RoamingFrancis' Path to ERE

[theanimal]

I think Rob is just as resilient as Jacob if not more so. It's just not by the same metric. Jacob's is easy to see because of the monetary factor. It's a tangible asset where beyond WL7 intangible assets become a lot more important. What skills do you have? What type of community have you built? Rob has demonstrated that he has some serious social capital. Like Rob, Jacob grows a large portion of his own food. But Rob also sources food from the wild, from trees that he's planted in his neighborhood and from dumpsters. He also has money in which he can buy food if need be. Rob built his house out of recycled materials for $1500. If it burns down or is seized, he gets a new one. Much less headache and easier than the comparison of buying a $100k traditional house. Rob HAS been told that his house is illegal by the county and that he has to take it down. And IIRC he was able to move to somewhere else. That resiliency comes from the social network, having the ability to build your own shelter, knowing how and where to source materials and having minimal needs. I don't see the end result as any different, it's just the means in getting there. I think you're placing too much emphasis on the financial aspect of ERE and less on the other functions.

These howlies are different than Gert in that they're not as attached to a sense of place. If there is catastrophe then they just move or suffer through it. As Suelo mentioned when he was living out in the cave, if he broke his leg he was prepared to die in the desert as a result. ERE WL lends itself to more multidisciplinary approach. The same can be done on the original eco scale but it's not the norm.

ETA: I believe Jacob for example has greater than 50% of his expenses going to "head taxes" such as property tax, insurance etc. If FI is a byproduct of ERE, would that entail pure ERE or WL8 being that where the head tax is 100% of expenses and the rest of the loops are closed? Is someone who's only expense is a headtax of say $4000 equivalent to someone like Greenfield/Boyle/Suelo?

[AxelHeyst]

Yes I think you're right animal. Just to clarify this is still a half-baked idea I'm playing with as part of the overall process of trying to figure out the ins and outs of howlie mindset and behavior. I'm basically saying "ok wait though, but *why* and *how exactly* are these people 8's? Let's assume for a sec they aren't - why might that be true?" And if that argument doesn't hold water, well that's evidence that they in fact are 8's. For me, going through this exercise will result in a better grasp of howlie mindset/behavior no matter what conclusions I draw about who is or isn't a 7 or 8.

I'm actually trying to *deemphasize* the financial aspect of ERE, but my example didn't convey that at all. My point is to ask are WE putting too much emphasis on the financial aspect of ERE by being impressed with the fact that these guys don't use money at all? I'm not suggesting that not using money is inherently vulnerable and so we should all always keep a FU stash. I'm saying, I'm only going to accept that a moneyless lifestyle is howlie if and only if that lifestyle also happens to be at least as, if not more resilient, than a WL7 person.

(ETA: my story of Gert wasn't to prove that jacob is more resilient than Rob, it was to say that ERE WL != ECO WL)

I think your point about catastrophe, and Suelo being fine with dying in the desert of a broken leg, might be key here. Perhaps there is a moat between 7 and 8 like there is between 4 and 5 (the qualitative jump between linear and systems thinking). But the moat between 7 and 8 is the difference between external thinking and internal thinking (probably the wrong words there). The 8's inner game, the rejection of illusions of self, is so complete that they simply can't be harmed by any external circumstance. Perhaps the focus/mindset of the 8 is "There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so." From that perspective, their 'web-of-goals system' reaches a singularity of direct experience. And this is also how they achieve closed loops, because everything is a singularity for them.

Or maybe that's 9? I may have exhausted how far I can push this for the moment. Suffice to say that I'm not about to pass around a petition to boot Greenfield and co. off the ERE Wheaton scale, I'm just noodling on it.

[jacob]

(I actually am having some doubts as to whether or not we should be placing Greenfield/Boyle/etc on the WL scale at all, confusing being extreme with having a completely closed-loop system, but that's a topic for another time).

Me too. Particularly when it comes to [human] development models there's a universal rule that one can not skip a level. Level8+ is very much a "full circle" thing, only everything is integrated when one returns to chopping wood and carrying water. Someone looking from the outside would not be able to tell the difference between pre-X and trans-X for a given X, where X is rationalism, consumerism, or something else. For example, to a religious person, the pre-religious (e.g., animism or woo) superficially looks very similar to the trans-religious (e.g. mysticism).

On the flip side we(I) should be careful to stipulate that there's only one bottleneck, called 7, through which one gets to 8. Thus I have my own short list of possible WL8 candidates. In practice, I'll leave it officially blank until I figure out what WL9 is.

Add: The final row of any such table will always be ill-defined insofar there's no inductive generator function of new levels---there isn't. Therefore, WL8 is ill-defined until WL9 is at least loosely identified. In practice, there are so few people at WL8 that the statistical zoology breaks down. As it is, WL8 is considered the "end of systems thinking". However, there are certainly states(*) beyond systems.

(*) A much better word than "level" or "stage".

[AxelHeyst]

Do you mean we should be careful to say there IS only only bottleneck, or we should be careful NOT to imply there is only one bottleneck?

[jacob]

Do you mean we should be careful to say there IS only only bottleneck, or we should be careful NOT to imply there is only one bottleneck?

The latter.

The table is just a projection of a multi-D map. Like describing the mapquest directions (along with tourist attractions, gas stations, or housing densities along the way) between Chicago and Springfield along I55 for the main reason that it is the most commonly traveled route. This doesn't mean it's the only route. It's just the one most people are on.

However, no matter which other route you take, you'll see the same increase in housing density along the way. In that regard, different mapquest tables will look similar. This is why pretty much any development scale has similar features(*)---each new state encompasses the previous ones. The person is able to see more w/o having to deduce it meticulously. (The difference between knowing-about the systems and knowing the systems).

The end-point (Chicago) is ill-defined because we're all traveling in a way that the destination is actually not known. It could be that the actual destination was Evanston (pretty close to Chicago) but it could also be Milwaukee---in which case Chicago would just be the starting point (black belt) for the next journey (becoming a martial artist).

(*) Which points in the direction of "The former." Hope you're okay with ambiguity Yet, that's just saying that if you're going to Evanston, you have to go to/through Chicagoland first almost no matter where you're otherwise coming from. But if the ultimate destination turns out to be Milwaukee, that might not be the answer.

In both cases, the early mapquest would be the same story. OTOH, if Chicago is a dead-end and the true destination is Kansas City (martial artist is useless as the answer to life, the universe, and everything is found through baking bread), we're wasting a lot of time for all kinds of reasons.

Keep in mind that the ERE Wheaton level table was originally created for talking to muggles and fending off FIRE zombies It's was primarily intended as a communication tool, not a human development tool. (Although of course these two have overlaps in a language-oriented sapiens brain.)

[RoamingFrancis]

I've decided to refer to Low Maintenance, Low Yield business as Limbo business because that's more fun to pronounce and the abbreviation sort of sounds like it. Anywho, I've been brainstorming a couple options worth further investigation.

Continue with current gigs:
Roofing and law office.

Other things to explore:
Compost pick-up by bike service
Gourmet mushroom cultivation
Plant Nursery

I am on track to move to the local permaculture farm by late March/early April. I believe this will be a great situation for me. I am doing a work exchange instead of paying rent, so my CoL will drop and I will learn a bunch of new skills. There are also a bunch of knowledgeable plant people, mechanics, and other practical skills folks around that I will be able to learn from.

It is local, so I will still be w*rking and earning coin from my various income generating nodes. And of course, I'll be much closer to nature, connected to the land, and have more autonomy in terms of what I want to spend my time doing. In the meantime, I will do some more digging on the potential limbo businesses I mentioned.

I don't want to get so far into a project that I'm eternally stuck with it though - I have some traveling I want to do at the end of the year

[AxelHeyst]

Low Input, Moderate or Base Output. You're welcome.

Sounds like an excellent move - and the environment change to the permaculture farm could very potentially connect you to some limbo hustles more aligned with your values, thus improving your webofgoals, in addition to the benefits you mentioned.

[MidsizeLebowski]

Give Cultivating Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms by Paul Stamets a read if researching the mushroom path. This situation you're setting up for yourself sounds like an ideal one for your desired path RoamingFrancis, nicely done sir. Look forward to seeing where you take things from here and how you find the new living arrangements!

[RoamingFrancis]

Low Input, Moderate or Base Output—I love it!

Paul Stamets is definitely a hero of mine; I will check out the book! I think the new situation will be fruitful, and will keep my journal updated.

Also, beekeeping / honey production is an option for a limbo hustle I did not mention earlier.

[white belt]

Depending on demand in your area, gourmet/medicinal mushrooms would probably be much more profitable than honey. You also can grow mushrooms in indoor and urban areas like basements. If you want to get seriously hipster you could partner with local coffee shops to grow mushrooms on their used coffee grounds and probably come up with some kind of deal to sell some mushrooms in their space.

I’d add growing microgreens to your list as well. They can generate a lot of profits because they are so expensive per ounce (but are cheap to grow). They also require relatively little growing space and can be grown indoors.

For both of the above, you’re going to have to gauge what the competition is like in your local area. I think both options can be sold direct to chefs/restaurants or in farmers markets. The pros of selling to chefs are regular income with the cons of some stress to produce consistent product. The pros of farmers markets is you only sell what you have, but the cons are that it’s time consuming.

[Western Red Cedar]

I really enjoyed this post RF. It seems to succinctly wrap up a lot of what you've been pondering and pursuing over the last dozen pages of your journal.

I'm excited to hear about your move to the farm. It sounds like that will hit on a lot of goals and lay the groundwork for new opportunities through enhanced social capital.

------

FWIW, Rob Greenfield was the example that initially led me to grok what a WL 8 lifestyle might look like. I really had trouble conceptualizing that coming from a salaryman and WL 5 perspective. He seems to hit on every column on WL 8 and has a number of resilient systems in place. The aspect of his lifestyle that most impressed me is that he seems to always try to add value through his existing skills in his approach to live a low-impact lifestyle. This was true while cycling around the US, in San Diego, in Orlando, and now in Europe. For example, his approach to living on locally grown or foraged food focused on identifying families who wanted to grow their own food, and developing abundant gardens in their yards that will produce for years to come.

He was in Amsterdam when he found out that borders were closing soon due to the pandemic. He tapped into his network and found a farm in France because he knew he needed to be near nature and didn't want to be trapped in a city. Seems pretty damn resilient!

There are a couple long-form videos or interviews that expand on his philosophy and are pretty interesting. I don't remember all of them, but here are a couple:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvL-Z0gl6ig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV5avFEUt3E

I'm also just a sucker for his positivity. As someone who naturally drifts towards cynicism, I find it refreshing.

*ETA - around 10:30 of the interview in the second link they start to talk about some WL parallels.

[AxelHeyst]

Okay, that second interview filled in some blanks for me. Thanks for sharing that WRC. I stand by my assertion he's not WL8 though; he's either WL9, a state change from wl8, or he's just something else. Either way he clearly is a patron saint of ERE.

[RoamingFrancis]

@WRC Thank you for sharing; it feels like a couple things are clicking into place. Thanks for sharing that second interview with Rob too. He seems to aim to reach the masses, so most of his content is fairly basic. He is a black belt who is mainly teaching white belts. So anything he releases that fills in some of the details is always helpful. I feel like we've been trying to reverse engineer him for a while now, but there's not a ton of information out there

I have been mentally preparing myself for the move. Any change of environment is always a good time for me to drop bad habits, pick up new ones, and serves as a general "system reset" which I find helpful. Because the apartment is so small, and also because we moved in in such a rush, I haven't really been operating at full capacity—the surroundings were simply not conducive to it. I'm hoping to use the location transition to also set up more positive behaviors for myself. I find that the first couple days in a new place set the tone for what life is like there.

Today I read the first half of Atomic Habits by James Clear, which has been good. I would just like to add some reflections on what kind of person I am aiming to become:

• Advanced meditator, capable of guiding and teaching others on the same path

• Skilled naturalist, understand and live fully in harmony with the natural world

• Skilled in multicultural communication, become fluent in an endangered language

• Accomplished artist/bard; use music, art, poetry, etc to express myself and positively impact the culture

• Loving and compassionate in all my interactions with other beings

• Physically fit and healthy. Vibrant.

This can be also written as a list of adjectives—wise, earth-rooted, knowledgeable, creative, loving, and healthy. All good qualities to cultivate in my life

I could be doing a better job with several of my habits—eating healthy, physical exercise, less screen time, and stop chewing my nails. I hope to use the information in the book to help me with improve in each of these areas. None are terrible, but they aren't great either. I believe the new environment will be good for each of these. I will also give myself credit where credit is due—I feel that I've made a lot of progress in my meditation practice and my understanding of ERE. I'll give myself a pat on the back for each of those

Clear emphasizes systems being more important than goals, and tiny positive changes over a consistent basis. He points out that if you get 1% better each day, you'll be about 37 times better within a year. Not bad!

He also talks a bit about how humans naturally mimic other humans, particularly humans in three groups: the close, the many, and the powerful. This is interesting. In the past I believe that I was "the average of the 5 people I spend the most time with," though now I feel like I've worked on myself enough that the people in my immediate environment don't impact me as much. That I will continue walking my path regardless of the obstacles that get in the way. Maybe it's a Kegan thing? But yeah, I don't really seek to emulate the close or the many. I do seek to emulate people I admire, which may classify as Clear's category of "the powerful."

He has some interesting stuff on Lee Robins' research on heroin addiction in Vietnam vets—close to 90% dropped the habit when they returned to the US, highlighting the importance of context and setting even in opiates. There's also some good stuff on James Olds' and Peter Milner's research on dopamine. They argue it has more to do with anticipation than it does with pleasure. Interestingly, the Buddhists argue that as you get rid of craving you actually begin to experience more pleasure. Maybe there's some biochemical weight supporting the Second Noble Truth? Or this could be the beginnings of a hypothesis for the physiological inner workings of contemplative practice?

The last interesting thing was on supernormal stimuli. I really dislike their presence in modern culture, and see ERE partially as a strategy to get to a more analogue way of living.

[RoamingFrancis]

Updates

I have arrived at the permaculture farm! The agreement we have is that I will do work in return for room, board, and skillz. It seems to be a really good arrangement for everyone.

I plan to continue generating income as well. I want to quit the roofing gig, but continue with legal translation. Also, now that I'm getting gardening skills and live on a farm, I have a bunch of other doors opening. Other potential income streams in the near future include:

• Landscaping

• Microgreens

• Honey

• Gourmet Mushrooms

• Teaching Classes on Recycled Art

• Plant Nursery

I'm excited to be here—I think around 80% of the food I eat this summer will come from the garden.

Digital Minimalism, Deep Work and Mindfulness

I am getting back into the groove with all of these since arriving here. The geography helps—being cramped in an apartment makes everything blend together in my head, whereas having a separate space for work, play, meditation, and phone use really helps me. Environmental design is the best way to make me stick with good habits.

Eating Once A Day

Now that I have more cognitive capacity available, I have decided to experiment with eating just once a day. I did this two years ago when I fasted for Ramadan, and actually really liked it. I like reducing the number of decisions I have to make each day. I'm quite hungry as I write this, as today is Day 1, but my past experience has been that one gets used to it in about a week. I'll be listening to my body to determine whether this is a viable long-term diet for me.

Ecology Ultralearning

I had posted plans for an Ecology Ultralearning project earlier in my journal, but because of the cognitive capacity occupied by work and rent-paying have been unable to effectively execute. Now that I have more mental space, I plan to continue this project. I struggled what to call the project, as what I'll be learning here will be spread out among permaculture philosophy, ecology, botany, and landscaping. I eventually decided to go with Ecology Ultralearning, with the knowledge that I'd like to focus on botany.

It seems to be that permaculture is to ecology as engineering is to science. That is, permaculture and engineering are design philosophies / strategies, whereas ecology and science are trying to understand the natural world. I believe it makes more sense to focus on understanding first, and let my opinions on design philosophy arise from there.

I will post more specifics on the Ultralearning Project as I dig deeper and get re-organized. In the meantime, I am doing well and happy to be here.

Peaceably,
RoamingFrancis

[Western Red Cedar]

Updates

I have arrived at the permaculture farm!

That's awesome - congratulations!!! Sounds like a great setup and the perfect foundation for your ERE goals. Keep on truckin'!

[RoamingFrancis]

What Comes Next?

I have spent a large part of the last year studying ERE and digging through the books in the bibliography. Though I'm a naturally frugal person, my studies have given me a more robust underlying philosophy to base my life design on. I have come to realize, however, that the traditional FIRE path is not for me. I want to build a robust semi-ERE that will allow me to be a contemplative ethnoecologist, which is a term I invented to describe an Amazonian plant explorer with a hardcore meditation practice. I also want to be a musician.

Since I don't want to be around for another cold winter, I am giving myself a 6 month-ish window to make the necessary preparations for extended slow travel through Latin America. I am currently thinking of traveling from Mexico City to the Amazon. There's a Vipassana center near Mexico City I'd like to spend time at, and I have reason to visit Michoacan, Oaxaca, and Chiapas. From there, maybe a sailboat to Colombia? This is mainly speculation/fantasizing; I don't have a route set in stone yet.

PEB Project

PEB stands for Permaculture, Ecology, and Botany. Since I now live at a permaculture farm, my main priority is learning as much as I can about permaculture, plants, and nature. This will increase my resilience as I learn to grow my own food, serve as the foundation I need to identify plants in the Amazon, and later I will be able to build off of this to create a Rob Greenfield-flavored ERE. These skills are practical, and by getting a foundation now I will likely be able to use the knowledge to generate income in the future. They will also make me a valuable member of any Workaway peramculture project I decide to crash at and make me a person worth keeping around if/when the world falls apart due to climate doom.

My PEB project currently consists of three mini-projects I've decided on, plus reading as many books on the topic as I can. The first mini-project is a survival garden, where I'll just be trying to grow as much food/calories as possible. The second is a beehive, for crop pollination and honey production, and the last is gourmet mushroom cultivation. My main goal for each of these is just skill/knowledge acquisition, though each have potential to return a financial yield as well.

Money

Wintering in that damn apartment bled me dry. I was dipping into savings to pay rent, dammit. I've got $5k saved now, which isn't terrible, but another $5-10k would add some cushion to the trip that would be greatly appreciated. My PEB Project has some chance of returning a financial yield, by selling honey or gourmet mushrooms, but I can't be certain yet. In the meantime, I am continuing with translating and have been getting paid to do landscaping, as landscaping returns both financial yields as well as plant knowledge yields. It turns out that landscaping with Latin Americans in the suburban US is a near neighbor of Amazonian ethnobotany

This weekend I will be meeting with the lawyer I translate for to discuss some of this. He would like to give me more hours, but currently just doesn't have the demand for it. I may have to help create my own employment in some way or another.

The idea is to figure out a way to get $5k or more in the span of 6 months. I will have more information after the conversation this weekend.

Arabic

I'm dedicating a portion of time over the next 6 months to improving my Arabic as well. Why Arabic, you ask? It's not exactly homeotelic to my other goals, but I'm doing it anyway. Well, I already speak fluent Spanish, and eventually I will want to learn an indigenous language of the Americas, so it is good to have exposure to non-Indo-European languages, even if there is little direct vocabulary transfer. Also, I have access to quality resources, already can hold a basic conversation, and have Syrian friends I'd like to impress Since there are few quality resources for indigenous languages (including my earlier flirtations with Potawatomi), and I am not near an indigenous community, I will go with Arabic for the time being. It feeds the "ethno" strand of ethnoecology, so why not?

Health and Diet

I have been experimenting with eating once per day, which I've had mixed results with. The other day I had planned to be doing hard labor removing trees and landscaping, and ate a large breakfast. Though I like reducing the cognitive load of meal planning, sometimes I just gotta eat dammit. I think eating once a day is better as a tendency rather than a strict rule. That way you can get all the benefits of ketosis and reduced cognitive load, but without feeling like you're engaging in self-deprivation. I haven't been eating as many leafy greens as I would like, but I expect this to change soon once the garden gets going.

My cooking skills are still not quite where I want them. Earlier in the year, when trying to cook, I made the mistake of focusing on theory when I should have just cooked as many dishes as I possibly could, dammit. I walked away knowing how to make rice and vegetable stir fry, but not much else. Depending on COVID, I hope to be able to take group classes at a local environmental nonprofit this summer, or serve kitchen duty at Vipassana centers in order to increase my skills. I'd also like to learn more about cooking with minimal dishes/equipment and exploring optimally healthy "weird" superfoods (and possibly growing those weird foods in my garden!)

Longer-Term

Longer-term, I want to create an optimally healthy and fully de-industrialized lifestyle, based on the principles of ERE, meditation, permaculture, and whatever I learn about hunter-gatherers through my anthropological studies. Planning to trek through the Himalayas, rededicate myself to writing music, and find/build a place to be safe and resilient as the industrial world declines.

[7Wannabe5]

I’ll be curious to see how your experiment with survival garden works out. I have yet to succeed at the attempt. The closest I have gotten is something like only having to buy olive oil and rice (and the occasional $1 burger or ice cream cone) in prime harvesting months. In theory, growing enough potatoes, corn, nuts and seed crops could eliminate need to buy olive oil and rice, and a modicum of self-control could eliminate the burgers and ice cream.