The Education of Axel Heyst

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Western Red Cedar
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Western Red Cedar »

That is awesome - congratulations!

Quadalupe
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Quadalupe »

Great AxelHeyst, congratulations on breaking free! I've found my self going back and forth on the merits of thinking and engaging with the ERE mindset vs living more serendipitously (kinda like Taoism).

I feel like you have done a lot (and I mean *a lot*) of mental heavy lifting already wrestling with all this stuff. Now you're at the point where good things happen to you because you are in a position to i) be exposed more opportunities ii) notice those opportunities and ii) feel like you can engage with these opportunities.

disk_poet
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by disk_poet »

Phew that's a lot and a I agree with what's been said so far. I'm glad you're looking at it with a positive outlook but I can understand that it is hard to talk to the guy you hired and feel responsible. I guess it should be. It shows that you care!

In the grand scheme of things I'd also try to look at it as a gift. I wouldn't beat myself up about not seeing it coming. It's a cliché but hindsight is 20/20. I think you took some valuable learnings but even if you had done everything right there's not guarantee it would have gone different.

You have been preparing for this situation for awhile. Things are converging. Lot's of new learning to be done and you didn't have to make the jump. I went through a period last year where my work dried up and I was freaking out.. now that things picked up again I look at it and think "man these 2 months of less work were a gift" I was/am too scared to jump and being pushed felt really nice in hindsight. It gave me a new perspective. I am not trying to make this about me just trying to explain why I look at it and can see the positive.

This is what you've been training for ;) Joking aside: You've made so much ERE progress I can't wait to see what you come up with. I hope the healing up goes well and leaves you with fresh energy!

Congrats & Good Luck!!

2Birds1Stone
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 2Birds1Stone »

Big congrats is in order. It's been pretty awesome following your journey since the start of your journal here. There are many of us who don't have the balls to do what you have done. Keep setting the bar high (or low) for the rest of us to see that life can be exactly what we never planned it to, yet everything we hoped for.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Thanks for the kind words everyone! This community is amazing, and I feel extremely fortunate to have found you all when I did. I would not be in this good place were it not for we.

--
I found this gem, storing in here for future reference. This genre of idea is what I'm spending a lot of my time on right now, as I'm in the position to reset/redefine what my "end" is, with remarkably few constraints.
Hristo Botev wrote:
Sun Aug 05, 2018 1:34 pm
....you kind of can't help that consideration of ERE is going to force you to think about what's important and what the purpose of life is. If ERE is about taking the red pill and escaping the blissful ignorance of the Matrix (education, work, consume, retire at 65 if you're lucky and move to a retirement community); then it seems to follow that you have to think about if not the Matrix, then what? ERE is the means, but to what end? Speaking of which, appropriately enough, from today's Old Testament's reading--Exodus 16:

The whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.
The Israelites said to them,
"Would that we had died at the LORD's hand in the land of Egypt,
as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread!
But you had to lead us into this desert
to make the whole community die of famine!"


I love this. Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and hundreds of years of slavery, and do the Israelites thank him? Of course not, they complain about how much better life was when they were enslaved. I guess the ERE analogy is that ERE can lead you out of the slavery of consumerism and working 45+ years in a job that you hate; but once you're free and find yourself in the desert--how do you replace the hole that's left where consumerism and work had been?

Hristo Botev
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Hristo Botev »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Thu May 13, 2021 12:15 pm
This genre of idea is what I'm spending a lot of my time on right now, as I'm in the position to reset/redefine what my "end" is, with remarkably few constraints.
I hope you'll share your thoughts here as you work through it.

And CONGRATS on the big life transition (I love how casually you mentioned that you've already secured a freelance gig doing exactly what you want to do!).

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Ego
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Ego »

Hristo Botev wrote:
Sun Aug 05, 2018 1:34 pm
Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and hundreds of years of slavery, and do the Israelites thank him? Of course not, they complain about how much better life was when they were enslaved. I guess the ERE analogy is that ERE can lead you out of the slavery of consumerism and working 45+ years in a job that you hate; but once you're free and find yourself in the desert--how do you replace the hole that's left where consumerism and work had been?
Oh but I believe the story has the answer embedded. While not a complete solution to the problem, knowing what you don't want and finding a way to move away from it is similar to making the exodus from slavery and sending out the twelve spies to find the Promise Land. Having the freedom to wander allows for discovery. Try a dozen things and maybe two come back as possible solutions. Then Caleb can tell everyone to shut up so he can give good advice.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

I think one of the big challenges many people have is that the "desert" of modern culture is full of tantalizing distractions, little shallow activities and identities designed to capture people's attention and time and fritter it away. So, first, it's easy to get sidetracked while working on one's freedom-from and lose motivation and then it just drags out. Then, upon achieving freedom-from, it's easy to get distracted from the difficult-but-ultimately-rewarding effort of discovery.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Some thoughts:
  • I'm not confident that an investment portfolio I could come up with will yield FI over the rest of my life. This is based on my sense that we're in for The Long Descent, and I think there's a significant chance that any financial portfolio I come up with will evaporate/hyperinflate away/get eminent domained/etc. I have low trust in the security of any traditional financial assets I might hold over the span of my life. Another less loaded way of describing my views of the future is "rapid change with low predictability."
  • If I'm wrong, and the economy goes along as it has been, my current invested NW is sufficient to deliver FI to me in 20 or 30 years assuming I don't touch it (and I don't need to touch it).
  • If I'm right about collapse, there's no sense in pursuing any more accumulation-focused w*rk because that extra NW would evaporate anyways. I might as well do something else. In fact, attempting to FI now might be a big mistake: let's say I go get a real job and FI in 2024. I cruise along for ten years, and despite my best intentions I don't really do all that much with my life. In 2034, massive hyperinflation or something wipes out my NW, and I have to either go make money again or find some other means of getting food, shelter, etc. I've spent 10 years becoming steadily unemployable. I'll be all right if I spent that time turning myself into a Gert, but then if that's what I want to do, I don't need to spend the next three years accumulating an FI stash, I can begin my Gert training tomorrow.
  • I feel that between the extreme frugality, DIY, renaissance, and systems thinking aspects of ERE that I've incorporated into my life, there's no need for me to ever get "a job" again. My CoL is so low, and my skills are broad and deep enough, that I can cover at least my CoL doing projects I want to be doing anyway - digital art freelance, dirtbag design/build, helping out homesteader and permaculture friends, maybe a few other things, all activities that yield either money, food, shelter, or connections to people who I can work with to yield those things. This isn't "I'll find a job I actually like", it's "yeah, jobs suck, I'm just going to do stuff I want to do and those actions will happen to throw off income/yields".
  • It's possible that I'll be "successful" enough in my stoke-led endeavors that I'll generate more than my CoL and accidentally accumulate wealth and hit a tradFI number sometime in the next decade or two. I'm not depending on this, just noting that it might happen anyway despite my best efforts to ignore it. I've read story after story of someone who FIRE'd with a margin, and then wound up accidentally making money doing stuff they wanted to do anyways.
  • If I'm actually, truly doing projects I want to be doing anyways, my FI status won't effect my life at all.
In a sense, what I'm going for is a life I don't need/want to take a vacation from. Put another way, I'm trying to construct a life that FI won't make a difference to. Put yet another way, I'm aiming for howlie status while skipping FI (or at least decentralizing it).

I'm *very* receptive to critical feedback on all this.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Delight-Led Lifestyle aka DirtbagERE aka Follow your Stoke
I wrote a bit about stoke/delight-led lifestyle design in the WL6>7 thread. Some more thoughts on that.

Stoke is a guidance mechanism for the good life. No one works hard, or well, or creatively, for long at something they're not stoked on. Some course of action might seem like a good idea, it might align perfectly with your value system, but if there is no stoke, there is no hope for it.
Range by David Epstein wrote: When I was a college runner, I had teammates whose drive and determination seemed almost boundless on the track, and nearly absent in the classroom, and vice versa. Instead of asking whether someone is gritty, we should ask when they are. “If you get someone into a context that suits them,” Ogas said, “they’ll more likely work hard and it will look like grit from the outside.
This is not the same as saying that you should always be having fun, or always seeking pleasure. Stoke is a deeper lived experience than cheap thrills or hedonic delights. Stoke can and will take you to dark, hard places that make you seriously question your life choices (ask any trad climber pushing a runout in the ballpark of their redpoint grade for the first time). But you keep doing it anyway, because stoke isn't your body telling you "hey this is neat", stoke is God's way of whispering in your ear "this is what I made you for".

I'm a person who likes to climb, but I'm not *a climber*. But I do consider myself a dirtbag, who is going through a process of assembling that thing that I'm giving up the comforts and securities of normal life for.

Dirtbaggery, fundamentally, is about eschewing the standard comforts and securities of a status quo lifestyle in order to fully pursue one's stoke. Dirtbags generally hold comfort in contempt. There's no such thing as a dirtbag who *has* to shower every day, but there's also nothing wrong with actually showering every day if you happen to have a shower handy. The point is that the shower is largely irrelevant. It's so far down on the priority list it might as well not be on it. For the climber, the priority list is something like

1. Climb
2. Get access/proximity to the best climbing that suits my style and ability
3. Get/maintain adequate climbing gear
4. Get adequate calories (one of my climbing buddies stuffed two large Costco pizzas into gallon freezer bags for a two-day climb, heh)
5. Get/maintain physical fitness for climbing
6. Get enough $$ for gas and whatever's required for keeping the truck rolling.
7. Get enough $$ for beer

I've never quite liked the term semiERE. To me it centralizes FI, because the "semi" is used to indicate that FI is being deprioritized, and thus it's not "full" ERE. To reference the scriptEREs, ch [X, kindle search function isn't working at the moment], it says "either work for 5 years then FI or 5 hours/wk". No mention of the need for a "semi" modifier.

To the extent that I'm internalizing ERE and using the methods to strategically design my life, I think I'm "doing" ERE and I don't need to qualify it at all, FI or not. (I'm interested in feedback/pushback on this.) However, I think a term can be usefully applied for communication and rapid understanding. I propose the term "dirtbagERE".

My definition of dirtbagERE: A lifestyle design approach that incorporates the principles of ERE, deprioritizes FI and eliminates or cuts short the traditional "FT w*rk accumulation" phase, explicitly deprioritizes the efficient attainment of a middle-class lifestyle/comforts, and prioritizes the productive engagement in projects and activities that the individual is stoked on. And "stoke" is defined as the feeling you get when you're doing what you were made to do.

dirtbagERE implies that the individual's freedom-to motivation is exceptionally clearly defined, felt, and acted upon. It implies that the telicity of their web of goals is obvious and clear, and that there is a purpose/goal/vision beyond just a perfectly integrated web of goals (although no judgement is intended for those with that metagoal).

[Hat tip to WRC's recent post on dirtbagging and note's from Chouinard's Let my people go surfing.]
Last edited by AxelHeyst on Wed May 19, 2021 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

dirtbagERE is a good term. Thank you for coining it. I am sure there are many climbers that embody this ethos for the long haul (Fred Becky comes to mind), but I have noticed this is much more alive in the River Running community (rafting, kayaking, etc.). I have hung out with more rafting dirtbags that are completely in it for the long haul than climbing dirtbags. Maybe river running offers more physical longevity? Not sure if there is some untapped ideas in river running, but might be interesting to check out to further refine your idea and ethos.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Yeah interesting, good call. Off the top of my head I suspect it's easier to make money in rivers because there is more guide work to be done? For climbing, there just isn't as much guiding work (I think), and being good enough to be a sponsored-pro-climber is stupid hard (I imagine same for rivers). A typical climber story is to dirtbag for 5-10 years and then get tired of living in the back of your mom's subaru and never getting laid and they do something else.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

The guiding work in climbing is a lot harder because the credentials are expensive. River rafting is mostly just time on the river as a greenhorn and then working up to larger and larger groups and rafting grades. Of course there are credentials for backcountry medicine, rescue etc., but it is not to the same level as AMGA certs (or equivalent) for guided climbing trips. I think that there is a lot of expedition style planning for provisions, weather, escape routes, etc. on longer river trips. I see many of the ERE skills overlapping directly with this.

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Ego
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Ego »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed May 19, 2021 6:08 pm
My definition of dirtbagERE: A lifestyle design approach that incorporates the principles of ERE, deprioritizes FI and eliminates or cuts short the traditional "FT w*rk accumulation" phase, explicitly deprioritizes the efficient attainment of a middle-class lifestyle/comforts, and prioritizes the productive engagement in projects and activities that the individual is stoked on. And "stoke" is defined as the feeling you get when you're doing what you were made to do.

dirtbagERE implies that the individual's freedom-to motivation is exceptionally clearly defined, felt, and acted upon. It implies that the telicity of their web of goals is obvious and clear, and that there is a purpose/goal/vision beyond just a perfectly integrated web of goals (although no judgement is intended for those with that metagoal).
I too like dirtbagERE. I actively dislike the attempt to attain full FI because (I believe) something dies in a person when they no longer have to do anything. Or maybe it is more accurate to say that they have the option to do nothing.
Ego wrote:
Tue Mar 21, 2017 8:26 am
Reminds me of this quote from Robert Twigger.

We are lead to believe that all 'top jobs' are occupied by smart people. But really smart people don't have jobs. I mean- why would they? Of course at times they work very hard. But this work is like the work you do on a hobby that really absorbs you.

And those 'really smart' people don't often seem so very smart when you meet them, rather they appear enthusiastic
I see "stoke" as that enthusiasm.

That said, I have lived long enough to have seen people who had gone full-dirtbag in their twenties and later experienced a friction where they needed to pass for a short period in the world of the non-dirtbags, only to discover that they had lost the ability. Where they were once free to be a dirtbag, they were now forced to be one. Entirely different animal.

Having too many options can be overwhelming. Having to few can be crippling.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Western Red Cedar »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed May 19, 2021 6:08 pm

To the extent that I'm internalizing ERE and using the methods to strategically design my life, I think I'm "doing" ERE and I don't need to qualify it at all, FI or not. (I'm interested in feedback/pushback on this.)

My definition of dirtbagERE: A lifestyle design approach that incorporates the principles of ERE, deprioritizes FI and eliminates or cuts short the traditional "FT w*rk accumulation" phase, explicitly deprioritizes the efficient attainment of a middle-class lifestyle/comforts, and prioritizes the productive engagement in projects and activities that the individual is stoked on. And "stoke" is defined as the feeling you get when you're doing what you were made to do.
I'm totally with you on the SemiERE thoughts. I really loved the discussions and threads on SemiERE. They changed my thoughts on and approach to FI. Probably changed my life a bit if I'm honest. The term is a bit lacking though, and emphasizes a salaryman perspective or traditional FIRE mentality.

The only issue I see with the dirtbagERE term is that it replaces one qualifier with another. As you said, what you are doing is already ERE, so does it need an extra explanation?

Members like @theanimal, roaming francis, or jin & guice seem to fit in with your definition above, but aren't necessarily living a "dirtbag" lifestyle. Okay - maybe @J&G. I've thought about LongERE or SlowERE, but again, they are just qualifiers. In many ways, I think the path your approaching and that others practice is arguably more consistent with ERE principles. It is simply ERE. It incorporates more balance, diversity, and renaissance ideals earlier in the process. This is also why I've pushed back on the 4% SWR in my journal so much. Focusing too much on SWR seems antithetical to ERE.

*ETA - I'm totally not trying to derail the term btw. Just explaining how I've been thinking about ERE and traditional careers. When I read Chouinard's memoir I thought "he basically practiced ERE for years, and just took a more organic path to financial independence."

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

@Ego I really like that quote. I've always been really attracted to stories about people clever enough to play their own game and just be totally absorbed in their own thing. In fiction that's mostly con men for some reason, but when you meet people doing their thing there is an obvious light in them.

@wrc no I actually really appreciate your thoughts, and I winced a little bit after posting it. The last thing I want to do is create another label that we can argue about whether someone is or isn't dirtbagERE. I agree: it's ERE, no qualifiers required. For this moment, playing with the *idea* of dirtbagERE is a mental exercise I'm finding useful - good to chat about a bit and then let it rest. I don't think broadly adopting the term would be productive.

Howlie fukin' stays, though. That's going in my epitaph. ><

7Wannabe5
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Put me down for dirtbag style ERE too. Used Book Scout, Soil Microbe Exploration, Lentil Baby Pumpkin Mama version.

Hristo Botev
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Hristo Botev »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed May 19, 2021 5:45 pm
I think one of the big challenges many people have is that the "desert" of modern culture is full of tantalizing distractions, little shallow activities and identities designed to capture people's attention and time and fritter it away. So, first, it's easy to get sidetracked while working on one's freedom-from and lose motivation and then it just drags out. Then, upon achieving freedom-from, it's easy to get distracted from the difficult-but-ultimately-rewarding effort of discovery.
The way I understand the Exodus passage, it's not the desert that is full of tantalizing distractions, etc., it's Egypt and enslavement. The desert represents the arduous journey of escaping from enslavement. So, I suppose it's "easy" (at one level, at least) to stay "enslaved" in Egypt, with its hedonistic living (fleshpots) and full bellies, unless and until your mindset just completely shifts to the point where remaining enslaved becomes unthinkable. Granted, I'd already stretched the Exodus/ERE analogy too far in that post you'd quoted, as you can't understand the Exodus story in a secular context; without God at the center (i.e., as a chapter in the Theo-Drama) (and, of course, I was already running afoul of my own pet peeve of conflating ERE with religion). Perhaps the better secular analogy would be the Matrix as the modern culture; and with the stark spaceshippy-world outside of the Matrix as the desert, so to speak, on a journey from enslavement. Or, a more recent (and richer) example, compare the promised escape of the machine world in Kingsnorth's Alexandria with the stark and harsh reality of human existence on the far side of ecological apocalypse.

Jin+Guice
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Jin+Guice »

I like the qualifiers, which is why I made one. We can argue semantics of what is or isn't the category developed, but like the Wheaton Table, having categories is mentally useful. Not everyone is going to pursue semiERE or dirtbagERE but having strong lived alternatives to fiERE is useful.

I'm questioning the intelligence of savings as well. The more I study investing the less interested I am in saving financial capital for life. It seems unwise from an "investment as mental model" mentality. What am I talking about?

60 years is too long of an investment horizon to be practical. I'm less convinced that there will be a slow decline for wealthy citizens of rich countries, but what I am more convinced of is that I have no idea what will happen.

Additionally, I have no idea how to invest. I have zero track record of passive income streams and a shit ton of money sitting in the bank waiting to be devalued or cyberhacked. Since I have zero track record, it makes the calculation of how much is "enough" or how I should value time vs. money (since most of my money is now for investment towards future passive income streams) impossible.


I want to counterbalance this though. The problem it sounds like a lot of dirtbags are facing is this: Dedication to an alternative lifestyle in place of a traditional lifestyle. This is, imo, a common fallacy. It's like the simple livers who decide money is evil. Or people who are fed up with the alienation and because they reject it (usually on a narrow unidimensional term), they fail to learn to use it. If they are "extreme" they are able to mostly escape it. But people need people, and people change over time, and "the system" meets real, multi-dimensional needs, and eventually you get sucked backed in.

The way this applies to this discussion: 1) Stay open to paid employment; 2) learn how to develop passive income streams; 3) realize the advantages of having a NW that is at least several years of expenditures. These are both powerful tools. It's popular and easy that once you realize a certain paradigm doesn't totally fit you, to reject that paradigm. However, deciding not to build a forever stash all at once doesn't mean total rejection of paid work, total rejection of passive investment income and a low NW.

I like the idea of maintaining control, optionality and access. Paid employment, passive income streams and a NW of multiple years of expenditures (IME, adding an extra year of expenditures or an extra 0 on the screen does have real mental and emotional benefits) increases all three of these things.


Also, I mean this as a commentary on the "dirtbagERE" discussion, not necessarily a commentary on your exact situation @AH.

I think this is good commentary on the semiERE discussion and considered rewriting this on my own blog/ journal.

Qazwer
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Qazwer »

Are all the forms of ERE a relative young person’s game? Young being defined as someone who has the strength to ‘work’ (however defined) and the mental capabilities to create a definition of ‘work’ that makes sense for that person.

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