Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

The "other" ERE. Societal aspects of the ERE philosophy. Emergent change-making, scale-effects,...
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jacob
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Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by jacob »

In finding alternatives that may satisfy the "why-carrot" (53:16) the following fundamental categories may be of use in terms of what appeals to the entire human demographic
  • Having (owning)
  • Doing
  • Being
  • Seeing
For example, ERE has a heavy focus on doing instead of having. It pretty much ignores being and seeing.

I'm not sure that this list is complete or orthogonal for that matter.

In particular, is seeing a kind of "having [experiences] instead of having stuff", a trope that's widely popular in minimalist circles or is seeing a kind of being or maybe just the easiest "kind of doing" by virtue of passive observation?

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

ERE towards direction of FIRE is actually pretty huge on Having (owning) productive assets. Combined with Doing, the overall motivation is very "fill in more appropriate word for 'masculine energy'"

If you sub in the more general Sensing (taste, hear, touch, smell, etc. ) for just Seeing, then combined with Being, the overall motivation of a human with these priorities would be more "fill in the more appropriate word for 'feminine energy'" If you relax in your "feminine energy", you are open to the universe or other inputs. You are not doing/driving your own plan forward, and you are not exerting or upholding dominance over stuff/territory/contracts/methodology/beliefs that you Have. You hold pure Trust that the Universe will provide. You exhibit strength in your vulnerability.

In a way it is an oxymoron to apply "motivation" to Having, Being, or Sensing, because it simply belongs in the same quadrant as "doing" and "wanting."

Maybe the problem is less that people are essentially different and more that they vary in their potential to move fluidly self-aware through all of these quadrants.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by mountainFrugal »

I think that seeing can be very deep if you are actually observing what is in front of you with all of your senses as @7Wannabe5 suggests. As an example, there is a long history of nature observation/nature awareness/nature journaling/tracking etc. that trains the senses to see the environment as it is and use all the senses for this. This was of course popularized with the romantics. A tree is not a tree, the tree is the bark, the leaves, the branches, the smell of flowers/volatiles etc. The necessity to travel to some exotic local to "see/experience" things is a blunt way to shock the untrained/unrefined "seeing" system to recognize contrast. Developing your 'seeing' muscles could be lifetime pursuit in itself. Double that if you are translating what you see onto a page through drawing/painting/journaling. I am not sure where the line is between seeing and doing if you are active observing and taking it all in or if that is even a useful distinction. There is likely more than a lifetime of exploration and observations to be done just in the backyard if this is what people are interested in.

Token romantic example:
“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by Hristo Botev »

+1 @mountainFrugal.

I've wondered whether it's just wisdom gained from getting older, but I remember scoffing at certain passages from the Tao Te Ching, about staying put, when I first came across it probably in college. Now, however, I see the wisdom in it better. E.g.,

- Ch. 80: “Though the next country may be close enough to hear the barking of dogs and the crowing of its rooster, let the people grow old and die without feeling compelled to visit it.”

- Ch. 47: "The farther you go, the less you know."

It reminds me of the quote (I can't remember it or who said it) about it being better to read only a handful of books well than to read a whole library of books badly.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by sky »

The human is a pleasure seeking organism. Offer a path by which the prohibitions, constraints and demonizing of pleasure are removed, and one can bypass the current earth-domination profit/consumption system.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Dug up a self-help book I have read that is kind of opposite energy “ERE.” From “Dear Lover: A Woman’s Guide to Men, Sex, and Love’s Deepest Bliss” Chapter 2: “Chocolate Love”- David Deida
I love to watch you move. Your body is so open, I want to embrace you and hold your heart against mine.When I see you eat chocolate or your favorite foods,I am amazed at how your body responds by opening and softening in pleasure as if love were moving through you. You often quiver and make sounds of such delight. I wonder why you would choose to live any other way but this open to love. I know you can’t always be eating delicious delicacies, but I wonder how you would live if you were breathing and feeling divine ambrosia moving through your body right now.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by unemployable »

Sounds like a web of goals.

You have to climb Everest to see from the top of it and experience the moment of being there, don't you? And you have to have assets or a network (sponsors) to get to base camp and gear up. Substitute "goal I think is important to achieve" with "Everest" as desired.

For that matter, you have to have a place to live in that's close enough to your soul-sucking office job, the right clothes to wear and stuff like that and you have to do work in order not to get fired. I've felt "being" in jobs before. Such as in the middle of the futures pit when stocks were crashing and there was a CNN reporter six feet from me that somehow no one was running into.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by Ego »

Maybe what is needed are why-carrots and why-sticks. Often the people lured by carrots are good at wielding sticks.

That said, if recent history is any indication I would guess that both positive and negative nudges are more successful than carrots or sticks. In other words, making people believe it was their idea in the first place.

As Bernays showed with women's suffrage and smoking, nudges can be adopted or coopted from tangential movement that have yet to reach escape velocity and remain steerable.

Are you coopting seeing?

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:23 am
ERE towards direction of FIRE is actually pretty huge on Having (owning) productive assets. Combined with Doing, the overall motivation is very "fill in more appropriate word for 'masculine energy'"
The having/doing ratio is heavily shifted though. Instead of the 100/0 of the typical consumer showing off their possessions, it's closer to 20/80 (ERE) or 50/50 (FIRE movement). Think savings rates.
7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 9:23 am
Maybe the problem is less that people are essentially different and more that they vary in their potential to move fluidly self-aware through all of these quadrants.
The potential to move fluidly or deliberately is rather low if not almost non-existent. As such I would consider the classification fixed. That's not to say that---like personality profiles---people can't be a mix. However, the ability to deliberately move/change one's preferences on a situational whim is beyond 99%+ of humanity.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@jacob:

Might just be semantics, but I can’t see how savings and investments are not in the realm of Have. The problem with the typical high income consumer as opposed to lower income saver is actually that he ends ups Having less, because he Wastes more. Turns complexity into shit at highly efficient rate.
However, the ability to deliberate moving/change one's preferences on a situational whim is beyond 99%+ of humanity.
Maybe it’s just due to coincidence that I have been reading the discussions on cognition here while teaching a highly varied group of cognitively impaired young adults this week, but I was struck by insight that we humans are all cognitively impaired. And it seems possible that those of us who do have the capability to get by or even flourish with the hand we were dealt are maybe less motivated to do the kinds of exercises that the truly impaired must take on if they are to minimally function.

For instance, a tough and seemingly ridiculous exercise to get more in touch with “being” and “sensing” is to simply force yourself to only communicate using your feeling words. So, instead of “I’m going to make a sandwich” verbalize “I feel hungry. I like the taste of sunflower butter and jelly. Mmmmm.”

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by theanimal »

@7wb5- I find that intriguing because at least in my experience that is the style of communication among indigenous peoples. Nothing is direct and communication is based more on feeling. Perhaps it's due to cultural differences when it comes to levels of sensing and being.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by boomly »

Believing
Humans strive to ensure their actions and beliefs give them the certainty of being correct. If something can be demonstrated to provide more certainty of correctness than their current actions and beliefs, it will be widely adopted.

Distracting
Most all humans spend a fair amount of time simply doing things to occupy their minds so they don't have to think about "problems". If an activity can be demonstrated to occupy their minds even better than their current habits of distraction, it will be widely adopted.

Belonging
Humans will kill and die either for a good place in their social structure, or to protect that social structure. If something can be demonstrated to connect them to their social structure even more so than how they are currently, it will be widely adopted.

Controlling
Humans strive to maintain an illusion of control over their environment and their future. If something can be demonstrated to give even more of an illusion of control, it will be widely adopted.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@theanimal:

That makes sense because spending time in nature is one of the activities most likely to refresh your “feminine” energy. If you read Vicki Robin’s book about her locavore experiment with food, she kind of gets into that mode. Deida’s books describe inhabiting the energy in relationship to sex. Meditation focuses on breath. I think you have to go very elemental in order to go transcendent. Drop ego and just be a conduit.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Tue Sep 14, 2021 5:47 pm
Might just be semantics, but I can’t see how savings and investments are not in the realm of Have.
I do think it is a case of semantics + a case of how investments are framed. The FIRE mechanism goes via the market but the point of the FIRE exercise is not to have 10000 shares in XYZ. Nor is it to build a portfolio or a collection of securities that one may enjoy or proudly display or somehow seek to own. This is perhaps easier to accept when cast in the framework of annuities. Once the money is handed over, it is no longer yours---rather you now have the promise of a lifetime income that gives the you the time do, be, or see.

Compare that to having a granite counter top. One can do cooking on any countertop, but some just like to have one made out of polished rock. Insofar one wants financial independence one has to have a cashflow ... but the point is not to have a specific set of gold-plated stock certificates...

Not much different than one has to have some clothes to put on in order to travel and see the world. This does not mean that traveling is about having just because one has to be dressed and have some clothes. Similarly jumping out of airplanes is not about having a parachute. FI is the same---it's not about the portfolio even though the graphs in the journals can often make it look like that. I don't see this as a strawman argument.

I guess the point is which one is the main why? Is having the primary motivation (goal) or just a necessary subgoal?

For example, FIRE "fails" when people have been pursuing FI as simply something they have like a "millionaire-status" or "FI-status" achievement award... these guys keep working to get richer and richer. They want to have money because they like money but do not desire to use it for "doing", "seeing", or "being".

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by jacob »

Here's an alternative split from the world of game design
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_ta ... ayer_types
The original paper is worth reading to see how the game design can be tweaked to encourage/discourage certain player types if the game is unbalanced. It's also worthwhile to contemplate what kind of "game" the world we live in is and what type of player it encourages.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

“jacob” wrote: I guess the point is which one is the main why? Is having the primary motivation (goal) or just a necessary subgoal
Gotcha now. It’s also kind of like lead metrics vs lag metrics. Because I am eNTP explorer (doing-> seeing and seeing-> doing) the Have does not compute with me much except as weak lead metric which I will likely abandon as soon as I see glimmer of Access.

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by jacob »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 1:51 pm
Gotcha now. It’s also kind of like lead metrics vs lag metrics. Because I am eNTP explorer (doing-> seeing and seeing-> doing) the Have does not compute with me much except as weak lead metric which I will likely abandon as soon as I see glimmer of Access.
Typology would be another way. SD yet another. I think it's highly useful to map this out. It requires branching out one's empathy. What motivates this or that person?

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Re: Why-vector reasons for living - Having, doing, being, seeing

Post by boomly »

In terms of Have, people can be split onto Hoarders, who believe they control the things they have, and Minimalists, who believe they are controlled by the things they have, similar to the difference between "freedom to" and "freedom from".

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