Bicycle7's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Bicycle7
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Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

I am starting a journal to think through ideas related to ERE; like skill development, human development and individual/community solutions to living a meaningful/sustainable life in the 21st century. I also want to connect with more people over these ideas.

I hope in starting a journal, it will encourage me to more meaningfully engage with the ideas I have read on the forums for the past couple of years, books and other sources on related topics.

A little about me- I live in the PNW, I work in environmental advocacy. I enjoy hiking/exploring outside, fixing bikes, reading/writing, sketching.

Currently I’m excited to learn more about natural building techniques and permaculture. The home I live at has a lot of established permaculture systems and I’ve gotten to help with a few fun/interesting projects like applying cobb plaster to a friend of a friend’s house and harvesting the honey at our home. I am almost finished reading Permaculture, Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability by David Holmgren, I have learned so much from this book. It certainly has helped me understand ERE and systems theory more, permaculture and ERE are indeed both applied design sciences.

Other ideas/books that I have been engaging with include:

MBTI

Integral Psychology and Sex, Ecology, Spirituality by Ken Wilber

Nature and the Human Soul and Wild Mind by Bill Plotkin

A lot of my learning has been inspired by the forums!

jacob
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by jacob »


daylen
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by daylen »

Welcome! Have you considered what your type might be in MBTI?

Western Red Cedar
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Hey B7 - glad you finally decided to start a journal. I'm looking forward to following along and interested in hearing more about the permaculture setup and your social network.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

You have been posting in various threads for a while. I look forward to reading your journal.

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

@Jacob- Thanks for the book recommendation! I need to put in a request at the library.

@Daylen- My MBTI is INFJ, it makes sense to me that I resonate with the conversations here that have been described as INTJ dominant. INTJ and INFJ both have Ni as their primary function.

INFJ has Fe as its secondary function and I notice I do communicate with the world differently than an INTJ (Te as second function). I'm often concerned with group harmony and considering how others and myself are feeling. Jacob has described rationals as wanting to understand the world and idealists as wanting to understand themselves. I see both of these desires in myself.

My long term partner is an ENFJ which is a nice complementary fit. ENFJ and INFJ's entire stack functions are flip-flopped, my first two functions are again Ni and Fe so theirs are Fe and Ni. Both my partner and I can appear to the outside world as Fe, though as an introvert for myself this is behind a layer of Ni.

Link to thread about Stack functions:
viewtopic.php?t=12360

I have been meaning to learn more about how personality types are formed throughout one's life.

What is your personality type Daylen?

@Western Red Cedar- Yay, I'm glad to hear! I live with about 10 other people, some chickens and a hive of bees. The quarter-acre property is filled with fruit trees, bushes, flowers and an annual vegetable garden. I feel thankful to live here, I've really connected with my roommates and to the nature in the backyard.

@mountainFrugal- Great! I've gained a lot of inspiration following along on your journal :)

daylen
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by daylen »

At the type level I would say I resonate with 80% INTP, 15% ISTP, and 5% other. On a functional level this corresponds to having Ti-Fe being dominate over Te-Fi and Ne-Si being a bossy peer over Se-Ni.

I think development from the perspective of stack theory tends to look like a series of escalating bi-directional flows between the functions. In other words, using my stack:

1. Ti bosses all the other functions around but mostly is at the whim of what those functions are doing subconsciously (roughly kegan1)
2. TiNe develop a relationship that gives Ne veto rights (roughly kegan2)
3. TiNeSiFe develop ties that integrate the "conscious half of the mind" into conforming to a role (roughly kegan3)
4. TiNeSiFeTeNi develop to sort of maximize type effectiveness at whatever the "role" is (roughly kegan4)
5. TiNeSiFeTeNiSeFi develop into a sort of nebulous identity that spans self, other, possible self, possible other (roughly kegan5)

I would be curious to hear if this aligns with your experience and stack. As this is just a hypothesis based on a few years of my own experience observing such patterns.

Another option is that step 4 integrates functions 1-7 and step 5 only adds 8.

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

@ Daylen- Wow, it's interesting to reflect on your post.

I haven't connected MBTI to Kegan levels before. It makes sense to me though that as you integrate more functions or maybe facets of yourself, you become able to access deeper levels of consciousness as measured by Kegan level.

As an INFJ, Ni understands the world through generating abstractions, Fe gathers information and helps translate intuitions and theories into decisions.

Ti helps to glue the intuitions and data from the first two functions into a logical framework and Se takes all of this into action.

I can also see in myself the times when Ni wants to try to control from the conscious part of my psyche.

I can see how more or less integrating the first 4 functions corresponds to Kegan 3- fitting into societal social norms.

This has been massively helpful to reflect and organize my thoughts on, I appreciate it! I hope I make some sense and please let me know if I'm looking at this entirely wrong.

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

January Update:

The last while I have been re-reading bits and pieces (particularly chapter 5) of the ERE book along with some of the semi-ERE discussions on the forums (thanks to Black_Son_of_Gray and others for their contributions to these discussions). I have also been reading Soulcraft by Bill Plotkin and have read Wild Mind and Nature and the Human Soul by Plotkin.

For the past year or so I have been working a mostly full-time job and am feeling like I need a change. There are a lot of stuff I feel drawn to do right now that don't involve full-time salaried work. I want to have more space in my life to practice skills like woodworking, mechanics, gardening, writing and art. To be able to connect with others and explore nature along with some of the practices in SoulCraft. It's easy for me to stay in a work situation for too long and stagnate. I worked part/full-time somewhere for over 6 years as a teen and in college. I had a consistent income, though it's apparent the other opportunities that maybe I passed up.

I have been seeing some cool connections between semi ERE and Soulcraft. Or maybe just that I see semi ERE as a way of making space for me to explore Plotkin's practices in learning more about myself and what work I want to deliver to my community. Plotkin describes a "survival dance" and "honing skills of self reliance" as important steps to "leaving home". I think exploring part-time work where I'm earning some income and have space to explore what my "Soul Dance" is- the gift to your community, something Plotkin describes you might earn money doing, though you would be happy to do it for free or even pay to deliver it. I would explore my soul dance by putting more effort into developing the skills mentioned above, going wandering in nature this year- backpacking and connecting with others.

So I see the space, change and challenge of finding work opportunities that are flexible enough to allow me to do some traveling and exploring, connecting and skill building as a way to continue to further my skills. Part-time jobs and gigs being a practice at my survival dance and the other activities being a way to explore other possibilities. I have enough money saved to explore other options, I see staying at my current job as more comfortable and stable, though I see leaving as a potential for personal growth in a lot of areas.

So I plan this year to make a change to my job, not immediately, but continue looking for new opportunities. I plan to at least cover my expenses this year with work income.

Smashter
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Smashter »

I love the idea of a "Soul Dance." I have heard of Plotkin but never explored his work, maybe I should dig in more. Do you have any rough outlines of what your soul dance might look like?

As yet another person on the forum who is Semi-ERE curious, I look forward to following along as you talk about your journey!

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

Hey Smashter, I've been considering your question the last few weeks and am not sure if I have gotten any further with it. Right now I would say I'm pushing myself to lean into the questions of it and less the knowing or presuming. At other points in my life I would have had a clearer answer. I don't feel that I've had a soul encounter where I've brought back an image of what I'll provide to others.

For what I do know, reflecting on this question, I like designing and reflecting on the world through writing, art and landscapes (environmental restoration and permaculture design) though all of these skills for me must be more developed. I'm fascinated by understanding the world around me and myself through ecology, economics and psychology (particularly right now Plotkin's work).

As others have stated on the forums, I think you could really like Plotkin if you are looking for a subpersonality/nature based framework for inner work. Thanks for the thoughtful question and I'm glad you'll be following along :)

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

February Update:

GTD

In the past 6 weeks or so, I’ve been implementing a GTD system inspired by the GTD thread here. So far, I think it’s helping a lot. I resonate with the freedom of organizing all of the stuff in my head into my notebook and calendar. At work, it’s definitely helped me keep up with all of the random stuff, putting an emphasis on defining outcomes and next steps. I find myself getting stuck less in the land of having an assortment of bullet points on a to-do list that I review at some regular interval only to stuff it away, not being clear on how to move a project forward; where or when I’ll actually get those things done. I’m still building up the entire system, so I think there is still a lot to gain
from a full implementation of the ideas.

SemiERE

I’m making a transition soon out of my current FT work. I’ve done a lot of inner processing here, I am confident with the decision, though still a little scared. I have several years of living expenses saved up liquid, a few ways I feel confident that I could earn at least some money (working for a friend, part-time jobs) and a stable/supportive life situation with relatively low expenses ($9-11k/yr about).
I think the fear is coming from thinking I might be bored taking a break, or that I won’t have the veil of security from the FT job income, or that other jobs that I have later will be worse.
I want to quit because I want more time and energy this spring and summer towards strengthening the connection in my current relationships and connecting with more people, energy for developing skills and time to explore/travel. This spring and summer I’ll be looking for more flexible/part-time work, but I’m ok with being patient. As I’m at my job longer and longer, it’s becoming apparent the opportunity costs in terms of time, mental/physical energy and openness to opportunity in a FT job.

General

Life in general has been really good the past month. I’ve had time to connect with roommates, time out in nature walking and sitting and time to write and read. I finished Soulcraft by Plotkin and have started to implement some of the exercises with journaling and in nature. I have started to have conversations with trees, birds, plants and the like. This has opened up an interesting world of seeing with greater clarity, I notice so much more talking with a bird.

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mountainFrugal
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by mountainFrugal »

Bicycle7 wrote:
Sun Feb 05, 2023 1:44 pm
This has opened up an interesting world of seeing with greater clarity, I notice so much more talking with a bird.
The strangeness goes away quickly when you realize that it is cultural programming for why we do not talk to birds. Haha. We likely talk to them in our heads, just do not vocalize it. In the same way that you engage more by talking with another human, treating birds more like that will potentially open you up to learning more about the bird. It's habits, it's behavior, it's song. It is not just a bird that I can ignore because I already know about "birds". Yet it is THIS bird. Have fun with this.

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

@MF:
I hadn’t looked at it that way, the fact that we are probably already talking to the birds in our head and just like a human that we engage with vocally, we will learn so much more.

March Update:
I quit my job in February, my final day was last week. So far, I feel really good about this decision. I’ve felt a lot more energy in the last few days for connecting with my partner and friends, writing, art and going on small adventures. I’ve been noticing how much my job was affecting me even when I wasn’t there. Typically when I’d get home from work, I would feel pretty exhausted, having the energy to do a lot of basic tasks would feel like a struggle. Past 9pm on a work night, I would start to feel a mix of dread and anxiousness, mostly the only activity that would feel good to engage in at that point in the evening would be reading.

So far, I’ve felt mostly as busy as I did when I was working, except with more enjoyable stuff! I expect this to slow down in the coming weeks though. I have a lot of trips planned in the next few months and am eager to learn from each trip what I’m hoping to get from traveling experiences. My partner and I are looking forward to staying near the Bay Area at an intentional community for a few days and spending some time in Southern Oregon with family and friends later in March.

The thing is, I’m certain I’ll be back working a salary job again at some point. I’m really just leaning into other interests and travel right now and not worrying a lot about earning money. The longest I could see this break being would be 6 months, not sure if it will be that long though. I like the idea of mini-retirements, I think part-time work with breaks is what suits me best. I like for my work to feel cyclical. I think I would characterize the end goal of course as being FI and or earning incidental income from work I love. I’m able to recognize though that I’m far away from either of those goals at this point.

I’m looking forward to opportunities coming up in the next 6 months to learn more gardening, woodworking/timber framing/natural building. All these areas are very new to me, though I’ll have opportunities to jump into projects. I have a few small bike and car mechanic projects planned which is an area I’ve slowly been learning the past few years. Besides those skills, I’m putting a lot of intention into my writing, mostly journaling/posting here and sketching.

I’m lucky that where I live I have access to a lot of nature areas. A couple weeks ago, I took a few hours to wander alone around a mostly undeveloped 500 acre park. It’s nice to not have to follow clear designated trails the entire time. Time by myself out in nature is a big priority for me in the next few months.

ertyu
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by ertyu »

Bicycle7 wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 2:24 pm
So far, I feel really good about this decision. I’ve felt a lot more energy in the last few days for connecting with my partner and friends, writing, art and going on small adventures. I’ve been noticing how much my job was affecting me even when I wasn’t there. Typically when I’d get home from work, I would feel pretty exhausted, having the energy to do a lot of basic tasks would feel like a struggle. Past 9pm on a work night, I would start to feel a mix of dread and anxiousness, mostly the only activity that would feel good to engage in at that point in the evening would be reading.
This tracks with my experience -- I just don't do well when I work full-time. At some points, going to work is a struggle, but even when it's not, it saps my energy for other things. Even if I have a half-day or the weekend off, there's a thing where you know you'll be back at work, so at least for me, I can't really "get into" anything else in any meaningful way -- so I end up just waiting for it to be time to work again (which probably doesn't improve my life satisfaction while working haha).

I also took some time off, in my case it was due to corona virus, and I ended up writing for the first time in seven years and making some new friends. I also recovered from my job burn-out. Enjoy the time off from salaryman work; parks and hands-on skill development projects sound awesome!

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

@ertyu

I'm glad to hear the time off sounded positive for you. What did your writing look like during your break from work?

Yeah I definitely relate to almost waiting around for work when I'm not there and having difficulty engaging in depth with anything while on time off. Vocalizing this makes me realize how important it is for me to figure out how to work a job in the future and have energy for other things.

What this makes me think about is having a job that fits into my WOG (at least to a degree), so that energy spent there pulls my life in the desired directions. For me, it also points again to part-time work with ample breaks. I know for myself that I'll be more successful creating art and systems with some autonomy and some collective work.

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

April Update:

Travel


I just got back from a trip to the Bay Area and Southern Oregon. My partner and I stayed at an intentional community in the Bay Area and it was interesting to compare to the community I live in. The one in the Bay Area has put a lot of intention/effort into group process and conflict resolution, to a far greater extent than where I live. It got me thinking about a lot of the discussions here around individual/collective action. How much time is it worth it for people to work through interpersonal conflict, feelings and all the stuff that comes up from living together?

From what I’ve read on the forums, I think an important factor is temperament. As an INFJ, I value close connections with others and group disharmony can be hard for me. However, also being introverted, there is only so much talking and external processing I can handle before I start to shut down. This experience in general has made me realize how much I appreciate the tools and knowledge I’ve gained from the individualist leaning framework of ERE1 and the conversations that have started around the collective oriented ERE2. For me, I’ve been asking questions of how can one/a group integrate process and results? How do you avoid house meetings just becoming “conversations”? The community we stayed at meets 5 hours a week, where I live, we meet about an hour a week.

Another highlight of the trip was biking through a redwood forest on a gravel road along a stream. Lots of fun and peaceful!

Projects

I spent a significant number of hours researching and attempting to install a hitch from the junkyard onto my hatchback to use a bike rack I got for free. After many hours of trying to screw in 6 bolts to attach the hitch to the bumper, I gave up for now. It looks like the aluminum bumper being bent was making one bolt screw in sideways. This whole process has been a reminder for me of the value of learning from doing. Even though this project has been stressful, annoying and unsuccessful so far, it’s also emboldened me to work on cars and bikes more. The process has been an opportunity to reflect on learning through doing/mistakes and through thinking/reading/writing. I certainly lean towards thinking rather than doing and I’m ok with that, I’m also interested in ways to lean into more experiential learning. Through this process of failing it’s easy to be hard on myself, but I can also look at how much I’ve learned from failing. On one level, I think I know (in principle at least) how to install a hitch on a car. And at some point it’ll actually get on the car! This also comes down to autonomy and personal empowerment, Jacob wrote this in another thread:
Jacob wrote:
Fixing up one's home hits very many notes when it comes to ERE WOGs. You're literally in charge of one of the main expenses of your web of life or goals. (Same comments apply to messing with cars or cooking.)
As long as I own a car, I find it important to within some degree understand how it functions and how to maintain certain aspects of it.

Overall

I’m not working right now and have little income. Right now, at least, it feels exciting to not have a plan. I have a lot of faith that things will work out and that I’ll come around to finding different ways of earning income that feel like they have some resonance with my life
directions.

This time off for me, I’ve been viewing this as a regearing or coalescing of some sort. What directions do I want to be pushing in? What habits are serving me? As an example, tomorrow, I’m starting a break from coffee for 3 weeks. I’ve drank multiple cups of coffee a day for the past decade and I’m looking to change my relationship to caffeine.

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

May Update:

Travel
In April, I went bike touring for the first time. My partner and I rode about 25 miles winding along a beautiful creek and river. We camped above a nice view of rapids, falling asleep to rushing water. The next day we turned around and headed downstream to where we started. I love how much I can take in my surroundings on a bicycle. It’s really pleasant to slowly pedal along, observing the landscape changing around me.

Projects
I started to help replace some timber framing for an arbor at my house last week. This has been really enjoyable, I’m learning a bunch of new stuff and a lot of it is going over my head. I’ve been feeling excited about anything natural building related, I’m planning to help repair a cobb oven this summer.
I’m reading through “How to take Smart Notes” by Sonke Ahrens and starting to implement the note taking technique. This style of reading and writing is a departure from my habit of reading and writing. More often than not, these have been isolated activities for me. I was either reading or writing, not both. The author stresses the importance of writing as a way to understand what one is reading. Here is a discussion of the book on the forums:
viewtopic.php?p=261492&hilit=how+to+tak ... es#p261492

Overall
I’ve found myself feeling a little lost lately. I don’t have much of an externally defined structure (no job) and I don’t have an exact direction or plan to follow. This at times can feel like I’m forsaking opportunities/spiraling and at others feels like an adventure of intrinsic joy and learning. I go back and forth on whether I care for more guidance in my life and when in the future.

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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

I really enjoy your updates. I'm curious to hear more about how your community works, what it's like, how you found it, etc... which can also wait till September if you'd rather not type it all out here. :)

Bicycle7
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Re: Bicycle7's Journal

Post by Bicycle7 »

Thanks AH! I've been living at the community for about a year now. There's 11 of us humans, 15 chickens and plenty of bees. I love the neighborhood I'm in, I live on a street that sees more cyclists and pedestrians go by than cars, there are parks and greenspace in every direction and I frequently walk a kilometer or so to the university library when I want a different space to write/think in than my home.

The community I live in has a little garden in pleasing small irregularly shaped beds surrounded by mature fruit trees and shrubbery, it feels like a miniature green forest in the middle of the city (besides the noise which is a constant reminder that you're surrounded by others). A lot of intention and care has been invested into the space by people before me the past 30 years or so.

We eat dinner together 5 days a week, one person cooks, everyone else cleans up and we buy all our food together. We have house meetings once or twice a month for a couple hours, these are often focused on practical matters of living together, some are focused on bridging connection- NVC exercises, etc. We all have chores around the house, taking care of chickens, grocery shopping. Everyone helps to some degree with other projects around the house; gardening, building bird boxes though much of the bigger projects are done/coordinated by the owner of the home who started the community with others a few decades ago.

I love the spontaneous and structured activities with people in the shared context of living. I've developed a few close friendships that I really cherish at my home, something that I've struggled to do much of my life. I've enjoyed a lot of fun walks through the neighborhood, late nights in our sauna and backpacking/hiking trips with people I've lived with here.

And, there's certainly things I struggle with in group living. As someone who is adverse to conflict and appreciates group harmony, the inevitable conflict of group living can be challenging. It can sometimes be hard for me to get the space/alone time I need as I live with 11 others and share a room with my partner (which overall I really enjoy). I guess I look at these challenges as ways I can grow, I would like to become more comfortable navigating conflict and I like to craft creative ways to find time for myself.

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