7WB5- Take 3

Where are you and where are you going?
7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I am stuck, but hoping to become unstuck. Random babble towards that objective to follow.

I vowed that I would commit to my urban perma-culture project, make it the tack on the map of my otherwise options-open lifestyle, until Harvest 2022, but this is proving to be far more difficult than I expected. Achieving financial independence, although details only roughly sketched in, would then fall into place antecedent.

Less than a year ago, I was in a great mood, and the whole project seemed to be going very well. Lately, I have almost sunk to "throw out the baby with the bathwater" level of functioning.

I was trying to recall my train of thought prior to series of unfortunate events (which I might have done a better job of predicting), and I remembered something that caused me to realize that Permaculture does not equal Homesteading focused on Trees and Perennials. Rather, it is a set of principles based on general systems theory applied to the creation of long-term-sustainable human-optimized eco-systems.

The essential problem is that my perma-culture project is not net "creating a yield" for me and/or "reducing input of limited renewable resource of my own human labor" at the moment, so my motivation is naturally crashing. The question is am I capable of summoning up enough human intelligence to solve this problem?

If I attempt to un-knit this mess back to my first errors in judgment or failures to follow recommended practice, I would say that planting my project in place I planned to live, rather than where I actually woke up most mornings was #1 FAIL, and #2 FAIL would be committing to this project at juncture where I had just undergone major shattering relationship break-up, and was therefore in pessimistic mode when considering my desire to wake up in bed with somebody else most mornings. IOW, beyond failure to read full code relating to the possibility of dwelling in camper upon my garden-space, I did not place adequate weight upon the low probability of ever finding an attractive male peer willing to occupy a camper in a rough neighborhood with me.

Also, my personality type which is relatively high in adult feminine and youthful masculine energy and relatively low in adult masculine and youthful feminine energy, keeps me always on the verge of wanting to settle down in a cozy cottage vs. go off on a novel adventure. Therefore, if I could reduce perma-culture to a minimalist patterned skill-set which I could carry light-packed with me anywhere AND also achieve the converse, that would be my impossible ideal.

For instance, imagine the difficulties inherent in solving the challenge of waking up anywhere on any given morning and then being able to forage/maintain your daily necessities within range accessible if barefoot and in pajamas (Zone 1.) Pretty much the only way this is possible in the modern world/current economy is through a process/practice involving some combination of scavenging and "mooching" off of the waste flow of other humans, because almost every resource on the planet is owned by a human or a group of humans. Since there is a great deal of waste generation, this is usually the lowest resource use solution, but most will prefer a solution that also involves some level of value.creation/production. For instance, eating out of dumpsters and sharing a bed with a lonely stranger who is already paying for his hotel room, uses fewer resources/inputs than growing potatoes on your own land and sleeping in a tiny house you built with your boyfriend, but most would view the latter as preferable. Also, argument could be made that skills obtained in process of creating latter lifestyle will likely be of more value if you are still alive post-scavenger-era, and it is already too late to hope for conservationist solution.

However, it seems to me that it isn't always easy to recognize what constitutes a neither fish nor fowl ridiculous half-way measure sort of solution. For instance, somebody hauling their Zone 1 garden space behind them on a soil-laden trailer hitched to their van-dwelling.

slowtraveler
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by slowtraveler »

I feel your pain.

I've been gardening for nearly a decade now and feel over it. Aside from tomatoes and cucumbers, it's all been more work and less reward than I predicted.

It's okay for experience to change plans when it's clear that thoughts about what it'd be like != reality and the rewards aren't what they were previously perceived to be.

7Wannabe5
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Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Felipe:

The garden itself is no problem. The project is going very well. Almost throbbing with abundance. My problems mostly have to do with the humans within vicinity of the garden. My currently bat-shit sister being #1 problem. She is in jail again for violating the terms of her breatholizer-tether parole. So, now I have to take care of her dogs for the next 5 days, even though she changed the locks on the apartment because she decided that I was one of her enemies in her state of paranoid delusion. I had to roll into the apartment through a window.

My BF is going to buy my camper for what I paid for it last year, because he shopped around a bit and decided that I got a good deal. We both decided we felt more comfortable with making an official transfer of title type deal rather than just bundling his land with my camper with no clear boundaries. I am feeling very tempted to sell the garden-space to either the Permaculture Manager (my former lover who has been helping me with the project) or the guy who owns the 3rd lot adjoining and previously indicated that he was interested. I would probably let the Permaculture Manager have it for just my cost plus a trifle to cover what I invested in trees/shrubs/vines. I would expect to make more of a profit if I sell to my neighbor. So, I would end up just having to eat my sweat equity, and I guess I could write it off as fair trade for skills gained. Like the experience has been my own little self-study perma-culture design course. I really have learned a lot.

The current situation with my sister has me in an odd emotional state because (I counted) this is not the first, the second, or the 5th time that I have had to be the designated driver when a close family member or SO suffered a severe psychiatric break-down. This is at least the 10th time. I am as empty as some soldier who has watched 10 comrades get blown up next to him. It's like my own personal slow-motion zombie apocalypse. And I just want to get the f*ck out of Dodge ASAP.

sky
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by sky »

I recommend transitioning to a mobile existence, at least for a few months. A slow bicycle camping tour in the direction of cool weather might be appropriate. Your garden will be there when you return.

I approached the food strategy by simplifying my diet to oats-raisins-walnuts and fruit in the morning and beans-cabbage-tortillas and fruit for lunch and dinner. I also eat a variety of other things but those make up 50% to 75% of my diet. I am growing some berries and tomatoes but my own production is not a big part of my diet.

Sarouel
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by Sarouel »

Sorry for your sister's illness.

You sound really frustrated in your post, but is it really the garden that bothering you?
Are you living in the Dodge, or do you have other possibilities?
Is there any possibility to give up your garden, but stay in the permaculture world, like help your former lover and get paid in vegetables?

Smashter
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by Smashter »

@Sarouel "get out of Dodge" is just a phrase meaning "get out of town." (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/get_out_of_Dodge)

@7, dealing with that many psychotic breakdowns sounds like a nightmare. Glad you're stepping away.

I know this is dark, but do you think your sister can be rehabilitated? Is she a lost cause? I ask because I wonder the same thing about my mother sometimes. How do you know when to give up hope?

The book "Algorithms to Live By" provided me with an interesting approach to tackling all that.

They describe an algorithm called "Exponential Backoff" and how it helped speed up the early internet. In essence, this just means that if a transmission fails, you increase the average delay before trying to send another message. (networking masters, please don't yell at me for that simplification)

"Beyond just collision avoidance, Exponential Backoff has become the default way of handling almost all cases of networking failure or unreliability."

They continue on to describe how this idea helped a friend of theirs deal with a tough problem (that might sound all too familiar) -- whether to offer shelter and financial assistance to a family member with a history of drug addiction.

"She couldn't bear to give up hope that he would turn things around, and couldn't bear the thought of turning her back on him for good. But she also couldn't bring herself to do all that it required to have him in her house, when at some mysterious and abrupt moment he would take all the money and disappear, only to call again several weeks later and ask to be forgiven."

"Exponential Backoff isn't a magic panacea in cases like this, but it does offer a possible way forward. Requiring an exponentially increasing period of sobriety, for instance, would offer a disincentive to violate the house rules again. It would make the family member prove every more assiduously that he was serious about getting better, and would protect the host from the otherwise continuous stress of the cycle. Perhaps most importantly, the host would never have to tell her relative that she'd given up on him for good or that he was beyond redemption. It offers a way to have finite patience and infinite mercy. Maybe we don't have to choose."

I've been trying to apply some of these principles to my situation and find it soothing. Best of luck with everything.

Jason

Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by Jason »

My mother is batshit crazy. After years of emotional and mental abuse, I left her to fend for herself. I should have crawled for the hills the second the doctor yanked me out of her, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20.

Taking care of the mentally ill is one of two things: (1) a profession for which you are trained and get paid (2) a slow suicide confused for altruism/empathy/love/feelings of personal responsibility.

I vote for cut and run.

Same with the garden. Sunken cost fallacy is self-perpetuating quicksand.

As they say, pick up your mats and move on.

Addendum:

Ricky Nelson knows about failed garden events (Madison Square in his instance) and how to move on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAHR7_VZdRw

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Sarouel:

"Get outta Dodge" is urban slang based on frequent use of phrase by the Marshall on the television series "Gunsmoke." I was referencing it due to another Wild West movie phrase "There ain't enough room in this town for the two of us." However, I did do a brief experiment with living in my camper recently, so it makes sense that you thought that maybe I was living in a Dodge Caravan. The funny thing is that you likely unconsciously did me a service. The old lady who lives next door to the apartment I shared with my sister, before she went crazy and kicked/locked me out, helped me get into the window yesterday, and she told me that I should have said "No. You get out!" to my sister. Wimp-o-rama. Always fleeing instead of fighting. Can't "Marshall" my internal forces. Weak in adult masculine energy.

Anyways, I can't leave the permaculture world for the same reason I can't leave the calculus world. I would have to excise part of my brain in order to do that. I could spend the rest of my life writing public service ad copy for the petroleum fracking industry and just putting coins in a vending machine to feed myself, but I would still be thinking in terms of permaculture. I wouldn't be thinking that the Petroleum and Cheetos just magically appeared here and there like the candy Santa put in my stocking.

The problem is that I am currently residing 45 minutes by car away from my garden, and maintaining a garden at that distance is probably much worse than eating processed food out of a vending machine in terms of resource waste. The amount of money I am spending in order to transport myself back and forth just to do simple maintenance is evidence of this. But, I am loathe to resume residence closer to my garden, because I want to avoid having to take responsibility or authority over the gigantic disaster my sister is creating, and I doubt I will be able to avoid it if I am nearby. Pretty much it is like if a dog you owned went rabid and was wandering around loose in the vicinity of your homestead.

NOTE: I typed most of this before quickly reading additional posts from Smashter and Jason. Thanks and I will reply when I return from regaling my poor DS28 with the details of the most recent shit-storm over lunch.

Jason

Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by Jason »

Hold it - are you a dude?

If so, this sibling relationship is kind of Games Of Thronish, no?

enigmaT120
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by enigmaT120 »

She's definitely a woman.

slowtraveler
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by slowtraveler »

Why don't you just abandon your garden? Compost piles will be processed, any plants without a drip system will die unless they're natives. Doesn't sound like it's worth your peace of mind. If the plants can't be left, transplant any favorites to your new home or bring a cutting to let them grow into their new space.

It sounds like your body is screaming for some distance from her.

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jennypenny
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by jennypenny »

You need BF and you need some space. The permaculture part is who you are not where you are, so move on and 'bloom where you're planted' as they say.

Jason

Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by Jason »

enigmaT120 wrote:
Wed Jul 19, 2017 2:10 pm
She's definitely a woman.
Phew.

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Smashter:

I read the first chapter or two of "Algorithms to Live By" last week, but didn't get to exponential backoff. Sounds like a reasonable plan. The complication in the case of my sister is that she is also a 2x cancer survivor. She has always been pretty borderline, mostly tending towards major depression, but now it is combined with an arm long list of pharmaceuticals and jumbo variety pack of self-medication. She has become completely paranoid delusional, and when she drinks it is like the alcohol attaches a loudspeaker to her insanity. She is also 50 years old, so the question of whether she can be rehabilitated might be more accurately, sadly rephrased as something like "Is it possible that her brain is the part of her body that has been rendered most fragile and likely to fail?"

@Jason:

My mother is also mentally ill (bi-polar 2.) I am a wee bit cyclothymic myself. I'm not a dude, my E-Z model assigns psychological tasks such as "enact and maintain sturdy boundaries" to the Adult-Masculine-Quadrant.

I did a pretty good job of boundary maintenance today. My sister called from jail while I was at lunch with my son, and she started right off on a diatribe about how it was my fault she was in jail because I told a police officer that she was an alcoholic, and why haven't I done everything she wants me to do while she is in jail, and I just said "You have two choices. Either you act like somebody who wants to get the sort of help I am willing to offer, or I hang up the phone right now." Twenty seconds of silence, and then she calmed down and we had a reasonable discussion to the extent that you can have a reasonable discussion with somebody who is delusional. I also arranged for a neighbor to take care of the dogs.

@sky and Felipe:

I can't just ride off into the sunset without making arrangements for the care of the garden because it rains enough in Michigan that everything will keep growing without my presence (ironically, even much better than average because of the way my beds are designed to be water retaining), and I will likely end up in violation of the 5 Inch Weed Ordinance or be cited for not shoveling the sidewalks if I am gone in the winter. So, absentee carrying costs might be something like $40/month paid to some responsible kid. Not a huge deal, so likely I will make some arrangements along these lines rather than outright selling right away.

@jennypenny:

I don't know if it is so much that I need BF, more like "the pattern I have observed in myself is that I almost always seem to have a BF, so perhaps I should make plans for future-me with that in mind." OTOH, "space" does seem like a definite NEED at the moment.

classical_Liberal
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by classical_Liberal »

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Last edited by classical_Liberal on Thu Feb 04, 2021 11:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

7Wannabe5
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@classical_Liberal:

I like your suggestion because a "fresh slate" always cheers me up, but I will have to ponder a bit to figure out how what you are suggesting would result in a different answer or plan than what I have already been doing.

I know that I am easily distracted, and I don't have endless time remaining to do all the things that I want to do. That is why I decided to divide my remaining life up into 7 year (long time for me, but not endless) chunks. The primary objective of this chunk (2015-2022, 50-57) was supposed to be "complete major tangible creative project" and "achieve FI." I was not supposed to make solid commitments for any future time-chunks/life-skins, but I had some rough notion of one primarily devoted to travel-with-objectives (64-71?) and one primarily devoted to writing gardening essays from a position of wisdom I have not yet attained (78-85?) Lately I have been thinking that maybe I would try marriage again when I am 57, but I don't know if I could find somebody agreeable and attractive enough, but maybe I will focus on tantric sex from 57-64 instead. If I make it past 85, and my maybe-future-husband is dead, I will probably spend my last years eating all the pastry I want, and sculpting large male nudes based on memory. Maybe 71-78 will be my prime grand-parenting years, if I have any grand-children. Something like that anyways. The fact that tantric sex and eating all the pastry I want are mutually exclusive has already been accounted for, and my grandchildren can travel and/or garden with me.

Jason

Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by Jason »

I've never had tantric sex. It seems like something for which you need to be highly flexible, which I am not. I am in pretty much in shape but I don't bend. When I die, rigor mortis won't be too much of a change.I also haven't had it because its something that Sting is always talking about and I hate Sting. I like The Police but I hate Sting. Its hard to explain. Some people are easier to like within a group setting, others outside a group setting. I liked Sting when he was around other people and I didn't realize what an insufferable, tantric sex loving douchebag he really was. He wouldn't stand up for Paul McCartney when everyone else was giving him a standing ovation. I'm not a huge Paul McCartney fan either but I would stand up for the guy, especially if everyone else was. I just don't understand the guy's taste in women. I mean you are a billionaire and you marry a gold digging one legged chick? What's with that. Ringo had hotter chicks and he's the dopey looking drummer.

slowtraveler
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Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by slowtraveler »

"The fact that tantric sex and eating all the pastry I want are mutually exclusive"

Citation needed. This is not inline with my experience.

7Wannabe5
Posts: 9372
Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Jason:

Agree. I also don't like Eddie Vedder or Bono.

@Felipe:

Okay, maybe not pure mutual exclusivity, but IME, shibari and a belly full of cherry cheese danish do not mix well. I think I lost around 25 lbs. the first 3 months I was in training. I typed "tantric", but I really mean something closer to S&M, but more ambient and less rigid, with some aspects of ecstatic union, but more sense of humor.

7Wannabe5
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Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2013 9:03 am

Re: 7WB5- Take 3

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Okay, that line of thought managed to distract me for a couple hours. I really have nothing tying me down, and I do have a mixed bag of skills/experience/credentials that ought to at least garner me something like 2x minimum wage just about anywhere I plant myself next.

To Do List

1) Arrange for garden-space caretaker.

2) Friend-zone current BF (over-due move.)

3) Seek lucrative employment/ inexpensive housing in new locale.

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