The Education of Axel Heyst

[AxelHeyst]

I found a jackpot Workaway in the south of Portugal. Back in 2016 a Brazilian guy bought a ruin of a farm and moved his family there. He's a huge CNC nerd and has been building and designing his own printers and cutters for years. Let me try to describe the place.

It's on ~70 acres of old farm land at the top of a watershed. There are wind turbine farms nearby. The main house is a renovated stone farm house. The workshop is four containers: a computer and printer unit, a whole unit for the CNC table, and the two top ones are storage. Wood and metal tools are in the covered space below.

I sleep in a treehouse. There is a geodome where he grows sugarcane and mangoes. The flush toilets are processed by vermicompost.

The sheer volume and diversity of projects, builds, fixes, and repairs available in this place is overwhelming. I could just stay here fixing stuff until the end of my visa... Then come back after it resets And do it again. Forever.

My current two main projects are to build a solar thermal hot water system for the treehouse bathroom, and help him with his Series Land Rover renovation. Future projects: finish building his laser CNC; build a rocket mass heater against the computer lab container; fix up the workawayer kitchen structure which is a travesty; redo the treehouse roof, which leaks; fix a Bobcat; help build the new 5m geodesic dome; etc.



I'll stay here at least a month, and try to explain it better. It's been a week with a ton of new information and experiences so I'm definitely behind in terms of processing wtf is going on in my life.

With both this and a number of other 'nodes' I feel like several small heaps have turned / are in the process of turning in to holons. This process looks and feels like
1. The realization that I'm attempting to spin too many plates. I ought to shelve some of them.
2. Realizing that one new node connects several of these other nodes, and I can actually tie them all together with this one 'hub' node.
3. Now, instead of having let's say 6 distinct things to "do" or track or think separately about that are kinda related or maybe not even related in any obvious way, I have just 1 thing that has 5 or 6 parts, that I can zoom in on if necessary but also I don't have to think about the parts explicitly anymore.
4. My life feels less crowded even though I didn't chop anything. It feels more integrated, streamlined, less friction, more aligned... More like everything I'm doing is the same thing or the same purpose.

I can't really explain how I 'did' it, because it feels accidental. I'll try to flesh it out better.

[Ego]

Excellent! Serendipity for the win.

The sheer volume and diversity of projects, builds, fixes, and repairs available in this place is overwhelming. I could just stay here fixing stuff until the end of my visa... Then come back after it resets And do it again. Forever.

and

1. The realization that I'm attempting to spin too many plates. I ought to shelve some of them.

I believe this feeling of overwhelm is a common consequence of kludge lifestyle. It is the rare person who can feel at ease with many half-finished projects that require complex, unbuyable solutions. Over the long-term people generally deal with this in one of two ways. Either the unfinishedness bleeds into previously well oiled parts of life or (my solution) they purge before the bleed and avoid adding new*.

A few questions about your current situation on the farm. If the Land Rover needs the alternator rewound, does the owner of the property pay for it? Where does the money come from? Are they farming on the farm? With workawayer? How is their relationships with the neighbors? With the local authorities?

Looks like some interesting posts will follow.

*the reason I have not joined any of the mastermind groups.

[basuragomi]

That is a seriously cool setup. What does the core resource flow through the place look like? Having so many unfinished projects implies that the projects are not central to the functioning of the place, but if that's not the case I'd love to hear how it's all integrated.

[jacob]

Having so many unfinished projects implies that the projects are not central to the functioning of the place, but if that's not the case I'd love to hear how it's all integrated.

It's kinda the same at ERE HQ (although less ambitious scale here), but generally there are no choke-points or rather the choke-points that do exist get priority or fixed quickly. The less important projects of which there are many can sit for a while. There's a lot of "stock" sitting in unfinished projects (I always find myself apologizing to guests for living in a construction zone); it doesn't really say whether the inflow matches the outflow. Given the "stock" to "flow" ratio, it can often feel overwhelming. However, when tallied up over a year, say, stuff does get done. Insofar retooling is costless, it is more effective to have multiple projects in progress because it means one can focus on something else while waiting for glue to dry or inspiration or creative muses so to speak.

[7Wannabe5]

@jacob:

In "The Permaculture Handbook", Peter Bane refers to this as Hodgepodge Growth. "Projects will stutter along as labor, weather, budget, materials, and insight permit. This is not a bad thing. Slow progress affords time for learning from one's mistakes, improvements to design and unexpected economies. The result can be a superior structure or plan at lower cost. It can even mean disaster averted." The important thing, as Ego noted, is to be aware of the boundaries of that which is already solid or well-oiled, and expand from there with out neglecting needful maintenance.

[jacob]

In "The Permaculture Handbook", Peter Bane refers to this as Hodgepodge Growth.

Hodgepodge Growth. I like that! I think of it as "deliberate muddling". From the perspective of my own temperament, the biggest problem is continuously feeling like I've gotten nothing done or not being able to explain to anything what I'm actually doing ... although in retrospect a lot actually gets done. The GTD stratagem seems to be a big deal in the AH universe I suspect I'm embodying the almost opposite approach.

[Ego]

It's kinda the same at ERE HQ (although less ambitious scale here), but generally there are no choke-points or rather the choke-points that do exist get priority or fixed quickly.

The limits of attention makes scale important. Small scale allows choke-points to be fixed.

There is also the very human ability to acclimate. Choke-points become less uncomfortable when one becomes acclimated to the choke. The next step is the process is when the choke feels good. That's when the person becomes increasingly unable to function in the real world with regular people. An especially costly proposition for the semi-ER.

[AxelHeyst]

GTD is a great system for hodgepodge growth. It's agnostic - it's just that most people who are attracted to GTD operate in a very linear, serial, milestones and goals Gantt-chart dominated environment. Therefore linearity is associated with GTD, much to David Allen's frustration. GTD principles will reduce friction in either environment. At least theoretically - I'm still working on internalizing nonlinear 'productivity' personally, but my understanding of GTD is that there is no conflict.

[7Wannabe5]

It’s easy to poke fun at GTD, but I’ve done the program several times, and have permenantly incorporated some of it into my extreme generalist lifestyle. You actually have to be quite organized to live as scattered-on-the-margin as I do.

Related note would be that I just Re-read “Atomic Habits” and was struck by his note on the Explore/Exploit dynamic. Obviously, I am huge on Explore and not so huge on Exploit. The word itself gives me problems. So, I tried to think up a more positive spin on “Exploit” or “Kill” or “Dominate” and the best I could do was “F*ck the brains out!” as in “I am going to f*ck the brains out! of this graduate course even though it seems a bit boring already. My instructor is going to be walking funny for two days and deeply craving a cigarette after he reads my next paper!”

[chenda]

It’s easy to poke fun at GTD,

What is GTD? I have not read atomic habits but I've listened to some you tube reviews and feel I have got all the useful stuff from that alone.

[rube]

I assume GTD = Getting Things Done

[7Wannabe5]

“Getting Things Done.” “Atomic Habits” is also worth reading in full. Lots of nuggets of usefulness such as the two minute rule. For instance, instead of complex multi-step activity such as “Go work at garden.” as ToDo item, develop simple two minute activity such as “Put on my overalls” as habit.

[AxelHeyst]

A few questions about your current situation on the farm. If the Land Rover needs the alternator rewound, does the owner of the property pay for it? Where does the money come from? Are they farming on the farm? With workawayer? How is their relationships with the neighbors? With the local authorities?

Any money that needs to get spent is spent by the owner. He is 47, used to run a n0,000 hectare ranch in Brazil, and still has some involvements with various family businesses. I don't get the sense he's fabulously wealthy, but he is some kind of FI.

He asked me to look up a pipe bending tool on Amazon. I found one for 175euro. He made a face and said 'lets just print something'. Most of the materials he has have been dumpster dived. The rope for the handrail to the treehouse he was proud of having pulled out of a dumpster in a Spanish marina, for example. He used to dumpster dive a lot of food, but stopped because too much sweets.

The word farm has more to do with the fact that they bought and old ruined farm, and are surrounded by farms, rather than any current activity. There are some chickens and a bit of gardens including the geodome, but nothing extensive at all yet. I think his vision is to slowly build up food producing capacity, but he wants to do it using a lot of automation because automation is his passion.

The nearest neighbors are so far away they wouldn't be able to hear a jointer running full tilt on the hillside, so relations are good? Apparently the authorities aren't happy about his pile of containers, but he's in negotiations with them about it.

[AxelHeyst]

That is a seriously cool setup. What does the core resource flow through the place look like? Having so many unfinished projects implies that the projects are not central to the functioning of the place, but if that's not the case I'd love to hear how it's all integrated.

Yes, it's basically this guy's dream/vision/hobby, and since he's ~FI the activity on the farm don't have to generate a $ yield as long as it doesn't burn much. It's a great advertisement for freedom-to motivation -all he wants to do is play with his projects, and that's mostly what he does.

The amount of unfinished projects reflects his personality somewhat, but it mostly reflects the realities of managing a crew of 4-12 typically unskilled volunteers who show up for anywhere from one to nine weeks. There has to be enough projects 'laying around' for them to pick up and work on, and you can't reasonably expect that the operation is going to execute like a mature Scrum team. So someone might start a scrap-wood CNC-shaped table and then leave, and the top sits there for a month before someone with skill and inclination shows up to finish putting legs on it.

Also sometimes people oversell their skills. Apparently someone with "woodworking skills" did the workawayers kitchen structure... A cub scout on acid would have built something better. So that's on the list of unfinished projects.

Projects that get prioritized at the moment have to do with getting the power system dialed in. So a FIREd Dutch slowtraveler just finished programming a microcontroller to sense when the optimal time to run a load of laundry is based on battery State of Charge and insolation: just load the machine and let the computer decide when to turn it on. The solar heater will help reduce dependence on gas. Etc.

ETA: in one sense the primary reaource flow of the farm is Workawayers, with their attendant skills and capacities.

[7Wannabe5]

He must be an ENTP.

[AxelHeyst]

DGF is now ex-DGF. DEX? tl;dr = we realized abruptly that we each had personality dysfunctions/traits (childhood survival mechanisms) that were precisely complementary to each other. Her victim-shit meshed perfectly with my codep-rescuer shit, and all our previous internal work plastered over the seam with language about being basically healthy by now, more or less. A bifurcating event in DGFs life caused the sudden cessation of most of her victim-shit, which exposed how much codep-rescuer shit I was wrapped up in... which revealed to us the impossibility of remaining in the same relationship if we wanted to fix these things. If we stayed together, we'd crab-bucket each other, inevitably, unintentionally. Or rather, in Plotkin terminology, our subs (my North subs and her South subs) would scramble to reassert a New Normal that was same shit, different veneer of 'healthy couple'. Thing is, neither of us have had a relationship near as functional as we've enjoyed with each other, so we kind of assumed this was about as good as it gets. And it *was* really good... but we were helping each other to hold each other down.

So we have to not be together now. Maybe we'll get back together in the future... I like that idea. But for now our paths split. It's been a hard couple of weeks working through this with her.

--//--

It makes my RTW trip planning a bit simpler, because I don't have to generate a plan that involves attempting to fulfill the desires of two people. It also makes my trip planning more complex, because I don't have the excuse of a travel partner to constrain what I do, and because now I have to get in touch with what I want, and so this whole thing is just rolling right into some of the inner work I need to be doing on myself anyways.

So I have no idea, but maybe I'll go to Morocco next, because I could use some time in the desert, and then back to Europe, and then Turkey and Jordan (and Oman?) before Asia. Some freelance work I was going to do dried up, so I don't have much that I *have* to be online for at the moment, so maybe I'll look into wild bikepacking or long trekking or something. I like the idea of adventure carting...

--//--

This is the third week of workawaying for me, and I think it's going to be a core of my ERE slowtravel strategy. I've been talking with more experienced workawayers, including a Dutchwoman whose done something like three years of it so far, to gather as much info as possible.

Your only normal expenses as a workawayer are whatever you do for your smartphone (which can be extremely minimal since most places have wifi) transportation, and beer. For Americans, travelers health insurance (not the same thing as travel insurance, btw) is far cheaper than domestic health insurance, so as long as I stay out of the US my insurance is $42/mo.

There are good workaway situations and there are bad workaway situations, and everything in between. Some hosts just want free labor and don't really care if you learn anything. Some hosts (like my current host) are genuinely stoked to share what they know, facilitate learning, and work with you to make sure you have a good experience. There are ways to get a decent sense of what the situation is just by the posting. Also you tend to learn what you like as you go.

It's somewhat unavoidable to learn skills while doing this, particularly if you seek workaways amenable to that goal. You might need to adopt an opportunistic stance, however.

The way to do it is not to pick a narrow destination, and then look for workaways. It's to cast a wide geographical net (e.g. all of Spain, or all of Europe even), and look for dope workaways, and then go there. You can also search for particular terms of interest; permaculture, surfing, fablab, organic, climbing, animals, social media, vegetarian, etc.

Community/shared space living skills are critical, which might be of interest to ere2.0 minded folk. That's moooostly just code for "how to wash your own damn dishes, and develop the equanimity required to not beat other people for failing to do their dishes". Apparently most workaways are about four people in addition to the host(s) -- this workaway is a bit of an anomaly by having 8-12, which can get a bit intense.

--//--

My financial process-goal remains the same: TTM Actual expenses <$10k, with a stretch target of $5k. It's feasible to cross the TTM10k goal in December22, with TTM5k occurring a few months later.

Curiously, if my actual expenses drop to where I anticipate them to, I'll technically be spending below 3%SWR. It's terribly odd to contemplate that by at least one metric, I could be "done" earning money. It doesn't affect my plans, or at least it hasn't occurred to me how it would.

March was a bit of a "make a bunch of dumb mistakes" with money month. For example, I didn't understand how you're supposed to decline the ATM's offered exchange rate and use your own bank's. Ouch... especially considering I had to buy a 2nd hand laptop with cash. I expect April to be much less $friction.

--//--

It's not exactly accurate to say I'm enjoying myself, considering I just went through the work of (realizing the necessity of) separating from a woman I still love very, very dearly, and have started the work of staring hard into the abyss of my own clockwork. But there isn't anywhere else I'd rather be, or anything else I'd rather be doing. It feels in a way perfect that we broke up right at the launch of travel (the travel was, by the way, completely incidental to the reasons for breaking up). I wouldn't want to be home during all this, that's for sure.

[Riggerjack]

It's not exactly accurate to say I'm enjoying myself, considering I just went through the work of (realizing the necessity of) separating from a woman I still love very, very dearly, and have started the work of staring hard into the abyss of my own clockwork.

That sucks. I hope it won't derail you too much. Momentum can be key in these upheaval moments in life. Breaking up at the start of a long voyage has to be extra hard.

If it is any consolation, when you find the right one, being the man you want to be, will be easier with her than without her. And vice versa.

Keep your head up, keep moving and learning. I'm looking forward to the next update.

[AxelHeyst]

Thanks @riggerjack. A way I've been thinking of it is, I need to have a strong relationship with myself before I can have a strong relationship with another person. I think "is it easier to be who I want to be with, or without, this person?" is an excellent metric (test?) to have in mind. It has always felt like being in a relationship is a massive challenge to self-authorship or self-ownership...

--

I think that in the future, FI and 33x will become much less important. As more and more people leave Plato's cave, we will begin to create nonconsumer social safety nets, systems of mutual support, as well as just dial in better ideas of what skills to have to maintain personal and community security.

Now, we're all just floating in an ocean of the consumer mindset. We 'need' the security of FI or 25+x because we're pioneers of nonconsumer lifestyles, and the terrain isn't well mapped. We don't know all the things we don't know, and so we have to lay in extra buffers and supplies to ensure we survive the unforeseen. Some of us will wind up cautionary tales for those of us who come later.

Also, we're so far and few in between, we have no choice but to have one foot still in the 'consumer-society based solutions to life's problems' world. Put another way, we have to efficiently earn income to a level to independently support ourselves for the rest of our lives, because basically everyone has to do that still. We've just figured out ways to get the earning income part out of the way as quickly as possible, and then focus on nonconsumer praxis.

As more and more people leave the Cave, though, we'll start to stick together and form little crews and groups and networks. Eventually we'll start building stuff that helps our crews, and other crews will copy and improve those things, and then sometimes multiple crews will collaborate and build something that serves even larger numbers of nonconsumers.

Maybe it's not right to say that 33x will become less important, but that it'll be much easier to achieve, meaning, it'll get increasingly easier to achieve a CoL that is very low and that is also very robust or durable, because we'll build things for this emerging culture/demographic that don't cost money. One of the most important things we'll build is just the social world of nonconsumers, so social pressure to conform to consumer praxis will be less, and social pressure to conform to nonconsumer praxis will start to become a thing.

This all still feels muddled in my head but I'm trying to get at a vision of a future where the work we're doing now of building nonconsumer community begins to show noticeable/significant benefits to us, when the momentum of the thing becomes noticeable and impactful. I think it's easy to focus on how hard it is to do this thing right now, and it is, but putting some effort into imagining how it'll be in the future can help with motivation. Most of us put plenty of time imaging the future of our own lives, our own path of nonconsumer praxis, but we (I) tend to just take the social environment of now and assume it'll be like this in five, ten, twenty years. I think there's merit to investing imagination in what the world / society / social support for nonconsumers can look like as well.

[jennypenny]

Maybe it's not right to say that 33x will become less important, but that it'll be much easier to achieve, meaning, it'll get increasingly easier to achieve a CoL that is very low and that is also very robust or durable, because we'll build things for this emerging culture/demographic that don't cost money.

^^this

People get too focused on the '33' (or whatever) number when it's much easier -- and more robust -- and more earth-friendly -- to focus on shrinking the 'x' part. I'm not as hopeful as you that society will finally start to grok that concept and change willingly. That said, I've learned you really don't need that big of a tribe to support your optimized lifestyle and they don't even all have to agree with you.

It's ironic, but the places that will be impacted first by collapse are the places that'll grok this lifestyle first out of necessity. I'm not sure I'd choose to live in that kind of area because of that, but an argument could be made for doing so, possibly on the fringe, if you really want to live that kind of downsized life. The most resourceful ERE tribes won't be in obvious or idyllic settings.

I personally like the idea of small enclaves operating under the radar and then developing a loose network of durable tribes. I kind of dread the day that ERE loses its garage band status even though it would be better for the planet. Maybe that's the GenXer in me talking.

[zbigi]

It's ironic, but the places that will be impacted first by collapse are the places that'll grok this lifestyle first out of necessity.

A large fraction on Earth's populations are living the ERE lifestyle (and probably very much wish they didn't have to). Just my parents in the 1980s communist Poland were, compared to your typical Western consumer, a total ERE badasses - they were making some of their furniture, buying cheap food in season and preserving it for entire year, sewing some of their clothes, not owning a car, renowating the apartment (incl. building a brick wall, complete bathroom redo etc.), having a wide network of people to trade skills and favors with etc. And now, when Poland is better off, they basically don't bother to do most of that anymore...