Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Where are you and where are you going?
Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

I recall being a teenager and watching the Talking Heads video "Once In A Lifetime" and having a vague notion about what David Byrne was singing about. Thanks to Suo, I now possess a very deep understanding.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 5:24 am
In order to experience appreciation for the sameness of everyday life, it may be necessary to experience some lower lows to balance your higher highs. But, how can you functionally (or non-dysfunctionally) choose to do this as an affluent member of an affluent society?
Well, this is just it, right? Over the last couple of years as I've focused on this, it was my therapist who first pointed out to the blind me that "you talk like you're a victim of your life, like you didn't create it, like someone else did, but this life that YOU created is pretty damn good." I kept thinking that life could be so much better...but I just didn't have that perspective that it could be so much worse. First world problems. I mean, we've had some rough goes of it (4 month premature baby is not fun), but all in all, by almost any measure, I am living a charmed life. I have no desire to blow up this life or escape from it, fantasies notwithstanding. I'm just trying to figure out how to enjoy it for what it is here and now.

@jacob That's a nice distinguishing list. I am definitely "stuck" in job mode and I don't know how I feel about it. Part of me wants to be in inspired/mission mode. It would provide meaning and inspiration and a sense of (self-?)importance - all good, affirming things. But the other part of me doesn't want my life, my energy, my identity all tied up in one thing. I am naturally broad and shallow in terms of interests, skills and abilities. I like to learn new things just to the point of being able to do it sufficiently and then I get bored. That type of personality doesn't fit well within this society's structures. Career mode just seems stupid if you're not inspired.

@jace that's a fucked up video

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

suomalainen wrote:
Sun Sep 16, 2018 8:35 am
but this life that YOU created is pretty damn good."
That's interesting in light of what my therapist would say. He would definitely agree with the idea of agency - that you have the ability to both create and change. I'm not sure about the second part where the therapist qualifies your life as "Pretty damn good". I think he would address things in terms of value. That your life has value and the life you created has value and you need to look at things through that rubric as opposed to a subjective, malleable and ultimately elusive lens focused on quality of life. So maybe it would be "but this life that YOU created is pretty damn valuable." Who knows. Maybe that's what he meant. At the end of the day they are all quacking shit out of their asses. Thank God my wife's insurance covers most of it.

The video is fucked up. Because he's fucked up. I love Swamp Thing though. But if you just read the words, it seems to be your blog in new wave form.

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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by jacob »

Price is what you pay, value is what you get...

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

I think that's why the linguistic distinction is useful in therapeutic settings. "You have a good life" implies externalities and scaling. "You have value" means that Suo can still feel good about himself while his wife berates him for watching John Oliver.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

Couple things:

1) Some (much?) of my heightened anxiety over the last few years is related to poor stress management and the poor narrative I construct around it. I have been working on new strategies to deal with stressors/triggers and/or to practice "reframing". To wit:
  1. At work, I've taken to hiding in the newly refurbished cafeteria to eat my lunch rather than my office. It provides a change of scenery and I can look out at the green expanse outside the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall cafeteria windows. I also have been listening to music or audio books during lunch, which provides a bit of a mental refresh during the day.
  2. At work, I try not to get too caught up in my perfectionistic tendencies. So much work is done at a "good enough" level, whether due to the average worker's abilities, motivation or otherwise. There's no point in worrying about the gap between the ideal and the real, especially at Megacorp, where waste is just the cost of doing business. I should temper my expectations of others while also not getting wound up when I am unable to do something to my best level. In other words, I can view this reality with more kindness and less sarcasm and snark.
  3. At work and home, I'm trying to be better about not looking at the daily news as much as I used to. All it does is stir up anxiety with no real accompanying benefit. The world is not ending; it will go on with new challenges; the old challenges weren't "the good old days".
  4. At home, we've agreed on a new strategy to balance schoolwork and gaming. The oldest proposed the mechanics, riffing off something we tried last year that had way too much friction. His proposal, as slightly tweaked by me, is that we check his grades every Sunday. For every A, he gets 2 hours of game time during the following week; 1 hour for a B; -1 hour for a C; -2 hours for a D; and a total zeroing for any F. This provides him a maximum 12 hours a week. This has worked great. He owns his homework time and is motivated to do it; he owns his game time and plays it when he will. I am no longer in the homework/screen-time micromanagement business. This was a HUGE source of stress. I didn't quite realize how much until I saw him taking ownership of his education and responsibly managing his screen-time.
  5. At home, wife is now in charge of pretty much all of the discretionary family budget. *I* ask *her* for the few things I want^^ rather than *her* asking *me* for (forgiveness for) the plethora of things she buys (mostly for the family). I am no longer in the family budget micromanagement business. Actual text from my love during September:
    It's cold but I don't want to turn on the heat. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME?! :shock: :lol: :D
    The role reversal has manifested itself in a number of other decisions and conversations. I find it quite amusing. But the best part is how psychologically freeing it feels.

    ^^ I guess it helps that if she says "no", I can still get it - it just comes out of my savings instead of her budget. For September, it was just $75 or so on one fancy beer-run. Speaking of which, I've cut back on alcohol consumption for liver-health, weight-loss and budget reasons.
It's amazing what happens when authority and responsibility is shifted to the appropriate person. Bifurcating authority and responsibility is such a dumbfuck move. I wonder why it took so long to figure this out?

2) I've been feeling weird. Like, the days just blend together and there's not much to really recommend them, but also not much to complain about. And it's that latter thing that has me a little weirded out. Like there's this niggling suspicion or feeling that I've given up or I'm being institutionalized or that (a grand) life is passing me by. It's just so...NORMAL. And I'm just so...FINE WITH IT. What happened to my grand aspirations? What happened to my complaining?!

3) My oldest has been given a free pass from church for a month and we've taken that time to go to "daddy church" (i.e., play outside). It's been nice to have that 1-on-1 time with my oldest to run on the track and play disc golf on Sunday mornings. I am, however, missing the few hours a week I had when it's quiet and when I can be by myself. With a job and a family of 5, quiet alone time is exceedingly rare.

4) I raised the specter of going to 80% work with my boss, who didn't throw up on it. Of course, I framed it as "my wife is thinking of going back to school and/or work, and I've got 3 busy kids..." I didn't have the balls to just say "Yeah, I don't want to work full-time any more." Wife is only barely thinking of going to school/work, so it was a little ambitious to use that as my excuse. Nevertheless, seed planted; maybe I can reap in the next year or so. I do worry about losing some...something...job security?...sense of being needed (maybe solely as it relates to job security, but perhaps also psychologically as well)?...I dunno. I'm sure it would be an adjustment, but it would work out fine. A friend of mine does warn me that "you'll work just as much, but get paid 20% less, don't do it".

classical_Liberal
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by classical_Liberal »

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Last edited by classical_Liberal on Fri Feb 05, 2021 12:46 am, edited 1 time in total.

suomalainen
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September

Post by suomalainen »

Family/Budget

Our little experiment was a success. In September, our total outlay was $4,232.80, which is the lowest September we've had since 2014. Excluding some items that fell into my budget (alcohol, monthly braces payment), wifey was somewhere in the $3700 range (out of a $5k budget). TTM expenses have been trending down all year, so that is very nice to see. And the best part of the whole thing is that so far there has been zero resentment and I would even go so far as to say I have been pleasantly shocked to see wifey embrace the new paradigm with much more self-motivated gusto than I could ever have imagined.

And I've been tracking a new measure: TTM dividends/expenses = 14.13%. This only counts dividends in the taxable personal account (so no HSA, 401k or Roth IRA), and if it ever reaches 100%...well, that would be fantastic. Not going to happen, but since I'm likely working for at least the next 9 years anyway, it's a bit more of a meaningful (or playful?) measure than simply tracking NW or expenses or the ratio of the two.

Other

- Tryna lose weight again. Last week average: 238.4. Started IF with basically just 1 meal a day (dinner). Couldn't bring myself to do keto again. Just too hard with 4 other people here who are always eating carbs. Experiencing some metatarsalgia for the past almost 2 weeks now, so I've had to lay off the running for a bit. Apparently keeping up with walking hasn't helped, so going to be pretty lazy for a few days to see if that finally gives the foot a break.

- Stress management is working well. I continue to practice letting go when I can and reframing when I can't and that has been working well. I'm definitely the most content I've been in a long while. Here's to hoping that continues and that no bad shit pops up.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by ThisDinosaur »

Say some more about the Family/Budget Experiment, if you dont mind. You're putting her in charge of mortgage, utilities, groceries..etc? Everything but health insurance and alcohol?

Were you giving her any kind of fixed allowance or something before this?

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

Well, let's see. When I graduated law school, we had student loans, two car loans and about a year later a mortgage. I maxed out the 401k, but everything else was spent. That resulted in about $2000 of "discretionary spending" after fixed expenses so I told her she had to stay under $2000 since we ran out of money at that point. We didn't go bankrupt. As we paid off loans, the old payment was rolled into other debt, so lifestyle inflation was kept to a minimum. Things were tight, but manageable. The $2000 number was after "fixed" expenses (debt, utilities, monthly charges like cable, etc), and was a rough number of what she could spend on the credit card every month at target, trader joes, costco, walmart, michaels, grocery stores and the like. I kept track on a spreadsheet, but the categories were fairly loose. We also set aside $200/month on travel and $200/month on "house" and I think it was $150 each in "allowance" accounts for each of us in separate sub-accounts (I have a great credit union with very nice digital capabilities). This was our compromise so she could "waste" money on house stuff and I could waste money on travel stuff and we could each spend whatever we wanted on personal stuff without accounting to the other for it. I would then manually move money from the relevant account to the checking account when those expenditures occurred.

We basically kept the same $72,000/year budget for at least 2010-2015 and probably before that (although I don't have the records for those years). In early 2016, I got my personal injury settlement (hit by car while riding my bicycle in 2014). With that and a bonus, we paid off the last of my private student loans and our mortgage. There was nothing to "roll" the old payments into, so I stopped paying attention. Our $72,000/year budget ballooned to something like $85,000 in 2016 and $103,000 in 2017, mostly in extra home improvement and travel expenses, but monthly expenses also increased. I started to get a little...uncomfortable and started talking about her cutting back on spending, freaking out about purchases here and there. Eventually in the summer, she said "just give me a number for the summer", so I did, and she stayed within that number. There was more drama to it and you can read about it earlier in my journal. Anyway, then in August we came up with this current arrangement.

The current arrangement is back to a $72,000/year budget, and the rest goes to after-tax retirement savings. The way we bifurcated it was that she covers everything except debt payments (one more student loan at 1.875% fixed rate, so not paying it off), property taxes and health stuff (basically braces or any surprise health expenses that come up). Local property taxes, the final student loan and health stuff aggregate about $1000/month. This means she gets $5000/month to cover everything that our entire budget used to cover, but she's in charge of all of it. She gets a veto over every expenditure. So, travel and my allowance are now in her control. If I want to spend something and she says "no", it has to come out of my savings. It is understood that my alcohol and any travel I do by myself (not family vacations) comes out of savings.

Long story short, I guess, is that she had a couple of numbers to work with previously ($200 house budget, $150 allowance budget and $2000 discretionary budget), but that fell away for a couple of years and was a lot of work to follow when we used it anyway. Then we had no arrangement for 2 years and things fell apart. Then we had some vague discomfort/tension for about 5-6 months. Then we had a summer budget. Then we had this new all-inclusive budget. Does that make sense? Wife's outta town for a week visiting her sister out west, so I'm a little tipsy right now while the kids are playing video games. We actually had this bet/arrangement that I love making. This time the vehicle was a game of Yatzee. If I won, they had to read scriptures for 3 hours (not that I wanted them to do this, but it was a fun cost on their part); if any of the three of them won, they could play video games for 3 hours tonight. It was close, and I was nervous for a bit that I might actually win, but in the end DS2 won by quite a bit and DS3 beat me by a few points also.

suomalainen
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October

Post by suomalainen »

Wife and I went on a "normal" trip to Scotland. It was the first international trip that we've done just the two of us since before the kids were born. We actually didn't really do any "just the two of us" trips for the first call-it 10 years - just too much anxiety leaving one or more young children under the age of 5. We have done some short trips the last four/five years, but this was the first week-long, long distance trip. And it was fantastic. I'm not much for travelogues, but in brief, first of all, Scotland is just beautiful, no matter where you look. Edinburgh was old town beautiful, and we did the normal touristy things of hiking the local hill and visiting the old castle and wandering around. I was surprised at just how many tourists there were from everywhere. I caught some German, Spanish, Portuguese, English, Polish, Chinese, French and even Finnish accents/languages as we walked along. We rented a car and drove the scenic route through Cairngorms National Park, with dozens of stunning mountain vistas, including a short hike to stretch the legs. On our way to the Isle of Skye, we drove along some lochs with their stunning vistas. And then the Isle of Skye had its stunning vistas and cute little towns like Portree. While we hiked the Old Man of Storr a fighter jet flew directly overhead and banked right above us, not more than 1000 feet above us while we were near the top of the trail. It scared the shit out of us, it came so fast, so unexpectedly and so loudly. And finally we drove to the pleasure of hobbit vistas outside of Inverness. No matter where we looked, it was just stunningly beautiful.

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what made the trip so great, but wife and I agree at least a couple of things contributed: the beauty, no kids, no job, losing track of time/days, a complete break from the every day. It was very refreshing. It was nice to have my wife back, even if just for a week; she's rather been "the mother of my children" for 99% of the time the last 14 years. When I was in college, I read a study about submariners' families. Submariners have a very high divorce rate and this study looked at who gets divorced and why. What they determined was that the families who had two different modes of living - one with dad at home and one with dad deployed, AND who could shift more easily between the two modes were the more successful families. I am not good at shifting. Coming back from this vacation to real life was HARD.

When I got back some things had changed at the old firm and I was offered a job. This time, I turned it down without much sturm und drang, given the satisfaction I currently feel with my life. And I had a thought today: it's not that I have exactly what I want in my life - I don't; rather, it's that I want what I have. The things I want that I don't have have just faded into the background somehow. I don't know what changed. Or rather, I don't know how it changed. Maybe I ran all my what-could-be leads to ground and, having burned up all my hope, I have accepted what is. Certainly some of it has come from my recent achievements with eschewing stress and its generators, but whatever else it is, it's nice.

I also have a phone interview on Monday for a position with another asset manager that is listed as located in Chicago or Charlotte, but the recruiter made it sound like other locations or even remote working could be in play. We shall see how that goes.

Weight is at 237.2, down about a pound, but my foot is still feeling pain. TTM div/exp ratio is at 14.3%, up a little bit. I know dividend investing for me is tax inefficient, but I have to say, I really enjoy getting those little deposits psychologically. The tax is hidden but the psychological boost is tangible. Since I'm not making any changes, I suppose that means I think it's worth it. October expenses were above $9,000, inclusive of $1500 of travel and $3000 prepaid annual martial arts expenses for two kids. So regular expenses of around $4500 and if you amortize the martial arts and travel spend, it was about $4900, just under budget.

My day trading experiment in the HSA went well, but I burned out on it. Just another thing to keep in (my overtaxed) mind. At some point, I'll liquidate the current trades I have on and will switch it more to a permanent portfolio, but without the gold. I will likely change asset allocations from time to time and may do specific trades if they strike me, but I will no longer keep a constant eye (and piece of my brain) on the market for a trade. On a larger scale, my taxable account is down 6%, but that's ok. I'm structurally long, so declines now are much better for me.

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

Glad you had a nice trip. We've been watching the BBC detective show "Shetland" and are always commenting on how beautiful it is.

Interesting note on submariners. Although why anyone would want to work in one those things is beyond me. It's not so hard to figure why they are getting divorced all the time but why anyone would marry a person who works in a submarine in the first place. Although I'm guess this is where JLF responds with his " personal three month submarine apprenticeship anecdote and how it taught him how to think clearly while underwater analogy." I've never heard someone come back from a submarine trip and say "I had a great time on a submarine. You need to try it." Is there even a tourist submarine industry? I mean where is the reward to that risk? Ok, you didn't get torpedoed, it didn't spring a leak, the guy sleeping in the hammock above you didn't fart in your face all night. But where's the good part in all of it? You got to use the periscope to perv on some girl sunbathing on a cruise liner? You saw a couple of octopuses or other sea type of creatures? That constant sonar beeping alone would drive me nuts. I know Paul Allen had a few submarines follow his yacht around but he recently died so those guys are most likely out of jobs. Have to be honest, whole submarine thing confounds me.

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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by jacob »

Ha! Nords from https://the-military-guide.com/ is actually a non-divorced ex-submariner and also one of the FIRE OGs.

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

I knew something was coming.

suomalainen
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Rumination, Release, Perspective, Gratitude

Post by suomalainen »

A few things to tie together:

1)
suomalainen wrote:
Fri Aug 11, 2017 4:30 pm
I am, however, trying to move on from perpetual rumination (self-flagellation as you would put it) to just doing the fucking thing that I intellectually know is "correct". There's a chasm between knowledge and experience...
suomalainen wrote:
Tue Jun 26, 2018 9:33 pm
"...Research suggests that self-compassion is strongly related to psychological wellbeing, including increased happiness, optimism, personal initiative, and connectedness, as well as decreased anxiety, depression, neurotic perfectionism, and rumination.”

"When your mind has wandered to negative events, and is replaying them ad nauseum, it helps to know that it’s trying to make sense of the past so it can finally put it aside. Except of course, it’s struggling."
2)
In fact, one of the take-home lessons of Buddhist philosophy is that feelings just are. If we accepted their arising and subsiding as part of life, rather than reacting to them as if they were deeply meaningful, we’d often be better off. Learning to do that is a big part of what mindfulness meditation is about.

From Page 27 of Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright.
3)
I've been in the habit of ruminating about feelings that arise, trying to find out what such feelings "meant", or perhaps "Meant" (a thing that God was trying to convey to me). Obviously, such feelings always Meant that something in my life had to change, that something wasn't right, and I was the lone poor bloke who couldn't figure out what was likely obvious to everyone else. But I was wrong about feelings. Feelings just are; they don't necessarily Mean anything. If ruminating on the (non-existent) Meaning of feelings puts me in a negative psychological state, a turn towards happiness doesn't require teasing out some Meaning or Truth from an ambiguous feeling and making big or complicated changes. The first step is as easy as turning away from ruminating about the Meaning of feelings.

You can embrace that you're feeling badly about this thing over here. Maybe you decide to make a change to that one thing, maybe not. Either way, after you have examined the negative feeling for a while, you can release that emotion, look around you or out the window, and feel goodly about some of the good things that you are currently experiencing, including, at its most basic, the fact that you are not surrounded by war or famine or crime (assuming those things are true). Everything above and beyond that is gravy, from the perspective of most of humanity through the ages. We live like gods, and we don't even know it.

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

RE: Self-compassion. My therapist often opens up our sessions with "So, have you been kinder to yourself this past week." He tries to do it with a straight face even though he knows I'm going to tell him to shut his douche mouth. It's a little routine we got going at this point. But he is into cognitive behavior and I'm sure he understands the power of it.

slowtraveler
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by slowtraveler »

"When your mind has wandered to negative events, and is replaying them ad nauseum, it helps to know that it’s trying to make sense of the past so it can finally put it aside. Except of course, it’s struggling."

I've never considered that perspective. I find it comforting and it makes sense to me.

Your emotional life seems like a 180 from previous pages, congratulations.

I've also noticed life improving steadily feels better than chaotically trying to change everything, or maybe I'm just aging and feeling the resultant groundedness.

suomalainen
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by suomalainen »

Re: self-compassion @jace and re: emotional stability @slow - thanks, been working hard for...well, for 22 years, since I left home, but making a more concerted/educated effort for the last 3.5 years with therapy and now supplementing that with "just doing it" and some additional reading. And most recently, instead of "trying to be happy", I've focused more on "trying to be not unhappy". So, my three big sources of stress were 1) fighting with my wife/life about money/work/retirement, 2) fighting with my wife about religion and 3) fighting with my kids about school/screentime. August was a huge turning point where all three came to a head and new resolutions were adopted as to all three. Here's to hoping it sticks.

And also, I guess, there was this thing where I tried to assume responsibility for solving problems that weren't mine (whether at work or with family or with friends or whatever). And now I can better separate and see that it's not my problem, nor do I have to make it my problem.

But it's still hard. I still have days where I think, "god, this life fucking sucks". But then I lift my head out of that space and I look around and I think "But nothing is sucking right this very second." And I'm able to move on. That's new.

Jason

Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by Jason »

My understanding is that pessimists do not not become optimists, so there's no use even contemplating that. What pessimists can become is less pessimistic. And that is a gradual process.

I liken it to the day I decided to become a vegetarian. I said "Ok, I'm a vegetarian." An hour later I'm power hurling lima beans all over the bathroom floor. So, I said fuck that, and went out and bought a bacon cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake. What I should have done is bought a cheeseburger without the bacon. Next day, maybe eat the tomato and the lettuce they give with the cheeseburger. On and on. I'm never going to be a vegetarian but I could learn to eat less meat and more vegetables. Same with optimism. I mean let's be serious, your life is never going to be good. Its short and fucking brutish. But, it could suck less. I guess. Or you could learn to look at it where it sucks less which I guess is the same thing.

My therapist said to me its about interruption. Take time out each day and say "This doesn't completely suck." So I've been doing that. It's hard. I feel like a traitor to my pessimism. But I do it. Put it in an alarm so I don't know where I'll be. It's my "This doesn't completely suck alarm." I could be in traffic, I could be in the supermarket, I could be reading a CS post and the alarm goes off and I have to find an angle where whatever I'm doing doesn't completely suck. Sometimes its virtually impossible, but I find a way.

black_son_of_gray
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Re: Suomalaisen Päiväkirja

Post by black_son_of_gray »

Kurt Vonnegut on his uncle Alex:
My Uncle Alex, who is up in Heaven now, one of the things he found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, "If this isn't nice, what is?"

So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, "If this isn't nice, what is?"
It's hard to simultaneously feel both [insert negative emotion] and gratitude.

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