Book Club: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

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C40
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Re: Book Club: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

Post by C40 »

My first exposure to Harry Browne was through investing research and the Permanent Portfolio. I saw on the Gyroscopic investing forum that he had done radio shows and they were available as podcasts/mp3s. I downloaded a few and started listening to them while I was cleaning my house, doing the dishes, or going on longer/slower bike rides. Then I listened to ALL of the shows.The radio show was called "Money talk" and it was primarily about investing, but he shared wisdom on much more than just investing.

One thing he hammered home for me is the fact that no one can truly know what will happen in the future (with things like specific stock prices or macroeconomic direction). He mentioned the news reports and supposed "experts" or "authorities" - and explained very clearly how their first priority is to write material that many people will read. Not to actually be correct about what will happen in the future - and not even to actually be correct about why something already happened. No - it's just to look like an expert and to get people to read/listen/click the ads. These “experts” are just normal people. Some of them a lot about economics, business, stocks, etc. But none of them are wizards. None of them know what will happen to the economy in the future. As an INTJ (a group that doesn’t naturally respect titles or reputations of being an authority much) this resonated very well with me. As someone just starting to learn about investing, it helped me to understand what's "behind the curtain" much better. After this, and a few other important lessons, I found myself thinking "this guy is like a grandpa I wish I had".

Now - my grandfathers were not bad. One of them died well before I was born - at close to my current age! The other lived until I was in my lower teens. He seemed like a great guy. He set a good example and I surely learned good things from him.I like to imagine that grandparents have a certain responsibility to share the lessons that take an entire lifetime to learn. Maybe I wasn't old enough before he died, but I didn't learn lessons of those kind from my grandparents. Harry Browne seems to have learned those lessons well himself, AND was very capable of sharing them. This is what I like most about him.

After I'd listened to all the radio show files, I eventually got the "How I found Freedom" book. I dug into it and it was full of the kind of "life lessons" that I appreciated in his radio show - and in this format they are more organized and clear. I was going to re-read the book for this discussion, but I only made it through 10-20 pages of the book. I've made myself VERY busy with the van conversion and I wasn’t leaving time for anything like this. I expect I'll read this book at least a few more times in my life. The others in this thread have done a wonderful job summarizing and quoting the book, so I won't try to do any of that.

I will try to summarize how this book impacted me. Part of why I mentioned the "grandpa" thing above is because Browne seemed to have a lot of similarities to me. I don't mean in terms of accomplishments; I'll never achieve the kind of influence or financial success that he did. But we seem similar in personalities and world-view. While making my way through the book - most of the key points were opinions that I already had. So the book didn't cause any “180 degree changes" in my thinking. But it did something incredibly valuable for me:

1 - It allowed my own thinking and life philosophies to make a large jump forward. While I had the same ideas in my head, his writing clarified them much better for me - and took them to another level of maturity. It was like getting to instantly warp parts of my own life philosophy forward to what it would've been 10-20 years later.

2 - More confidence in my relationships with people - or more clearly - relating to concerns of the opinion's of others. (This applied especially to acquaintance type relationships - loose friendships, everyone at work, distant family. There was definitely some relevance in very close relationships and romantic ones — but I still need to get my shit together when it comes to serious romantic relationships). When I read the book, I had just went through what I would call phase two ERE** - huge reduction in expenses and many life optimizations. I still had many years to go to save up the money to quit and move on to later life phases. I was clearly ok with spending much less and the changes that entails. I suppose I was still rolling the later life phases around in my head - what they would be like - whether I'd enjoy them or be brave enough for them - what other people would think about it and whether that would bother me. His points that helped me were: about finding your type of people by/and advertising yourself to that group, and about lowering your concern about the opinions of the entire population of people who know you. Browne gave me a boost in confidence - he told me it is ok (and right) to not be concerned with what a large population of people might or might not think about you.

** Phase one: thoughts, enlightenment, reflection
Phase two - changes in spending/efficiency
Phase three - capital acquisition (if going that route)
and so on….




It’s been nearly 5 years since I read this book. Over the course of that five years, I've come to feel MUCH more, I'll say, "like a man". That is - a sovereign and self-reliant person, able to direct my own life. I feel much more mature than 5 years ago. I feel as I have more power over my own life and future. Part of that feeling like a man is having stronger convictions of my own decisions. I believe the three things that have changed over those five years are:
1 - Maturity of my own life philosophy
2 - Building up capital - first as "fuck you money" and then reaching my "barebones FI" target
3 - Getting closer and closer to quitting and moving on to the next life phase

For #1 - there are many things that helped here (This forum, my own family, my own successes, books I've read, etc.). Browne's book had a very big part in this!

…. Writing this out has made me think of something - that I should more actively seek out people who can guide or push my thinking forward. That I should try to connect with these people and learn more directly from them. I have, I hope, a long time left to live, and a lot of things left to learn. Browne died some years ago, so I'm not going to learn much more from him other than by re-reading the book. I could probably make a list of ten people right now who I would benefit greatly if I learned more from (at least 5 or more from the forum here. I won't list them because I'd be leaving out many that I should include). From elsewhere, Randy Vining is one. He writes the Mobile Kodgers and was on the documentary "Without bounds" about living in vans. He's a particularly timely example for me. I've been thinking that once I get out and about, I will try to meet up with him. I've also been meaning to email him - so maybe I'll go ahead and do that this weekend.

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jennypenny
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Re: Book Club: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

Post by jennypenny »

C40 wrote: From elsewhere, Randy Vining is one. He writes the Mobile Kodgers and was on the documentary "Without bounds" about living in vans. He's a particularly timely example for me. I've been thinking that once I get out and about, I will try to meet up with him. I've also been meaning to email him - so maybe I'll go ahead and do that this weekend. [/i]
You should contact him! Without Bounds is great. I watch it whenever I'm feeling down about ERE (usually after being lectured by someone who thinks my lifestyle is a psychiatric disorder in disguise). Have you seen this clip? I bet you'd have a great time hanging out with that group. I know I would.

Fish
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Re: Book Club: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

Post by Fish »

Note - Another thread with discussion on this book:
viewtopic.php?t=121

I read this partly because it was in the ERE bibliography, and partly because I was looking for Permanent Portfolio information (I quickly realized no investing advice was to be had, that book is Fail-Safe Investing - but this turned out to be one of those happy mistakes where I stumbled upon an even better book).

As someone who read “ERE” first and then “Freedom,” to me this book is a part of the ERE canon that expands on the concept of “agency” and provides a framework for navigating life as a free man. Like ERE, this is not a “how-to” book, but simply provides the reader with tools and examples.

The concept of identifying “prices” for getting out of bad situations is genius. It’s what most people call “problem solving” but describing it as a price to be paid implies a decision to be made: will I pay the price?

It was a very good book (+2 sigma by this standard), and I would have ranked it higher had I read this earlier in life. I’ve drawn many of the same conclusions through experience. If you’ve ever been confused or angry by how others act, there’s a good chance that reading this book can help you better understand why other humans act as they do - and there’s a good chance it was you who was the uncivilized or unconscientious one all along.

I read the 25th anniversary version which included an afterword where Harry takes a softer stance on government and marriage. He was also caught up in the euphoria of having campaigned as the Libertarian Party presidential candidate. My initial reaction was to think he had gone soft after all those years, but after some contemplation decided that he simply used his philosophy as a tool to maximize his personal happiness - and not as a rigid belief system to be followed to the letter. I recognize the wisdom in that and conclude that he did a fine job in finding his freedom. Now it’s my turn.

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Re: Book Club: How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World

Post by jacob »

@Fish - IIRC, the early version was written during a time when HB was getting out of his first marriage. Might explain the harsh stand.

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