed like an actionable way to start implementing systems thinking. But I had a que...

Small update to let everyone know this MMG is still going strong and we're still open to new members. There's been some discussion in the group lately about doing some DIY MFA activities to improve writing skills, mainly around reading various short stories and deliberate practice in prose construct...

I should clarify that exercise helped limit the depersonalization but caffeine made it worse. The issue with caffeine is that it increases my anxiety, and depersonalization is something that will hit me if I exceed my stress tolerance. I actually love caffeine, the energy from has been important in ...

That's a good way to describe it. It's also why Plotkin or Jung suggest the sub personality framework—it creates distance between you and your negative thoughts, which both makes you more aware they're happen and aware of the fact they have very little basis in reality. I think what happens with dep...

"Cultural slave" may be an apt metaphor especially considering the void of 40hr/wk institutional obligations. Consider, for example, one could be a cultural slave even without a FTE job, such as being a feudal serf. In this example, even if you manage to become a free serf, it's still unli...

The main difference is understanding meditation modalities better and selecting the right one for the problem I'm trying to solve. Also other lifestyle adjustments have minimized the depersonalization (cutting out caffeine and exercise). Before, I was doing a lot of those "breath counting"...

Everyone's all "freedom yay, I do what I want mfer" but when they're faced with ACTUAL FREEDOM, which involves actual responsibility for your own actions and having no one else to point the finger at when shit goes sideways or you're asked to account for yourself, well that's a different ...

@Jacob - What you're describing sounds like Mindscape Theory : Mindscape Theory proposes that various types of personality characteristics (Mindscape types) are present in all cultures, and these are not the exclusive domain of a particular culture. Cultural differences (national stereotypes) are du...

Another issue with forums is that the text-only nature inherently limits the types of interactions you're going to have on them. When I've been to the MMM HQ, one thing that struck me was how much that community is does that never gets posted about online. For example, they have a weekly potluck and...

@Ego - The biggest issue I've seen with it is that it's really easy to start to identify with your own thoughts or make the depression/mental health issues a life narrative/identity because they consume so much of your subjective experience when you're stuck inside a depressive episode. These sorts ...

Yeah, one of my takeaways was "well, yeah, most people don't need much of an excuse to come hang out and chat with people who don't suck. No need to overthink it, just make a space they can come, have beer, and They Will Come." This sounds like a great approach to community building. :D G...

It's worth noting that there are different types of "thinking," and not all of them are associated with mental distress. It's not introspection , it's rumination , although these can be closely related. I'm going to talk about depression here because I have personal experience with it, but...

Solar Eclipse I drove out to Little Rock to see the total solar eclipse. The eclipse was happening on my birthday, so I figured that was something I had to experience. Let me tell you, like the grand canyon, it was something that completely blew my mind away! Honest to god, the experience was trans...

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. What I've decided is that I am probably overthinking this and need to spend less time analyzing the decision and more time executing/actually doing something. So I'm going to put a lot of effort into the actual act of moving itself because downsizing/dealing with t...

Monthly update A bit early this month, but I just calculated my net worth (which I do quarterly), so I figured I might as well update here while I'm at it. My net worth is now $878k, an increase of about ~$70k from last quarter. After years of saving, I think I've finally hit that snowball point wh...