The Education of Axel Heyst

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

Post by jacob »

The OODA loop! I notice you have an arrow going in reverse. I've noticed that OODA is mainly applicable for something with one very specific goal (shoot the enemy plane down) and perhaps not as great when there are multiple goals so the way I think about "complex operations" (as opposed to OODA complicated operations) is "concurrent threads"---almost separate processes---rather than a loop. The reverse arrow (spaghetti code?) suggests trying to hack the loop into a threaded structure... or is it something else?

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

2Birds1Stone wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 5:17 am
Axel, that diagram is extremely helpful wrt internalizing this stuff...
Ha, I am super stoked any of this is helpful. Making diagrams like this is just how I attempt to internalize conversations like this. Nothing clicks until I try to digest everything people have been saying by diagramming or graphing it.
jacob wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 7:35 am
The OODA loop! I notice you have an arrow going in reverse. I've noticed that OODA is mainly applicable for something with one very specific goal (shoot the enemy plane down) and perhaps not as great when there are multiple goals so the way I think about "complex operations" (as opposed to OODA complicated operations) is "concurrent threads"---almost separate processes---rather than a loop. The reverse arrow (spaghetti code?) suggests trying to hack the loop into a threaded structure... or is it something else?
Well, in my mind the thing I drew is not the OODA loop, but in a sense everything is the OODA loop, so maybe it is. (Purpose and motivation both are Orientation, goals/projects is Decision, Action is Action, and I didn't draw observation and all the proper feedback loops....??). For those wondering wtf we're talking about:
Image

But agreed, the ooda loop is generally most appropriate for thinking about How to Act in a specific time-constrained environment with one goal and where the environment is constantly changing both due to external factors and as consequences of action. In a sense, where a 'formal' ooda loop might be interesting to think about is in the process of constructing one's purpose/goal/action system. The ooda framework can help us understand that we don't just sit down, think up our Purpose in life, and then go off and execute. Our felt, implicit and explicit Purpose/Identity is socially constructed, informed by everything we've read, our experiences, etc etc, and then we take all those inputs through the loop and create a "draft" of our purpose/identity, which goes back and informs our observations which subtly change our orientation, ...

In the diagram I drew, I was more just trying to wrap my head around the relationships between [Purpose/Goals/Actions] and [Motivation and willpower]. And not so much imply a "do this, then do that" sort of map.

In other words, what I'm trying to show with the diagram is the Flow of Why through one's life, with an emphasis on understanding the structure of motivation. Here, I redrew my diagram in a different shape, which might do a better job getting at what I was thinking even though it takes up more space in this form:

Image

How I see this as useful is that if you can visualize your goals and actions, you can quickly see if there is a strong or a weak connection between a goal you have and your purpose/identity. For example, it's *obvious* that "become an elite freeride mountain biker" has no logical connection to my Purpose/Identity, which let's shorthand for now as "Be a pioneer species in the process of human succession towards the post-industrial, climate-destabilized future". But "get some land and start a permaculture garden farm" absolutely fits that purpose, although many other goals would fit as well and that's not necessarily "the" right answer.

A weakness of this diagram is it's not showing how goals can be aligned with a purpose, but heterotelic to each other. e.g. If I had a goal of "run a permaculture farm" but also had a goal of "be an extinction rebellion activist willing to get arrested", those goals are at odds with each other because my veggies will rot while I'm sitting in the clink.

Boyd wrote that ~"What is needed is a vision, a Grand Narrative so compelling, so enticing, that it coheres action, pumps up friendly resolve, and drains enemy morale" (I'm paraphrasing). He was talking about at an organizational/political level, but imo it's fractal, and his Grand Narrative is what we're here calling Purpose/Identity/Vision. I suppose what this diagram and conversation is getting at is that Purpose and Identity are the source of both the logical rationale for one's actions as well as the motive force for accomplishing those actions. Thus, it is worthwhile to spend time and effort developing one's purpose and identity.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Hmm. This also informs what I was trying to say about dirtbagERE being driven by Stoke, using the sensation of Stoke to drive one's actions. A Stoke-forward approach is essentially saying "pay a lot of attention to the feeling/sensation of stoke, because stoke is connected to your purpose and identity". In other words, it's emphasizing coming at actions from a more subtle, soul-energy-led angle, rather than an intellectualized Purpose>goals>actions perspective.

There's some kind of voodoo magic going on in that line between Purpose/Identity and Motivation. It's entirely conceivable that I could construct some goals and actions that intellectually check out, but for whatever reason there's just No Stoke There. Maybe it turns out I just hate staring at vegetables all day, but doing extinction rebellion activism makes me giddy and I have a limitless supply of motivation for that. What I'm trying to say with dirtbagERE is that hey, you should pay attention to that feeling.

Rod Stryker's The Four Desires might be relevant here, to those who can stomach yogic philosophy packaged for westerners.

Edit: Ah! So there's an intellectual telicity check going from Actions up to Purpose/Identity, but then there should be a Stoke-check going from Actions>Motivation>PurposeandIdentity. One should do both checks, in the construction of a bomber system. Many people are inclined due to personality to favor one or the other. More personal power will accrue to those who can play in both directions.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by daylen »

Green usually responds better to words like "potential" or "consciousness" as opposed to "power". What appears to be a pattern is that the green to yellow transition at the individual-level starts to occur when many of these inversions arise in their own personal formop system (i.e. formal operational). The universality of the formop is broken down into particulars which can then be resurrected into various universes. This process typically involves a mapping between two of the mind enneagrams (5-vision, 6-sound, 7-taste). So, for instance, I mapped sound into vision with my (point,frame,agent) model, yet the meaning of such is highly particularized to thousands of different descriptors. 7w5 seems to have mapped sound into taste (or vice-versa).

This internalization then maps onto what Wilber calls "vision-logic" in the upper-left quadrant, I think. Going from upper-left to lower-left (i.e. "I" to "WE") then brings about the "centaur" which integrates mind with body. So the mapping between vision, sound, and taste is further mapped into (8-spine, 9-legs, 1-arms). The right-hand path or "IT" is all the while anchoring such interiors to exteriors via systems theory attached to a particular set of subject-object relations or 4, 3, and 2 in my version of the enneagram.

Though, take with a grain of sand as this is a mountain built out of just a few grains I stumbled upon.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jacob »

@daylen - IMHO "vision-logic" is a bad/misleading word(*). It's hard to tell whether I'm projecting (also constructing castles in the sand) but I've also seen it described as "network-logic" (I think by KW) which is much better. Network-logic is (projection warning again) a form of thinking (<- patterning) in lattice models instead of formal logic. (Formal logic is the land of binary deduction, and endless lists of fallacies.) Network-logic is inductive. It's also the source of the creative force---the useful kind of being able to intuit insights into reality. Teilhart/Schroedinger/Whitehead has that as a driving force of the universe---the whole idea where everything has varying degrees of consciousness.

(*) Except in the sense that vision allows one to sense entire structures simultaneously, so vision-logic is akin to how master chess players see positional patterns as opposed to "doing calculation" (aka analysis) which is formop. In that sense it's a good word, but it's otherwise rather misleading.

daylen
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by daylen »

@jacob Agreed. That would generalize better then to all three of mind enneagrams (vision, sound, and taste). Each being a different window into networks and their dynamics.

Though, such builds on formop. The inversions allow non-linear or cyclic movements across the network without tangles or apparent contradictions.

Deduction - universals to particulars

Induction - particulars to universals

Also category theory is itself a kind of networked-logic overlaying mathematics (i.e. in the minds of its users).

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

(Cross-posting from the travel thread:
I'm looking for a place to crash for one night on the Central Coast of California, around San Luis Obispo, this Wednesday August 25.
I'll be on my motorcycle with tent and sleeping gear, so, completely self-supported. If you're not cool with people coming inside your place, fine with me, I'll appreciate a back yard to put my tent up in. There aren't a lot of boondocking spots along my route that I could find (if anyone knows, hit me up!). I'll be coming from the direction of Bakersfield along 58 probably, through Paso, then up the 1 through Big Sur on the 26th.

Also I'm going to be riding from ~the Bay to ~North Eastern Oregon starting on August 31st. Route tbd, I'm leaning towards just going up the coast and cutting over at Eugene perhaps. If anyone along that route wants to meet up, or if anyone wants to ride with me, PM me. :)
)

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

In somewhat similar models Truth/Belief/Core Values might be placed above Purpose/Vision/Identity. For example, your described purpose would obviously collapse without belief in impending ecological crisis AND caring about outcome.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by classical_Liberal »

@7WB5
Right. This also somewhat jives with the idea of inductive reasoning in Jacobs comment.

How can one define purpose without observation, experience, actions. Any purpose formed will, and should, change as life observations and experiences increase. Actions or goals that once seemed to jive may no longer do so as one inductively modifies their purpose and/or system related to that purpose. As such, change in motivational levels could very well be a symptom that those activates no longer mesh with overall purpose/vision. Or at least, are no longer apart the best known strategy towards the same purpose/vision.

OTOH, observed roadblocks in progress can sometimes create a false sense of "wrongness". We induct that our actions are not correct because we are observing limitations or failure. So the use of will power to "see over the next hill" makes sense here. Maybe all that's needed is the next "ah-ha" moment, or one level higher in a particular skill. The real problem when to use will power and how far to push it. Particularly if a person has a tendency to over/under use it, or has an innate excess or lack of it. Additional considerations are if one has been taught through cultural or psychological mechanisms that will using will power to push through is always laudable.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

As far as your brain is concerned “future you” is the same as “other person.” So maintaining a commitment to future you is the same as maintaining a commitment to another person, ergo it is a form of extrinsic motivation.

OTOH, being willful reeks of intrinsic motivation :lol: You aren’t thinking about future you in the same manner when actively attempting to construct ingenious contraption that will allow future you access to cookie jar as when you are attempting to not eat cookies for benefit of future you.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by daylen »

Willingness to contain yourself puts you on the knifes edge of powerful and powerless relative to that which is out of containment. Willpower is both the ultimate lever and the great divider. A decisive division can be hard to re-obfuscate and re-integrate.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Western Red Cedar »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sat Aug 21, 2021 10:38 am
Hmm. This also informs what I was trying to say about dirtbagERE being driven by Stoke, using the sensation of Stoke to drive one's actions. A Stoke-forward approach is essentially saying "pay a lot of attention to the feeling/sensation of stoke, because stoke is connected to your purpose and identity". In other words, it's emphasizing coming at actions from a more subtle, soul-energy-led angle, rather than an intellectualized Purpose>goals>actions perspective.
I like the idea of following your Stoke a lot, but I think combining it with your GTD system (or something similar) is probably very important. I'm sure you've come across many dirtbags who were pursing their Stoke, but got distracted by another bright, shiny possibility. Or maybe just kind of moved on when things got tough or they hit a plateau.

I think a lot of creatives make amazing art, but really struggle with monetizing it because that takes a very different skill set. Your GTD system seems like the bridge between Stoke, and holding oneself accountable to progress on the stuff that isn't quite as fun.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

I think that’s absolutely right WRC. What I’m playing with with the idea of dirtbagERE is emphasizing stoke as a motive force (rather than raw intellectualization, say), but that doesn’t get anyone off the hook from being organized, working hard, and being disciplined.

I feel like a great many in the FIRE and adjacent movements have gotten burned hard in their bs jobs. Since “working hard” and “being organized” are associated with bs jobs, they often get lumped in and thrown out with the bath water. Collateral damage, guilty by association. I think this is a mistake. Maybe I’m still suffering some kind of corporate Stockholm syndrome, but I still pretty firmly believe that everything good that I want is on the far side of hard work. And, when not corrupted by the application of extrinsic motivational factors like salary, titles, office politics, the joneses, etc, working hard on something is *intrinsically enjoyable*.

Depending on how deeply stuck in the goo of w*rk you are/were, it’s going to take effort to purify your relationship with organization and effort. I’m feeling that now. This solo time has kinda sucked for me… environmental factors made it difficult to do the projects I was interested in and easy to distract myself. Most days I only did a few hours of activity that I felt good about, and then several hours of, whatever, neutral time, and then a few hours of wasted time that I didn’t feel good about.

But I’ve had a few revelations about myself and how to organize my life so I don’t get sucked into these time wastes like this, and so that I remove even more of the things that I’m not stoked on and should just drop.

(Cal Newport had a relevant rant on his podcast, episode 113, starting at 1:05:00, that I’ve been thinking about over the past few days.)

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Is it hard work to figure out how to get the hogs to do the hard work of cleaning up and processing fallen apples for you? How would hard work inform your practice in relationship to dandelions (or lilies of the field) as you ascended Wheaton levels?

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Is it hard work to figure out how to get hogs to help me out? From where I’m at right now, I’d guess yes. Presumably there’s more to it than “buy hogs and point them at my apple trees”. Perhaps they need fences? Protection from predation? A source of water, I’m guessing. And what to do when they get pregnant? Maybe nothing, but I don’t know, and verifying how to be a responsible hog owner requires an input of work, which will be more efficient if I’m organized. I assume that once I’ve ascended the sigmoid curve far enough, the amount of work required from me to own hogs drops down to a low level. That’s the whole point: when I have and know nothing, I have to work hard to get to the point where I have and know things.

A common theme that attends homestead and eco village failure stories is that they didn’t know what they were doing, and so even though they were working hard, they weren’t working “smart” (or more accurately, they didn’t know enough to know how to effectively direct their hard work). Put another way, while they were willing to put in hard work, they missed doing the hard work of validating their plans and developing good strategy so that their hard physical labor could bear fruit.

I don’t know anything about dandelions or lilies of the field, but I think I get what you’re asking. My understanding of hard work is that you put in hard work as an investment, primarily in skill and knowledge, and in the future that hard work pays off in terms of easeful practice, learning how to subtly manipulate the flows of energy and materials around you so the amount of wattage you as a human have to output decreases over time while the flows from your system increase over time.

Learning how to not work hard is hard work. In my opinion, when divorced from the corrupting bs dysfunctions of corporate hustle culture, hard work is a joyful and inherently meaningful activity. I think “hard work” and “toil” are two very different things.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Gotcha. I noticed that Cal Newport writes about “deep work.” I guess I do hear “hard work” as synonym for “toil.”

Augusten Burroughs suggests that if/when you have to use will power to achieve a goal, it is either not really something you want or it may only be something you want to want. He mentions this in relationship to losing weight, but in my experience it also applies to other goals such as “starting a business” or “ending a relationship” with which I have mixed track record throughout my life. As Burroughs puts it, when you truly unreservedly want something, although the process still may not be easy, it definitely becomes more simple. You don’t have to tell yourself “just do it”, because you just do it.

Therefore, and I think this may be what you are getting at with your examination of stoke, some honest introspection on possible reservations may be indicated at junctures where you find yourself having to slap on brittle bandaid of “will power.”

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Yes! I feel that coming to a better understanding and *practice* of all this is my current main Lesson. In the past I’ve erred on the side of willpower, of just white knuckling through stuff without putting much effort in to examining if I should even be doing it or why it hurt so bad.

At the moment something that I don’t have figured out is this:
There are some *actions* that are intrinsically enjoyable. Whittling, archery, running, lifting, climbing, woodwork, motorcycling, tinkering with my spreadsheet, etc. I possess intrinsic motivation to do these things.

Then, going up a level, we examine “desired outcomes”. An equitable burn rate (lets say 1jafi). Comfortable shelter. An enjoyable employment at the viz studio that brings in >=2xCoL. Let’s say that these desired outcomes (goals) are “good”, meaning, I want them because I want them, not because of external rewards or shame narratives or anything else.

First question: is it accurate to say that I possess intrinsic motivation for these *outcomes*? Or does the term “intrinsic motivation” only apply to actions, like knitting? Maybe a better term is “desire”?

Because where I’m getting tripped up is when I have to do something that I don’t enjoy to achieve an outcome that I genuinely desire.



Well, I say that, but now I’m struggling to come up with examples. Every thing I think back to when I forced myself to do stuff I didn’t enjoy, I realize that my desire wasn’t pure/aligned. And if I’d listened to myself, I might have discovered that fact earlier. My struggles with the shipping container were indicative that the whole project was problematic, strategically.

And imagining “toil” in the pursuit of something I truly desire is maybe impossible. I look forward to digging the foundation trench for my straw bale house with a car axle (and I’ve done it before, so I’m not romanticizing it). I can already feel the calluses and the soreness and I can hardly wait.

I think where we’re getting at with this discussion is that putting effort ( :D ) into ensuring the things you do are either purely intrinsic (whittling) or the desired outcome is clear, pure, and strong, is very worth it. It’s possible I could have made my motivation for the container build stronger simply by listening to my feelings, understanding where they were coming from, and then modifying my perspective on the project. I’d gone into the project with one idea for it’s Why, and halfway through it became clear that that Why was dissolving. My motivation flagged in proportion to the realization that the Why was broken. But there were alternative Why’s that, had I taken the time to stop and intentionally developed and adopted them, I suspect my motivation would have renewed.

And this is one of the main and deep “duh” aspects of GTD. The whole point of the gtd principles is to get your mind empty of detritus so that you can be relaxed and alert, and most importantly, so that you have the space and freedom in your mind to really notice what it is that you should be doing with your time, including nothing. David Allen says this over and over again in different ways: the reason gtd doesn’t have a formal prioritization approach is because *that’s what your brain is for*. But we tend to clog it up (because we don’t have an external system we trust), and that prevents us from being able to *feel* what it is that is most important and true to us.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by classical_Liberal »

@AH
Good shit. I'm commenting generally, but use your examples only because it's your journal. This discussion goes far beyond your personal life and is not specific advice to you, just general thoughts.

My interpretation... You went into the container projected assuming you'd get
a)practical experience on a container build, and
b)partial ownership or usage agreement on the finished project.

When "b" seemed to dry up, a good chunk of the intrinsic motivation dried up. The observed finished outcome (via chronesthesia) changed.

I became I nurse because I wanted to be helpful to others and earn a stable income where, geographically, I was free to travel anywhere in the US. When "helping" was stunted through further corporatized healthcare into assembly lines, and I had the means to travel anywhere in the US without income, that which once intrinsically motivated me was gone or diluted.

This leads me to (re)consider, something I used to think a lot about. Process orientation vs outcome orientation. How do these mesh together to form true motivation, flow, or stoke? It seems to me, the more one is focused on outcome (like SMART goal achievement), the more ones motivation is subject to the whims of the potential outcome as information comes in through observation and experience.

Add to the above the sub category of exclusive and nonexclusive outcomes. An exclusive outcome of building the container mostly alone is that you learn to build out a container. A nonexclusive outcome, when you don't own the land or the container, is that you gain some ownership or usage interest in the completed project. IOW, some level of guarantee that energy spent gives you a desired outcome.

So, if we pick from process orientation motivations, or at least exclusive outcome based orientation, the odds that we lose our motivation and have to resort to will-power are greatly diminished. IOW, we would ask ourselves...Am I motivated toward something because I want to enjoy the process or want a specific outcome? Are the desired outcomes exclusive or nonexclusive to the energy I'm putting into the project/goal? If nonexclusive, would I still be willing to put in the energy if things go wrong? and, of course, being ERE. How does all of this impact everything else I have going on in my life? Because if a change in a nonexclusive outcome has an undesirable impact on the system, there's a problem.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I had the same thought about the "ownership" being key, because I had a quite similar spiral of lack of motivation working on projects with my "ex." It's just a must be acknowledged aspect of human nature that we are likely to bring something more to projects in which we hold something like equity than projects in which we don't, EVEN if we rationally believe that being paid by the hour or the piece is likely a better deal. Kind of like lack of meaning is what we are hoping to avoid when we indulge sunk cost fallacy.

Another problem might be determining the boundary between internal and external motivation. For instance, I still think of the effects of inflammatory bowel disease on my guts as being an external factor, but if the very short, close feedback loop persists, it is likely to change many decades stable aspects of my identity. I noticed that I care less about gathering and processing the little imperfect apples currently falling off of my tree, because I am feeling physiologically less interested in food.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by white belt »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Tue Aug 24, 2021 11:08 am
Is it hard work to figure out how to get hogs to help me out? From where I’m at right now, I’d guess yes. Presumably there’s more to it than “buy hogs and point them at my apple trees”. Perhaps they need fences? Protection from predation? A source of water, I’m guessing. And what to do when they get pregnant? Maybe nothing, but I don’t know, and verifying how to be a responsible hog owner requires an input of work, which will be more efficient if I’m organized. I assume that once I’ve ascended the sigmoid curve far enough, the amount of work required from me to own hogs drops down to a low level. That’s the whole point: when I have and know nothing, I have to work hard to get to the point where I have and know things.

A common theme that attends homestead and eco village failure stories is that they didn’t know what they were doing, and so even though they were working hard, they weren’t working “smart” (or more accurately, they didn’t know enough to know how to effectively direct their hard work). Put another way, while they were willing to put in hard work, they missed doing the hard work of validating their plans and developing good strategy so that their hard physical labor could bear fruit.
Another thing that comes to my mind is the section in the ERE book about strategy vs tactics. From what I remember, doing the right things is much more important than doing things right.

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