Candide: Origins

Where are you and where are you going?
candide
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Re: Candide: Origins

Post by candide »

Western Red Cedar wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 12:00 pm
Do you mind exploring this topic in a bit more detail?
I can try, but I think I can only speak to myself, and so everything about my experiences should be filed under "Your Mileage May Vary."
Western Red Cedar wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 12:00 pm
Do you think the time period depends at all based on personality type or individual dispositions?
These are very good candidates, but for my money, I think it is more likely that it has to do more with knock-on effects that come from how our personalities work in the world. I liked how Axel described ERE as a three-leg stool of FI, Skills, and Social Capital. I have a hard time building social capital when there aren't the routines and roles provided by work.

I am prone to negativity, bitterness, and rumination and I suffered from these things before I experienced deaths in my family at the kind of pace usually only seen in war zones, natural disasters, or . . . plagues. But even in those extreme situations, the community grieves together. No such thing happened for me.

I'm also awkward, very shy when I am in a totally new situation. But then, if I feel comfortable it is often worse, as I am liable to get into my own little world and have bursts of passion that in no way sync up with the group. I have intense anti-charisma until I can show my reliability and competence, and then that only buys me acceptance within a specific domain. If there becomes any type of competition, I will be pushed out by the cooler or shinier people.

It's starting to become clear to me that that mini-ERE is ideal for me as it pulses a time for me to practice skill-forward ERE with near-total focus and then the work period is where I get what most people would get from friends. Examples from just the last week: a group took me out to eat and gave me a $150 gift card in lieu of a baby shower, and I was able to get permission to take the wooden pallet that the yearbooks were delivered on. Work is where the people, and a whole lot of resources, are.
Western Red Cedar wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 12:00 pm
Does the fact you have a clear start/end date potentially impact how you think about using your time? Or, conversely, how do you think your experience would change without a clear return date?
In my subjective experience, it does not seem that the known date has much to do with it. It does seem to be the longer I go without a real-life social web, the more problems develop.
Western Red Cedar wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 12:00 pm
Does your experience with mini-ERE change if you are nomadic and changing your physical environment?
I bet that would help. As it is, I am married, I have cats, I have had ailing family, funerals to plan, estates to deal with, and I will soon have a daughter. It has been a long time since nomadism has been an option I would consider.

But let's say I could try the strategy. For the reasons mentioned above, I think it would only be buying a little more time before problems arose.

On the one hand, there be so much more information to extract, and that is good for the brain and soul. But it's not like I'd be able to make friends or contribute much at all to making anyone else's day better.

Western Red Cedar wrote:
Mon May 23, 2022 12:00 pm
How do these experiences with mini-ERE impact your decisions to move away from a traditional career?
Well, teaching has been my career since I graduated college. I'll be doing it again next school year, allowing my wife her turn at a mini-retirement, and then after that we shall see. I might put in a leave of absence for the school year before my daughter starts school.

It's possible I don't leave teaching, but instead just try to optimize summers for ERE skill acquisition.
Last edited by candide on Tue May 24, 2022 6:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

candide
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Re: Candide: Origins

Post by candide »

@Scott 2

I like where your heart is at.

Ran Prieur has a quote that could apply
https://ranprieur.com/essays/dropout.html
To drop out is to become who you are. Do not feel guilty about using strengths and advantages that others do not have. That guilt is a holdover from the world of selfish competition, where your "success" means the failure or deprivation of someone else. In the dropout universe, your freedom feeds the freedom of others -- it's as if we've all been tied up, and the most agile and loosely tied people get out first, and then help the rest.
To me, this is why I prefer the FI/RE to be not fat, but lean, and ideally ERE.

candide
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Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2022 9:25 pm
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Re: Candide: Origins

Post by candide »

The Habit Habit
============

Growing lettuce shouldn’t be an accomplishment, and in my experience it isn’t, as long as you water it.

My experience only covers one year, however, as all previous years I would hit a point where I wouldn’t water for a bit and then that would make me afraid to check the garden, and then one day I would finally come to check the death and destruction and figure out what to do next.

(It is amazing what kind of harvests you can still get from this type of gardening, and more so to the extent you are willing to space plants further apart, but lettuce is going to get bitter and either fail or go to seed quickly under this neglect).

So why have I been able to water my lettuce this year? I give myself a point every time I do, writing it down on yellow writing pad on my dresser in the bedroom.

The rationalist community calls the problem akrasia. There are apps you can try. I want more personal control and resilience to my system (electricity, internet, terms of service, personal data, ability to block out distractions), so writing pad on the dresser it is.

Every 100 points I earn finishes up a level, and it is there that I change rules, if needed. For now, I release $100 to my discretionary spending fund at the end of a level. It started as a way to allow myself to buy things for my shop without the indecision and guilt that often troubles me when I make purchases. I remember having a few projects on hold last summer as I earned up to first level, and how it restored that joy in saving up that I hadn’t felt since hitting technical FI.

For a brief period, I almost became a consumer with that money. I had bought some sunglasses and was trying to think of other wants to manufacture. But then my wife told me she was pregnant, and money again had a purpose. So I treat the discretionary spending fund as what I call semi-investments. These are things like tools which defray a good deal of their own cost, and may pay for themselves in final accounting, but I’m just not going to sweat it.

Implementations of the Alpha Strategy proper (as opposed to self-inventory, which for the record I am for) will come from this as well.

Main sources of points earning:

exercise, watering plants, mowing, dishes

I used to earn points for cooking, but then I realized that I have no problem at all with cooking; it’s doing the dishes that was standing in the way. So there is honesty in my system.

Dishes are such a pain point that I have broken it down further, earning points for the pots and pans, as well as putting them up.

candide
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Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2022 9:25 pm
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Re: Candide: Origins

Post by candide »

Mini-ERE
=======

I spoke to a fellow teacher today on our last recess duty of the year. We were, naturally, happy about the upcoming summer, but he mentioned that he spends so much more money during the summer than the school year.

I was at a loss to figure out what he meant. Trying to condense my mini-ERE philosophy on the fly into a few words, knowing also how far apart he and I were on Wheaton Levels, so I just sputtered, "well, you could work on learning something at home all summer. Save some money."

Which at least didn't get a weird look from him. Instead "Nah, I travel and play golf. I don't get out during the year." . . . then blah, blah, something about Vegas, other chit-chat . . . So, no, I don't think mini-ERE, or even basic frugality, is that common for teachers.


Free Stuff Via Social Capital
=====================

I got some cherry veneer plywood from another colleague. She saw me help someone else by taking a piece to repair at home with glue and clamps. This led to me mentioning how I like doing things in my shop, and thus I got something free in return.

If I could figure how to do stuff like this neighbors and strangers rather than co-workers, I'd be set.


Programming Note
===============

I have felt that "Candide: Origins" sounds a little pretentious. Well, I have now ported over a few things I wrote so that can live natively in the forum, and I have written about how I got here, so I'm good on "origins."

I have the next three journal names, and they will turn on life events.

* Mini-ERE, as I believe it is my job to hold the banner for the Intermittent Work Renaissance Lifestyle Strategy. This starts with my next post.
* Candide: Zombieland. When my baby comes home and the lack of sleep starts. This might be my worst journal ever, and my an average post may very well be "fuuuuuuuck, I'm tired."
* Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1. After baby starts sleeping through the night, which should be at some point during the school year. Yup, I like the set up to a reference to an anti-school song during the time I am teaching again, but it is also a pun on Wheaton talking about a bunch of permaculture bricks.

https://youtu.be/6vZPTPIHO8w?t=45

Also Part 1 is about losing a father. . .

Then
* Mini-ERE 2, the FI that Shagged Me and. . .
* Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2.

https://youtu.be/HrxX9TBj2zY

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