The Education of Axel Heyst

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jacob
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jacob »

RoamingFrancis wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 10:07 am
@jacob

“Der Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will.”

“Man can do what he wants; he can however not want what he wants.”

- Schopenhauer

Is that what you’re talking about?
Yes! No wonder I can never find it when I got the person wrong.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

jennypenny wrote:
Wed Sep 08, 2021 6:15 am
@daylen -- I really like the term 'execution turbulence'. ...
Did you mistake my post for Daylen's? Achievement unlocked!! 8-) (Or were you drawing his attention to it?)

@7 ah! I understand you better now, thanks.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jennypenny »

Sorry for the misattribution. My mistake.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Motivation diagram with the choose-your-own-adventure fill-in-the-blanks filled out for myself:
Image
Full-res.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

I really like this iteration! I am curious what a typical week would look like for you (as opposed to now) if all of your desired outcomes were realized?

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Well, it should be pointed out that many of my desired outcomes are systems and habits, aka infinite games. Most of my finite "achievable goal" desired outcomes have to do with arranging my environment in an optimal way to support my infinite games. e.g. "buy land and build strawbale house" is a finite goal that is in explicit support of "putter in the garden forever", "experiment with building New Alchemist-Style systems", and "Make inspiring digital art". It's difficult to do those things when I'm concerned with the logistical grind of being houseless.

The Elements of an Ideal Day
  • Early rise
  • Writing
  • Building/making (furniture, shelter, garden structure, tinkering with machines...)
  • "knowledge work" - digital art, team management, etc
  • Reading (including processing)
  • Physical training
  • Being outside, not training (walking, puttering in the garden).
  • Meals with DW
  • Sex
^Most of my days look something like this right now, when I'm not in the midst of a disruption.

The Elements of an Ideal Week
  • Social evenings - e.g. a group of friends come over and we collaborate on a meal, drink homebrew, work on projects, play music, dance, etc. 1-2/wk is probably max for me.
  • A full day spent with a larger group in the community, working on some sort of beneficial project (e.g. riparian remediation, market setup, local governance, skillshare workshop, converting the old big box store into a dense exurban eco-village, etc).
  • One full-day outdoor excursion: long hike with DW, bike ride, paddle, etc.
^These are quite rare in my life at the moment, and not just because of Covid.

I'm not sure if this really captures the "state" I'm trying to achieve, or what my life will feel like once my vectors are aligned and the turbulence is smoothed out. I have mostly achieved freedom-from, so there aren't many things I do now that I don't want to do. And most of what I do now is the *kind* of thing I want to be doing for the rest of my life: reading, writing, building physical things with my hands, doing creative things on a computer, leadership and project management, hanging out with my partner and friends, etc.

The missing ingredient at the moment boil down to "having a place that's mine, and will stay in one spot". That will unlock the ability to consistently direct my efforts of building towards an infinite project that I'm excited about, namely a sort of permaculture/NAI homestead, and also the ability to engage in a local community, which I suspect will have deep benefits. I'm also attracted to the idea that having a homebase will make it easier to decrease my expense volatility as well as average lifestyle CoL.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

All of these are great answers. I often ask myself the same question when thinking about habits/systems in my future so I just extended the question to you (and to all the folks reading your journal). I think it helps to have a time based narrative, even if completely made up, to work through how all the parts will fit together in daily/weekly/seasonal life.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Your motivation diagram is very cool. I especially like the library shelf hierarchy to the right. At some point in my process I realized that my Ideal Day/Week/Year wanted near constant revision, so I added that loop. I'm not sure if there is ever any point where infinite games do not require finite games, because shit happens and even when shit doesn't happen we may become bored if/when our practices come to seem like dull routine or maintenance. OTOH, that problem is likely much more relevant to XNTP than XNTJ.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

@mF - thanks for the prompt! I think it's good to do something like that pretty regularly. Looking back over all the times I've done exercises like that, it's very telling what elements of the Vision stay constant, and what things come and go. For example, in my 20s, my visions always included the desire to attain elite levels of performance/ability in physical pursuits like climbing, mtb, or even just gymnastic strength movements. I'm now pretty sure I Just Don't Care if I can hit a 40' gap jump, or do a flagpole, or walk up a flight of stairs on my hands. But going all the way back to my teens, my visions always included lots of building/making/tinkering with things.

@7 yeah that's interesting. How much of it is just semantics? Is my "Achievable Goal" of building a walipini actually a finite game, or is it just a sub-project, a stepping stone, of my "Do permaculture/Be a gardener" infinite game?

I've spent a little time reading papers about intrinsic motivation, specifically this one, which led me to update my diagram a bit.
Image
Full res.

Also I've joined the Zettelkasten cult, using Obsidian. Some of my notes from that paper:
Intrinsic motivation is the spontaneous, internally directed drive towards novelty and challenges, with an implication for increasing one's knowledge and capacity. [[Intrinsic motivation flourishes wAutonomy and Competence]], and has a relationship to human sense of purpose (although I haven't figured that out yet in the literature, but I think it has to do with relatedness - human's social needs). Humans tend to perform better when operating under conditions of intrinsic motivation vs. extrinsic.

Autonomy, or a sense of being volitional, and optimal Competence, or a feeling of being effective, are required elements for [[Intrinsic Motivation]] to fourish. Put negatively: if one feels externally directed, or if one feels like one's actions won't have adequate effect, then intrinsic motivation is not likely to flourish.

The dopamine systems appears to subserve observed mammalian drives for competence, the furthering of one's capacities, and autonomy, or "the sense that one's behaviror is authentic and self-organized". In other words, humans *enjoy* getting better at stuff that they feel volitional about. This establishes a neurological structure for why [[Intrinsic motivation flourishes wAutonomy and Competence]].

[[Intrinsic Motivation]] drives humans to explore, create, learn, seek novel experiences and challenges, and expand their capacities. It is easy to see how the more humans do these sorts of things, the more they are going to be able to adapt to unfolding circumstances. First, their "default" explorations will likely lead them to develop diverse methods and competencies that could serve them in the event of changing future circumstances (e.g. they're bored with hunting woolly mammoths, so Grog's side hustle is building hare snares. When the mammoths die off, Grog just switches to eating bunny rabbits). It also suggests the ability of intrinsically motivated humans to "lean in" to the challenge of adapting to unfolding circumstances in realtime.
Also, just a fun ZK side note, because I'm also processing some notes on Boydian strategic theory, I saw a connection between the adaptive advantages of intrinsic motivation and Boyd's idea that the Purpose of strategy is to increase one's adaptive ability over time (and, in conflict, the essence of winning is to decrease adversary's ability to adapt to unfolding circumstances over time). This also has implications for how to think about e.g. organizational structure and management. Fun stuff.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

I took another look at Obsidian. I already have most of notes in markdown and it seems like the support for latex and equation rendering has come a long way from last year. Playing around with it now and I already like it better than Bear because I have way more control on where the raw .md files live, it can more easily be version controlled, and you can set folders with many .md docs as new vaults (i.e. website/blog content directories). I will have to see if I can translate how I have tag system on my personal blog (rendered locally only) or if this will just sit on top of all that adding additional linking. FUN!

As a side note: a 40' gap would still be pretty awesome.... just sayin'... haha.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Ha totally, but I think where I'm at is discovering that in the past I mostly only *intellectually* wanted to be able to hit 40'ers, as in, I liked the idea of it, but I didn't actually really want it. It wasn't a deep desire, it was just some shit that looked cool on youtube, all my friends were into freeride, and I was able to hit 15' gaps and 20+' tabletops, so it seemed likely that a 40'er gap would be just totally dope. And that's all fine, but freeride just isn't my gift to the world, so my Intrinsic Motivation was never there to get after it. I dunno, I still struggle with the difference between genuine desire/stoke, and being lazy. It's kind of a cop out to say "well, that wasn't what I Really Wanted, obviously, because I didn't do it", but maybe the problem is just that I was afraid, or I was too busy being codependent with my ex, or whatever else.

Life, man. It's complicated.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

I hear you on the intellectual front of physical/sports goals. They can become a distraction. I found the same in climbing after a while which can be very grade centric as a measure of a climb. Spending all the time training to achieve a certain grade at the expense of everything else made it easy to burn out on that. As an example, training for 6 months, traveling to Mexico, and only climbing without exploring the surround area/towns/culture etc. I visited there to climb, but did not really experience the place if that makes sense. I still love climbing, but do it so infrequently now that I might as well be starting from scratch physically every time (with some technique still lingering). The why does need to be there to put in the long boring hours of training to work up to those longer distances/grades/gap sizes. I have since put most of my efforts into trail running/gravel bike riding/bike packing/xc skiing/ski touring. The long boring training is easily filled with working out problems, or just practicing awareness while the trail floats on by with these less "risky" endeavors. I think I am just content to trade the direct awareness flow of a good downhill mtb/ski or at limit climb for a more cerebral experience that gives me time to process while participating. I still like being completely in the flow though that those activities can bring, only now that flow comes at an overall lower risk profile by going 80-85% of the speed I used to. Or maybe I am just old. haha.

[edit] when really pushing it cardio wise for a race or local PRs...it can be just as focusing and intense as a downhill session, but more of your awareness is spent dealing with the discomfort.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Found this while studying Scrum: the Shuhari model of mastery.
Shu: the forms and rules.
Ha: start to innovate.
Ri: Unhindered creativity.

I like that it's very compact, intuitive, and speaks directly to the dynamic of "learn the numbers to forget the numbers" (Waitzkin, The Art of Learning).

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

The final deliverable of my second Mastermind Group project of the First Session, which started out as "draw a bunch of ERE WL7 diagrams", turned in to "Write my Manifesto".

I actually first wrote a manifesto back in 2014 or so, and it's evolved every couple of years. This represents my first redraft since getting in to ERE. Here it is. If anyone happens to slog through it, or even just a piece of it, I'm quite interested in feedback. It will always be a work in progress.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I really admire the way your diagram and manifesto reflects your organized mind. My first thought was that if I was a 19 year old girl, I would feel compelled to kiss my sisters and my pianoforte goodbye, and hop on wagon heading West with someone like unto you. My second thought was "I need to copy this and make one of my own!" This led to my third thought which was wondering about the coordination of such personal mission statements between humans within relationship or community. For example, it occurred to me that "ERE" wouldn't be my top book. My top book would be the book that made me cry when I first read it in late adolescence, "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill.
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
However, "ERE" (and also, therefore, much of Jacob's bibliography which informs "ERE" (both economic and ecological) and could be imagined as added as ancestors on extended family tree like version of your diagram) would be somewhere on my top stack. Therefore, I view spending/dumping more than 1 jacob in current energy-intensive economy more or less as akin to impeding efforts of others to pursue their own good. So, at that intersection of our diagrams/manifestos we share common purpose. OTOH, I must admit I semi-bristled at the "no Cirque du Soleil" bit of your essay (or "the people who watch TV" elitism frequently expressed on this forum), because IMO deciding for other humans where lies the line between needs and true heart desire is starting along the road to anti-Liberty. One of the great things about the elegant scaffolding Jacob created with "ERE" is the great optionality within it for free choice/design. Humans, even humans who are capable of great design, are often blind to how their needs might be another humans wants (or stoke and anti-stoke) and vice-versa. I actually believe that gentle nerd style liberty is more important than life itself.

Another confusion for me with your manifesto/diagram would be that it is very anti-industrial, even green industrial tech, but also very pro-efficiency. Why are Cal Newport's efforts towards cranking out 9 (!) papers in one academic year any different than an industrialist's efforts towards maximizing efficiency/profits and thereby lowering price per unit rolling out of his toaster oven factory? Obviously, there is the huge problem with coal belching factories for the industrialist, and if Cal likes working himself like a machine, that's his clearly his prerogative, but constructing a model which is dependent upon working yourself like a machine or other people like machines may not be easy sell or always functional. Permaculture design model is definitely ripe for criticism, but it does take into account that most people just don't like to work that hard. Obviously, you do like to work that hard, so my very minor criticism of your excellent manifesto would only relate to extension to community design.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Happily, I think the contention regarding free choice was just a poor communication on my part. By Cirque du Soleil I wasn't thinking, "a bunch of frivolous artists types prancing around contributing nothing real to the Flotilla", I meant, "a hyperconsumptive global entertainment conglomerate that requires 6 bajillion kWh per show and a thousand marketing and branding specialists to keep the doors open and the profit margin above 12.5%".

The reason the flotilla won't have Cique du Soleil is because the Flotilla won't have an energy infrastructure that can support 6 bajillion kWh a night. BUT!! It would be WONDERFUL if we can get all the performers and artists to join up with us on our flotilla. I know a few folks in circus and various performance arts, and I happen to know doing that kind of art doesn't actually require half a coal-fired power plant to run. I am zero percent trying to suggest that only people who know which end of a hammer to swing are welcome on the flotilla.

For one thing, if we have to rely on the likes of me to provide culture, dance, celebration, music, poetry, aka the majority of the things that make being a human on this rock worthwhile, then I'll be the first one to say "fuck this" and take my chances with the sharks. Secondly, I wholeheartedly agree with that JSM quote (and, added to reading list, thank you). Humans gonna human, and I think that's beautiful; even if I happen to find any particular human's choices distasteful, I might get choked up over the fact that they're able to live a free enough life to piss me or anyone else off.

So thanks for pointing out that blind spot - I realize it's not obvious that when I offhandedly criticize Cirque Du Soleil I'm actually talking about energy infrastructure, and not The Arts.

Re: your point about industrialism and efficiency, I need to think your words over a little more, but a couple quick points are:
1. My problem with industrialism isn't a moral one (I'm not sure I have any moral arguments anymore), but a thermodynamics one. To quote that most eminent sage of our times, Homer Simpson: "In this house we obey the laws of thermaldynamics!!" It's about the externalities and the timescale.
2. My vision of the future doesn't require everyone to work a lot (at least I don't think it does, and if it does implicitly, then I need to sort that out).
3. My personal relationship with working hard/a lot is complicated. I used to like working a lot (no joke, in 2011 I described my work ethic in my bio on an online dating site as "brutal"). Then I decided that that was bs, work ethic was a capitalist elite plot to get the middle class to enslave themselves, and as a matter of fact I liked *not* working that much. Then I realized I get twitchy when I'm not jamming on projects, but it's good to have them be MY projects with careful regard taken to autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Still sorting it out.

Thanks for your response @7, I really appreciate it.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by sky »

I thought this is a very well written manifesto, and I feel a lot of parallels in my own thought and life design. It made me think about my own situation and whether I am happy with the course I am following.

Some comments...

The manifesto seems to focus on things which you will do to help others. This is very kind and altruistic, but if you want to help others by being an example of someone living a good life, you should also have a plan (equal in priority to helping others) for how to improve and benefit your own life. You do go into this, but realize that one's personal needs go beyond Stoke. Life is complicated and you will be tied in with others lives in many ways, some good, some negative, but that's life.

Getting other people to do things like living the collapse now and avoiding the rush is good, but others may not have the altruistic priority of helping others, but rather wish to live their own lives in a meaningful and satisfying way. It is important to create an alternative which creates better lives for the people who choose it.

With that said, trying to create a community of people in a physical place where laws do not restrict experimentation with shelter/food production seems to be the holy grail of ERE. Create a community with "infrastructure" that satisfies people's basic needs in a restorative way, while allowing them opportunity to self develop.

Those are my thoughts for now, I may come back later with more.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mountainFrugal »

I really dig all the additional thought that you have put into dirtbagERE/AxelERE in particular. It brings everything into sharp focus even though it is a network. Thank you for being open enough to share your manifesto. My partner walked by as I was reading it and said "OOO did you make that?" referring to the network diagram. I said no this is @AxelH on the forum.... the more engineering focused version of me. "Makes sense...seems like something you would make". lol.

Maybe it is implied by going after everyone for retroadaptics (world centric view), but perhaps a refinement in target audience? As an example, your average Bay Area tech worker (which I think you have connections with through your network) might be the best type of person to convince because they likely have a large ecological footprint and you can speak their language through your startup/business/tech knowledge. Even halving one of these people's foot print would be a greater benefit to the world than changing minds in an ecovillage or likely a handful of people in some developing country. I am not suggesting to not build/contribute to an ecovillage (sounds rad!), but by being a conduit towards this lifestyle for presumably well off (and large footprint) folks your impact would go far beyond what you could do by reducing your own. Or to put it another way, you may be well positioned to help tech folks as part of the memetic shift towards this lifestyle. Rock and Roll!

[edits] typos

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@AxelHeyst:

Gotcha. I am happy that Work Ethic? is not a standard question for online dating, because I would, in all honesty, have to answer "Bugs Bunny."

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

@7 well you're much more likely to get laid with that answer than mine I'm sure... at least you can't do any worse.

@sky good points, and to me you're digging into the difference between showing and telling, "being the change" and "getting other people to change", etc. I'll try to unpack a little more how I'm thinking about this now:
  • I don't think or feel that I'm being altruistic in the sense of being selfless. Helping other people feels good, and it feels like a way of cultivating meaningful social relationships. When I think of what I'm trying to do, it feels like the moral equivalent of taking a short break at Thanksgiving dinner from shoveling food in my mouth to pass the mashed potatoes along. I get a warm fuzzy feeling from being part of making the feast run smoothly, and I make eye and hand contact with whoever I pass it along to, and my mammalian brain just loves all of that.
  • How I conceptualize "helping others" is actually "figure out how to make my own life dope, and then share stories about how and why I did it, and offer to help anyone who wants some advice or for me to come over and help them get their own humanure system set up". It's not at all unlike how Jacob and MMM figured out how to RE, and then told other people about it. Their lives aren't centered around helping others, but they are, primarily because of the stories they've told about themselves.
This quote has been rolling around in my head for years:
Per Espen Stoknes, "What we think about when we try not to think about climate change" wrote:...there does seem to be a shortage of captivating storytellers who spread inspiration as well as vivid and attractive images of a future in which we live with more decent jobs, greater well-being, and lower emissions alongside recovering forests. If it cannot be imagined and well told, then people will surely not work for it to happen.
Finally, I'm not at all sure that a bunch of ecovillages is a good idea. My "lifeboat flotilla" is metaphorical. I may very well end up in some sort of intentional community, but at the moment I have no plans to attempt to build or join one. Most ecovillages I've read about seem more like "hippie camp" than an actual village, which sounds awful.

@mF ha! Similarly I'm envious of your illustrations.... they seem like something I'd love to make if I had 2d/artistic skills.

And yes, to the extent I've thought about audience, I think about targeting me 5-10 years ago. Concerned about the Situation (which is desperate, as usual), theoretically working on The Solution, but feeling a bit unsure if what I'm doing is having any real impact and a bit trapped by the lifestyle I'm in.

--

Going up a level, my "help others" focus feels very aspirational at this point, as in, I feel like I'm still very much in the process of affixing my own oxygen mask, and until it's on solid I'm going to be very reserved in any intentional efforts to "help" anyone else. The best good I think I can do at the moment is document what I'm doing so whether I'm successful or not, my story can be useful, potentially as a warning to others. Either people will say "ah, that was his path, great, that's helpful" or "and here we can see the fatal assumptions that led to his downfall; he went left there, let's all be sure to go right".

The most powerful thing I *think* I can be doing is to help normalize the pursuit of living a good life in balance with the world and the rest of humanity, without being an ass about it. Too many people who are trying to live right are insufferably preachy and hypocritical to boot, or at least those are the folks that our media amplifies. There's a stigma associated with it, a sense that you're either a dirty hippie, a screeching ideologue, or an ascetic. Not normal. It can feel embarrassing to admit that you're considering not going on a vacation because of carbon footprint, or that you're interested in food storage skills because you're concerned about regional and global supply-chain issues as a result of natural and human-sourced disasters. Essentially one of my goals is to push the Overton window - to be an example of someone reasonable and not obviously dealing with mental health issues who is talking about and *doing something* about issues previously thought of as the territory of the insane.

I think the narrative of "successful professional walks away from a successful career to pursue a life of simple satisfaction" is really strong, and that's what I'm trying to work with as a foot in the door for dialogue. Similar to the story about how the early American colonies had an issue with rescued hostages fleeing back to the Native tribes. That's a powerful story that generates some very interesting questions.

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