The Education of Axel Heyst

Where are you and where are you going?
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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

Just a thought, but what if you HAD to choose today? Leaving options open is great and I am glad you both are keen to prototype some places, but what if given what you both know now, you had to choose today what lifestyle and where with a 3 year commitment? 3 years is just long enough to think about larger projects. This would likely be an interesting conversation even though you do not actually have to choose and might spark some more input from DGF.

suomalainen
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by suomalainen »

Two questions:

Why doesn't she choose the next place?

Why don't you live apart?

UrbanHomesteader
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by UrbanHomesteader »

Just chiming in on the emotion vs logic dynamics. I think a lot of times when a person identifies with logic and reasoning, they are also experiencing emotional pulls and responses based on what their preferences are, it’s just that the emotions might not be as exuberant as their typical “emotional” counterpart.

For example, if one chooses an activity because they are stoked about it rather than because it fits their quantitative analysis as the highest yielding activity, that stoke following is an emotional response. And a perfectly reasonable one at that, because using logic and reasoning to create emotionally pleasant scenarios is reasonable.

Anyway, I think this line of thinking can help bridge the gap between people who seem to be coming at things from opposite angles on the logic/emotion scale.

I hope you and DGW can find the spot that works for you both. When you do I’m sure it will feel great!

ertyu
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by ertyu »

We never have emotion-free reasoning. In one of Oliver Sachs' books (neurologist who works with weird cases and writes about how people get when certain areas of their brain are damaged), there is a guy whose whatever-region was toast for one reason or another and so his emotions went offline. He was unable to handle life. He knew the logical reason for arriving to places on time, but he never did. He could spend hours and hours in analysis paralysis and generate impressive pro and con lists, even make arguments about why activity A is preferable to activity B, but he never did either. We could analyze and logic ourselves until the cows come home, but when we finally pull the trigger, that action is based on emotion. In other words, a person who, in life, chooses the highest yielding activity as determined by quantitative analysis, doesn't do this because of facts and logic. He does it because high yielding activities get him off, and because thinking of himself as the type of person who uses facts and logic to run his life gets him off. Or maybe the high yielding activity is optimized with respect to a certain set of values, and it's that set of values that get him off (together with the feeling of being the sort of person who lives in accordance with those values). Whoever says he's not using emotion in their decision-making doesn't have enough insight into himself and isn't honest with himself.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

@ertyu and @UHS I have found that being analytical and spending a lot of time thinking through problems that have more concrete solutions it is easier to "trick" myself into thinking I am being logical in all other realms....when in reality I am just finding more clever ways to "logically" come to a decision that I emotionally already came to. I think this is what you two are getting at said in another way.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Thanks for the questions and comments all, you’ve given me great mulling-over material.

I think of emotions and reasoning as partners in my brain. They inform each other and when they play nice, make my decisions stronger. I tend to have to put more effort into encouraging my emotions and stoke to fully express, but they are very welcome to the table.

I may have misrepresented how we make decisions as a couple. It’s not the case that I make decisions and she goes along with them. Rather, typically I propose ideas and solicit feedback from her. It’s difficult for her to generate plans and ideas, but she sometimes does. My typical role is to help us think through the pros and cons of all the various ideas, see ahead of time the likely consequences, make sure we’re good with them, etc. I also pay a lot of attention to her intuitions. If a plan is logically sound, but she has a bad feeling about it, I scrap the plan and am happy she saved us the trouble of having to learn the long way.

It’s just incredibly difficult for her to know ahead of time how any given plan is going to feel to her. She has to go do it, and see how it feels. Hence our wandering has an essence of “guess and check” to it. Also as an HSP, it’s difficult to know how much of her experience had to do with circumstantial events that triggered her. E.g. Last year she met me in Bend, and disliked it, largely because she drove through some hardcore [political party that made her uncomfortable] country and was a little freaked out by the time she arrived. Bend itself was fine, but the aftertaste of her drive up soured the experience.

At any rate, I feel strongly that our lifestyle instability is our current greatest obstacle to development. We spend a lot of time and energy on basic logistics, making and scrapping plans, and it’s very difficult to drop deeply into projects or consistent practices. Figuring out how to resolve the instability is a current main focus.

Suo, we spent most of this year so far apart. It’s likely that we’ll spend more time apart / doing our own thing than most couples, but our lives will be better if we have at least one real home base somewhere that feels safe, private, and relaxing. It’s likely that she’ll nest there more than I will.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Also something I have to watch out for is making decisions too quickly, just because she’s sad or our lives have become a bit much. My rant a couple days ago was triggered mostly by her being sad and not into it, which set my “let’s solve this RIGHT MEOW” instinct raging.

I mellowed a bit last night and tried to drop into my “be the magic pixie dream girl” channeling energy, and just let it go. This morning, both of us being better rested and in better moods, we even talked about how my jam at this moment is to let go of masculine energy in terms of planning and logistics. She said “well yeah, people take the course of least resistance, so wtf would I plan anything if you’re just going to do it naturally? And so if you stop doing that, I’ll go ‘oh, shit, I need to plan something’”.

An idea she’s toying with is hitting an accumulation phase hard for a couple years so she can buy land/a house in MI. Her earning potential is actually pretty decent if she goes to a major city, particularly if she gets a live-in position. That would almost certainly imply we live apart for a bit longer.

My options are really open. There’s actually a company or two out there that I could see working for, because they’re the perfect combination of work/skills that I want to learn anyway and they’re in cool locations that I could live in Serenity in the woods. I could continue to dirtbag wander, with occasional periods of stability at the shipping container, family land, or cheap rental. I could find a permaculture homestead to worktrade shelter and food for.

For now I’m still just trying to not make any decisions, relax and play and roam a bit, take a bit of a “gap year” or three months or whatever it turns out to be. I don’t want to step quickly into the next thing.

ertyu
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by ertyu »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:45 pm
let’s solve this RIGHT MEOW.
i need this on a t-shirt

7Wannabe5
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

This discussion is interesting, because I don't think of my feminine energy as being "magic pixie dream girl" but I do think of my masculine energy as being only developed to about 12 year old Tom Sawyer like level, and I think that sometimes when men see my boyish energy within my feminine presence I do come off more childlike. So, something to consider might be that your GF's more mature or deep womanly feminine energy might manifest or be more apparent in context with other women or almost certainly in her work with young children.

This also relates to my theory that some types like INTJ are more prevalent/balanced in Adult masculine/juvenile feminine and other types like
ENTP me are more prevalent/balanced in Adult feminine/juvenile masculine energy. ENFPS are usually very strong in Adult Feminine Caretaker energy, so what you think of as her feminine energy might really be more her sexy, playful, free, young masculine energy, but it just seems feminine to you, because "boobs."

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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

completely unrelated to anything, but I saw you had 99999 views of your journal so I became the 100000th customer. Keep up the good/hard work.
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Western Red Cedar
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Tue Jun 15, 2021 10:55 am
I think what you're experiencing with your gf is the difference between someone who interacts with the world primarily through emotion and feeling and someone who interacts with the world primarily through logic and thinking.
This is a dynamic that my wife and I have had to navigate for 15 years. We got to a place where I understood her well enough to know what kinds of situations, environments, and experiences are likely to trigger an adverse emotional reaction. I do most of the planning, and she trusts me enough to know I won't put her in a situation that will likely trigger her.

Of course, this is all much easier with a stable home base. I remember the challenge of dealing with this while we were nomadic and trying out different experiences/locations. We'd put in a lot of time and effort to go somewhere, and shortly after arriving she would say something like "this doesn't feel right" so we'd need to move on. While we were in India we had plans to do a long stay at an ashram with intensive yoga. A couple days into the experience she told me we needed to leave. The chanting was making her really uncomfortable. This is just one of many examples.

It sounds like you have a good handle on it. Patience is key.

Jin+Guice
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Jin+Guice »

@7: If I use your framework, which I quite like, MPDG is juvenile feminine energy. This is why I don't like sexual dichotomy theory that much. The two books I've read implied to me that the masculine energy person embodies the adult roll in every domain except for emotional. It seems like a weak hand to be made responsible for all the adulting and decisions and then totally punt on developing emotionally and allow someone else to handle that for you. I did find learning about sexual dichotomy theory useful, bc when you need to turn on the attractors it helps to be as masculine as possible. Imo, it's not feasible or desirable to embody that at all times throughout a long-term relationship.
AxelHeyst wrote:
Thu Jun 17, 2021 12:45 pm
we even talked about how my jam at this moment is to let go of masculine energy in terms of planning and logistics. She said “well yeah, people take the course of least resistance, so wtf would I plan anything if you’re just going to do it naturally? And so if you stop doing that, I’ll go ‘oh, shit, I need to plan something’”.
This is how and why I came up with this strategy. The other person not planning and always getting to see how they feel is just a shit end of the stick, imo. It's not their fault, it's your fault, you're just not giving yourself the space to be an emotional being and usually you're not giving the other person credit for what they can do.

By allowing yourself to be the flighty emotional one, you get to see what planning capabilities the other person has and also if you are somehow attached to your own resentment about planning or some other part of your own plan that you might not have realized. In other words, if you feel like you are asked for responsibility but not granted control, relinquish responsibility, but sometimes you find out that what you thought was you being responsible was you making a move for control.

Anyway, you sound like you have it under control and the only reason I'm talking about this so much is because it's a problem I experience often due to weak boundaries and a history of resentment.

ertyu
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by ertyu »

Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Jun 20, 2021 11:13 pm
The other person not planning and always getting to see how they feel is just a shit end of the stick, imo. It's not their fault, it's your fault, you're just not giving yourself the space to be an emotional being and usually you're not giving the other person credit for what they can do.

By allowing yourself to be the flighty emotional one, you get to see what planning capabilities the other person has and also if you are somehow attached to your own resentment about planning or some other part of your own plan that you might not have realized. In other words, if you feel like you are asked for responsibility but not granted control, relinquish responsibility, but sometimes you find out that what you thought was you being responsible was you making a move for control.
bang on

7Wannabe5
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Jin+Guice:

I mostly agree with you. All humans have unique energy in their quadrants. My juvenile feminine energy is called The Bunny (because affectionate nickname independently given to me by several different men) and my juvenile masculine energy is called The Monkey, and I do usually show up for a fun date in the combination of these energies which I call The Bunkey which would probably approximate MPDG. Adult Feminine Energy is what you hope your partner has if you’ve been out hunting all day long in the cold and have nothing to show for it, because strong Adult Feminine Energy (The Deer)will just quietly help you hang up your coat and bring you a bowl of soup, whereas weak feminine energy would transmit anxiety.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

I feel like I’ve done A lot of theorizing and working with mental models of ERE, which is my process for learning anything, and now it’s time for me to review and fill in gaps that I may have left in my attempt to “move fast and break stuff”. Jacob cautioned me against attempting to level up too fast in the 6>7 thread, and I’ve spent some time mulling it over and really trying to understand my path.

I do have some big gaps. The largest is probably basic investing/financial stewardship. I feel overwhelmed and bewildered by everything I read on the topic, and I attempted to jump in too fast (by attempting reading Bodie after McConnel). I literally need to start at a more remedial level, aka investing for dummies and stuff written for laymen. The indexers scoff at anyone else for trying to beat the market. Others scoff at the indexers for assuming the market is going to go up forever. I sort of think energy decline + other stuff is going to invert things, so I don’t feel confident in an index forever plan, but I’ve no clue where to even start assembling a different strategy. Besides reading all the things. I probably ought also to spend time on investing related forums, just to immerse in the lingo and become fluent. I also suppose history of investing would help make the academic stuff more accessible to me.

I think a zero waste challenge month or so would help tighten some of my systems.

I’m quite focused this year on getting my physical health up to a high level, and putting in place habits and systems to keep it there, forever. I also need to see a dentist and an optometrist, but haven’t sorted how to do that inexpensively yet. Mexico, perhaps.

I’m planning on spending some time with my old employee getting an indie viz studio up and running, which ought to be both fun and throw off some income here and there. Also help protect me from potential risk with respect to doing client work.

I am planning on doing the round the world trip next year. Possibly arrange it to visit as many permaculture homesteads and ecovillage projects as possible, do some workaway, etc. With any luck we’ll figure out how to do the whole thing and come back with more money than we started, or at least about the same.

The big picture though is that I’m adjusting my attitude to settle into a steady period of deepening my skills, knowledge, and experiences, with the overall aim of bringing multiple nodes up into the level of mastery where I can start to consistently run L7 game on my life. It feels like I’ve dons enough theoretical work for the moment to have a sense for where I’m heading, so that I’ll be able to recognize it once I get there. For now, the bulk of my energy should go to skill mastery in several domains.

Writing
Financial stewardship
Cooking
Building, natural and alternative building methods
Gardening, permaculture, ecology, botany
Digital art
Furniture building



At the moment we’re living out of my truck, which has my moto stuffed in the back of it, wandering up the PNW coast, boondocking, hiking, seeing friends, and generally vibing without a plan until the end of July. I also canceled my cell phone plan, so internet access is blessedly spotty (hopefully that excuses my very sporadic responses to the great comments people are leaving here.)

white belt
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by white belt »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Jun 23, 2021 2:26 pm
I do have some big gaps. The largest is probably basic investing/financial stewardship. I feel overwhelmed and bewildered by everything I read on the topic, and I attempted to jump in too fast (by attempting reading Bodie after McConnel). I literally need to start at a more remedial level, aka investing for dummies and stuff written for laymen. The indexers scoff at anyone else for trying to beat the market. Others scoff at the indexers for assuming the market is going to go up forever. I sort of think energy decline + other stuff is going to invert things, so I don’t feel confident in an index forever plan, but I’ve no clue where to even start assembling a different strategy. Besides reading all the things. I probably ought also to spend time on investing related forums, just to immerse in the lingo and become fluent. I also suppose history of investing would help make the academic stuff more accessible to me.
I don’t consider myself WL7, but I do think in the past year or so I’ve made huge strides in my investing/financial understanding.

If listening to podcasts fits in your lifestyle, then there are a few I’d recommend. I listen to them at 2x speed when I’m driving but you could do whatever you like.

First off is Macrovoices. They start with a 10-15 minute weekly market wrap followed by a long form interview with a guest. The guests are often experts in specific areas (macro trading, commodities, etc). Another good one is RealVision. I don’t pay for their content, so I just listen to their daily briefing sometimes and then long form interviews that interest me. They have a YouTube channel and also upload a lot of the long form interviews to the podcast apps. I also like the Market Huddle. They also do a similar format of 1-2 interviews followed by a weekly wrap up, but they have more of a lighthearted/talk show feel.

I think the value of these shows is that they expose you to how people in finance (Wall St) think, which is quite different from the Bogleheads crowd. It will expose you to a variety of different ideas, perspectives, and strategies. Now, there’s going to be a ton of stuff that goes way over your head, but then you can do your own research to explore ideas you don’t understand. This was easier to learn that way for me because I had trouble drawing connections from the economic textbooks to the contemporary world.

Of course, it might still take months or years of exploring different ideas to feel comfortable enough to incorporate them into your own investing strategy, but that’s fine. No rush. You might ultimately decide to still stick with indexing, but at least you will better understand the strengths and weaknesses of different strategies. It might also give you an understanding of portfolio construction, which I think is the most crucial aspect of investing. It's necessary to understand the strengths and weaknesses of different asset classes and how they perform in a variety of economic situations.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Thank you! I will check those out.

white belt
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by white belt »

Maybe you already posted this earlier, but what is your current asset allocation? Do you have any investment goals? Do you have a sense of what kind of investment styles might fit your temperament?

Qazwer
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Qazwer »

One investment strategy is don’t play poker with people better than you. So if you invest in stocks and bonds, there is always someone on the other side of that trade. You can buy real estate which is a local market and perhaps do better than the average investor. You can buy and sell used books or computers or whatever else and do better than the market average due to the size of the market.
You can index invest and expect it to not go up. For most of history, being able to transfer over time expenditure was not real. There was not always risk free assets. Index funds at this point to me is your best chance of getting average returns to transfer expenditures to beat inflation in the long run YMMV
I think it is probably better to learn about sales and small scale economics than trying to learn enough finance to beat those on Wall Street or to find a small enough trade that no one on Wall Street cares. Especially at the monetary level of ERE there is more than one way to transfer expenditures than stocks and bonds.
You may want to start with what your goals are with learning finance and then decide if learning ways to beat the market are the best ways to accomplish that goal.

Jin+Guice
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Jin+Guice »

Investing is still the weak link of FIRE I feel. It's the part I don't trust and it seems relatively hard compared to the rest of it all, which is kind of easy. For ERE, it's just very specific. Like everything else is so self-guided and figure out your own path, but you MUST learn this one archaic thing. It is sort of necessary though if you're going to bother doing any sort of accumulating you want to live off of. At least I think it is. I'm in a similar place as you knowledge and mentality wise, I'll let you know if I figure out the answer.

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