mountainFrugal Journal

[7Wannabe5]

@mF:

I added citation to Axel's journal. The theory is philosopher Agnes Ballard, but the last line was just my opinion. I hold a personal preference for arrogance over false humility. I think maybe because false humility strikes me as being one of the "nice guy" layers of male-form Boomeritis at Level Green or towards "wolf in sheep's clothing."

[mountainFrugal]

@guitarplayer - If I knew that answer to "how to get the hare to mount the tortoise" I would be at the next level because it would be "on demand". I think that doing all of the self work, pre-scenario imagination, environment design and personal systems design is what is getting me there more frequently. What I hope is that spending more time in that zone and getting into it from different scenarios I will be able to generalize it. However, generalizing a highly personal thing will likely sound like BS. It can be true for me and me only because of the specifics...so additional models or ideas need to be layered on. But the combination of past experiences, skills, and ideas that interact with what is going on in my external environment in the present moment are not just available to me. In theory they are available to everyone you just have to train yourself to see. What you see will be different and that is okay.

@WRC - Thank you. The resources/examples you shared early on in our ideation were really helpful. It is really interesting to see everyone on the same page. If you are stoked on murals do that. If you want to help remove trivial legacy city ordinances that make opening small businesses harder (i.e. 6 months and city resources to to get approval to paint a door a specific color --> here are a list of colors that are pre-approved).

@thef0x - While it is true that I do not have to deal with my son's helmet cakes business venture (get 'em while they are hot!), I suggest going one step further in the non-comparison direction by working towards comparing yourself only to your most recent previous self. You could re-frame "Output" into something more broad that includes hanging out with your son or becoming the local city inspector that shuts down helmet cake businesses due to health and safety concerns (co-create with your son). I am not saying that you do not hang out/co-create with your son because you already do, just that it fully counts as "Output". Raising children in loving environments is just as important as any of the items/goals in my WOG. Make it your own.

@7w5 - I updated the quote with a reference. I included your quote because I think that exchanges can go like that or go pathologically like that in your Boomeritis example. I think that as long as you are finding common ground and interests it it less likely to go in that direction. I also think that being in a small town forces you to be genuine in your interactions. I will see this person again rather than I need to fake being nice for this one exchange and then they will disappear into the city ether.

[7Wannabe5]

I agree. I also believe that it is entirely genuine towards skillful to bring up/forward less primary/developed aspects of your personality and related interests as appropriate in social interaction. For example, I find common ground with my tertiary Fe in many of my interactions.

[guitarplayer]

Oops that’d been crap wording on my part glad you got the gist of it; I fixed it now.

[thef0x]

Appreciate it. I think the "reflect on success" component of productivity is something I've been sorely lacking and systematizing it in a fun, emotionally gratifying way is a huge lift to self-esteem / well being / mental health. Soaking up what you have done without attachment, knowing there's even more for you to come. I see it in your presence here and admire it greatly. Cheers to that.

[mountainFrugal]

Mid-month update. There were some projects that were not getting any time love. Back to basics.

October work stack:
5:30-6 wake/coffee/pushups/short meditate
[ ] warm-up sketching from art book
[ ] draw something from imagination

AT LEAST a pomodoro in any order
[ ] Bicycle Science/Engineer sketchnotes OR design drawing
[ ] Single comic panel OR small sketchbook page with visual and sequential story
[ ] Ecology reading/sketchnote OR nature journal page
[ ] Read/Think/Smart Notes
[ ] Write (Blog/ERE post(s)/Friend Letter, longer emails etc.)
[ ] Exercise
[ ] Lunch

Afternoon
[ ] house chores
[ ] hang with DW
[ ] MBA admin
[ ] cook

Evening
[ ] Teach Art
or
[ ] Make Art

[mountainFrugal]

This month was manic A.F.

---

The illustration has less structure because this month was one big flow fest. I introduced some morning structure to make sure that I was spending time working on all my different projects, but overall it was life jazz. Structure in non-structure having practiced the notes and chord progressions so many times you can focus on adding an additional layer of meaning onto the output.

The rapid waning of day length becomes very apparent at this latitude in the Northern Hemisphere. Into the dark and cold of the winter. A physical environmental metaphor for passing into other darker worlds. Halloween, Dia de los Muertos etc. are all holiday versions of this. Late DW passed away in early October so I always do a bit of targeted grieving. I put on a certain album only for this purpose, listen, think about her, and whatever happens happens. Tears, love, sorrow, gratitude, joy, happiness, laughter and all the gray emotions in between. It is always therapeutic and does not always happen out in nature. Later in the month current DW and I went to a Death Dinner where each course had a question for the guests to contemplate and discuss related to death. I told late DW's story to a group of dinner party strangers (see questions below).

Death Dinner Questions for your own contemplation:
Share your first experience with death. How did the people in your life/culture respond?

When you are gone, how would you like to be honored? What legacy would you like to leave behind?

Share a story of a loved one you are honoring.

What have death and grief taught you about life?

---

Some may remember my encounters with Northern Rubber Boas (Charina bottea) from descriptions of Plotkin wanderings out in nature. (Rubber boa context: viewtopic.php?p=253842#p253842 and viewtopic.php?p=258429#p258429). Part of the point is that you are making yourself more attuned to the signs and symbols of nature to help you interpret things and find meaning. Of course you could take that in a complete spiritual woo direction, or you can hold the random manifestations of nature and interactions as another way of viewing the world. It is not right or wrong, it is just different. It belies scientific explanation not because it is more profound, but because it does not have to make perfect rational sense still be meaningful. Random signs emerge as patterns and can be useful. They can also be completely destructive if not checked by other modes of thinking (see conspiracy theory rabbit holes). That is all the rational version of myself justifying that seeing a snake in the wild while on a trail can be meaningful when contemplating what purpose I have.* I think of is more as an interaction that sparks dialogue and imagination rather than rational explanation. I think that part of reaching higher levels of understanding and personal consilience is being able to hold multiple perspectives simultaneously or to be able to flow seamlessly between all of them. In my mind the snake's tongue tickled my ear and told me to trust myself and my intuitions when it comes to the things that I make and share with the world. So here we are this month with some sharing in visuals and words.

Rational:
Common snake. Common for me to trail run. Common running route. Common for me to be chewing on larger questions before, during and after a run. Therefore, not surprising that occasionally these things all line up!

Action:
Uncommon time of day. Feeling "compelled" to go for a run in the late afternoon when I usually go in the late morning. Find a beautiful nearly full grown Northern Rubber Boa laying across the trail. I move it off the trail. Give it a pet and say goodbye.

Imagination:
"O hello there mF! I see you are running through me again contemplating things."

"Hello Nature. I am working on purpose and direction for what I should be creating in the world. There are just so many delectable options it is hard to choose. I assume the answer is in my shadow somewhere, but I am a bit reluctant to go there alone. Anyway I could have an animal guide?"

"Sure thing mF."

"Perfect. I was thinking maybe a lone wolf. "

"Sorry. Wolves are pretty popular and are already taken."

"What about bears?"

"Taken."

"Cougars?"

"Taken"

"Eagles?"

"Also taken, but we have a special going right now on snakes."

"O wow! I was terrified of snakes as a kid. Seems appropriate to explore my shadow with something I was afraid of as my guide. Are we talking some badass viper of with fangs, venom, heat sensing pits and all that?"

"No. We are also out of those at the moment. We are running a special on Rubber Boas right now."

"You mean the constrictor snakes that look like smooth, light brown, high fiber diet turds?"

"Those would be the ones. You are mountainFrugal after all. You have a sense of humor and I thought you would not want to pass up this kind of smoking deal! They are interesting in their own right. I am sure you will find something interesting to talk about and if not you can just tell this story instead."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_boa

---

I started the month with one idea for what my gallery show in November was going to be based on a number of previous pieces I had done, but then decided that I wanted to completely nuke that idea. The previous idea of the show was coherent from the point of view of me, but if I applied some of the same advice to artists who have pitched our gallery before, but we have passed on... I decided to hold myself to the same standard for my original idea. The main one being that the body of work should be coherent with itself within the show. I came up with a new concept that was much more process based. I made 18 pieces in total and I have three more that I am finishing up painting this next week. So I took an older idea I had worked on with digital illustrations and then iterated on that idea to make physical manifestations of the digital work. The scope was narrowed enough to focus this new effort and challenge all of my fundamental art skills like composition, shape, value, color theory, painting skills, and combine it with gallery layout ideas for our specific gallery and a range of price points for the pieces that are in line with what has sold in our gallery thus far. The show is named "Natural Processes" and is customized across many dimensions for this time, place, and perceived audience . I will elaborate on this more in a near future post after the show opening.

---

I do not LIKE interacting with people all the time, but I have a fairly high level of tolerating discomfort and doing things that I don't want to do if I think they will help me grow in the long term. This month was an experiment in saying yes to every social thing that came my way. I am deeply socially tired (found my current limit @thef0X!). DW is away for a few days and I am centered in the now with rain falling on the roof, wind gusts tearing of leaves and residual acorns off of the trees, and just jamming here on the keyboard. Pure recharging and integration bliss.

I taught a number of art classes, we had a few dinners, went on social hikes, I participated in the Proko YO! discord art group's version if Inktober, finished up 2 commissions, hosted a natural dyes workshop, attended a wood carving workshop, went to 2 artist meet-ups, hosted a life drawing session... the list is long...

A women and her friends came to Darmera a few weeks ago. They were from another small town that is about 40 minutes from here. They were discussing amongst themselves how they wanted a cool gallery like ours and some other features of our town. I grabbed a large scrap piece of paper and some old markers and encouraged them to sit down in the classroom and envision the changes they wanted. An hour later they had a poster filled with ideas. What was funny was it was as though I was completely invisible to them while they did this. No names or introductions or anything they just took my suggestion and went with it. haha. After the impromptu session one of the members of this trio actually introduced herself and said she runs a small used book store and coffee shop in the town where they were visiting from. She invited me to come check it out. Following my rule of doing ALL the social things this month, I went there a few days later on my day "off". There was also a new bike shop I had been meaning to check out that had opened last year. We talked about the challenges of small business ownership in a small town and commiserated about how people were reluctant to make changes even if they agreed that the change could be better for them and for the community as a whole. While I was packing up she asked me what else I was doing in town. I said I was going to the bike shop to check it out. Turns out... her father retired and opened the bike shop for some thing to do in his free-time!

I drove to the other side of town to the bike shop and talked with the owner for over an hour. He had also completed the United Bicycle program before he opened his shop. We talked about many topics, but right before I was about to leave I noticed a little zine sized pamphlet about gravel rides in coastal Oregon. He said he wanted to make a similar one for our area and had a bunch of non-profit funding to do it! Then I showed him all the zines and GIS work I had done in the past. We are now going to work on producing one for our region over the next 6 months. DW will also help out with some of the writing and natural history essays we want in there. Wins all around.

[mountainFrugal]

November 2024
November started as a continuation of October's external facing trend, but a snow storm and the Thanksgiving holiday turned it into an inward facing month. I had a few integration breakthroughs in how I am thinking about projects. The main one being that lifestyle businesses should be more integrated into my actual life. They both were in the day to day, but they were still separate in my mind because I started them when I was still employed and needed to compartmentalize more to get stuff done. Darmera (gallery/classroom) and Montology (art and bikes) are now more integrated in how I think about my life. It is really interesting to have had this tension/unease building ever since leaving my research job suddenly relax once I just changed the way I thought about them.

Small Business as Craft
Each of these small businesses I am now approaching like a craft. Not just for what they produce, but also for the day to day operations, the accounting, and all the other little important things that I tend to ignore. The new framing is that all of these are little pieces of a larger whole that I am building. The care that I take when finishing a piece of art work should be the same care that I take in sweeping up at the end of a gallery opening or the same amount of attention payed to documenting each and every receipt rather than pushing to some unknown future. "That is future mF's problem!" However, this month I made them my actual problem and re-framed how to think about them. I had a bunch of tech debt, project debt, and finance paperwork debt that I decided to get in order for Montology. I created systems for dealing with each of these types of debt in the future. All of this lives inside my computer as an Obsidian vault. All of the content that I create for Montology is one and the same as my Zettlekasten. All the Darmera content (newsletters, illustrations, etc.) also lives in there. Personal and each of the business workflows had been separate, but now they are the same.

Now I just feed the Montology Beast every day with ideas, sketchnotes, and documentation about what I did, who paid me what, and the minor business expenses. I finished 4 commissions this month so this was part of the motivation for getting all these workflows in order. I am on track to have all of my expenses covered from incidental art income sometime next year. Investing in this business (aka myself) has been a great use of funds to get supplies covered for art and then to be able to use them to create value out of paper, ink and paint using art skill. Satisfying AF when I think about that.

Nature Journaling
I finished up the Nature Journaling teaching training classes and took notes for each. I still need to finish the assignments and get feedback on them in the next few months. We now have a few students that come to Nature Journaling regularly. I will take all the class learning and the teaching learning and condense them into my version of "How to Nature Journal". Darmera is gearing up to start hosting plein-air/nature journaling retreats next year. The class prototyping and teaching has given me that we can run a joint workshop over a weekend switching between painting and observing/journaling. We also hope that if we can fill these it will be a more targeted way to make enough money for the business that we can hire our first employee.

Transition Month
November was very cold, mostly rainy, with some snow up higher. My fitness was a bit all over the place taking what I could get. We had a few straight weeks of precipitation so I hunkered down inside and did the bike trainer/art class combo. I learned some new lettering and layout techniques and them implemented them on my current 8 page comic.

Vices Removed!
This month I woke up one morning and just decided I was done drinking coffee. I substituted green tea that we had in the pantry to get some caffeine. For 2 days I was very sluggish. I am still in the process of weaning off caffeine entirely as my green tea supply is exhausted.

I did not consume any alcohol for 6 months. If I ever had a infrequent craving I would just have a non-alcoholic beer. The new ones are tasty and an excellent substitute. I had a pre-planned glass of wine at my art opening, a glass with DW for our dating anniversary, and for Thanksgiving I had some beer with dinner. All three instances were different pre-planned scenarios where I would have consumed beer or wine without thinking about it. However, this was very deliberate and I came away from all three instances as just "meh". "Not nearly as good as I remember." What is interesting about this is that resetting my physiology and then doing deliberate experiments in different "normal social" drinking situations did not meet my expectations at all. It made drinking any alcohol even less appealing and scratched my curiosity itch. Back on the wagon for another long stretch.

These two vice habit changes saves some serious cash.
Craft IPAs are ~$2/beer - during the pandemic I *could* consume 3 beers during an evening. Yikes! If I was consuming beer every day that would be $6 per day. 6x30 = $180
2 cups of light roast coffee per day was about a $50/month habit (I am [was?] an unapologetic coffee snob that refuses oxidized dark dad roast dumpster beans...ERE gods be damned!)
Compared to peak pandemic, at minimum I have erased $230 a month - from my monthly budget. Or to think about it in another way, my spending buffer is way up: $230x401 = $92,230 per year that does not need to be working for me! These former costs are now being put into my community project fund. About to donate some for Giving Tuesday.

Friends Giving
Friends giving with my college roommate and his fiancé. We explored a new area that was only an hour ski away from a nearby trailhead. The snow was a perfect 8 inches of powder even though it had snowed 5 days prior. We skied through a large open glade of old growth Red Firs. Old growth stands have well spaced trees (usually). I made Karaage, DW made salad and roasted veggies. Porters. Merriment.

The final community piece that I will be participating in (no more new ones!) is I joined the board of a non-profit geared towards mountain recreation. I had been talking with them for over a year and did a few art commissions for them already so I know they were good to work with.

Broader Community:
Chamber of Commerce Board
Non-Profit Board
Business with public classes and events (some that are free or are paid for by grants).

Natural Processes
Originally when we were opening the gallery I thought it would be more than a year before I would do a show, but now I want to have them once a year. Why not? It is my gallery after all! Natural Processes was well attended. We finally got all the mechanics working to keep people in there hanging out by setting up some tables in the classroom and having paper and pencils for people to make art. There was another larger gallery opening up the street that brought in some traffic as well. I sold a piece! This also focuses the art outside of comics and design drawing to put together something unique in a constrained timeframe. I am sure that I could spend even more time per piece, but I got what I came for on this project. I put together a show in just over a month that balanced my skillset, composition, price per piece, average audience of Darmera so far, the layout the gallery, what pieces would I actually want to hang in the studio or at home because it is very unlikely they will all sell.
I was also thinking about the show as an advertisement for my watercolor and ink class (1 more non-drop-in spot open). I treated this show as the equivalent of an MFA in illustration. Onto the next project. .

[jacob]

Wait what's with the bike trainer? Having had one some years back, what's your strategy for not getting bored?

[mountainFrugal]

We have had one for a number of years. I just commandeered it from DWs office set-up (she would attend all hands while on the bike haha). I watched art instruction videos for the first 45 minutes (multiple goals!) in Zone 1 then once I am nice and warm, I hammer for 20-30 doing intervals while listening to music or meditating.

[mountainFrugal]

This is the updated 5 year plan with the stuff I ticked off this year as well as some modifications because I know more about the projects now. Also I have done a few rounds of serious personal growth and integration this year so I thought that a refresh was in order. Older version here:
viewtopic.php?p=284213#p284213

[mountainFrugal]

A breakdown of the hours for 2025. I proportionally scaled the space devoted to each goal on the page based on the number of hours for each. I think that doing it this way makes it visual how much time we should be spending sleeping . It also reflects priorities with the base physiological and personal needs along with my relationship with DW, then and only then do the other projects get additional time. All of these projects have significant time buffers built into them. As an example, I rarely sleep 9 hours, but when I am completely worked from exercise I do. Another way to build in a buffer is that I am not accounting for overlaps even though I typically do overlap projects. For example, DW and I will be going for a long gravel ride today. This ride is scouting for a local gravel guide zine we are putting together. This touches on both exercise and planet, but I am not counting on that happening all the time.

8760 - Total
5475 - Sleep 9 hours (3285)
4475 - Planet (1000)
3975 - Life Maintain (500)
3475 - Alpine Ecology (500)
2975 - Comics (500)
2475 - MechE (500)
1975 - Exercise (500)
1875 - Montology Maintain (100)
1375 - Darmera (500)
1275 - Darmera Maintain (100)
775 - Medium Projects (500)
275 - Small Projects (500)
0 - Social (275)

I want to not feel time stress this year. I am much more creative when I am not time crunched in multiple aspects of life. This happens with external demands, so I build in a lot of extra buffer. A single deadline is enhanced when I have time buffers for everything else. If I have extra time to sit around for some reason, I sketch or write in my EDC sketchbook. All is well.

The projects this year are continuations of this year, but they are about going much deeper on some topics and finishing up some other ones that I now feel confident in the skillset to do it right (e.g. comics). The other thing I remind myself is that with all of these projects built on top of my personal and relationship base are super low stakes. THE STAKES ARE LOW. I want to do them because I think they are cool and I want to learn new things.

#### Social
- Nature Journal Meetup (April)
- Wedding (Late June)
- The rest is flexible

#### Darmera and Montology Admin (200 hrs)

#### Medium Sized Projects - 500 hours
- Parvenu (8 page comic)
- Inks
- Cover
- Print
- Gravel Bike Components Zine
- Design Drawing portfolio (12)
- Pyroscapes Graphic Essay (story scrolling website)
- training
- observation
- ecology
- species
- adventure
- Watershed History Comic? (idea if I have time)
- MTB - Overhaul
- Medium repairs for customers
- Teach Field Bike wrenching class

#### Small Projects - 500 hrs
- Suspension Class Zine
- [ ] layouts
- [ ] cover
- [ ] print
- Minor Van Projects
- Minor Bike Repairs for customers
- Nature Illustration Portfolio
- [ ] Website
- [ ] Cards
- [ ] Prints
- [ ] Magnets
- [ ] Stickers
- [ ] Pins

#### COMICS - 500 hours - M/F
- Cartographer Issue 1
- Page Layouts
- Word Balloons
- Pencils
- Inks
- Colors
- Print
- Gallery Show - Comic launch! November 2025

#### Darmera - 500 Hours W/R/F/Sun
- Teach -
- Watercolor and Ink
- Nature Journaling
- Art Fundamentals
- Nature Journal Retreat Hosting
- Summer
- Fall
- Nature Screen Printing Workshop
- Video Classes Record

#### Alpine Ecology- 500 Hours - R/S/S
- Alpine ecology zine (50 pages - sketchnotes, hut observations, writing)
- Graphical Essay(s)
- Alpine Hut Season 1
- Alpine Hut Season 2
- Nature Journaling 1 page per week (Portfolio 12 pages- 1 portfolio piece per month)
- Nature Journal Comics Pages
- 1 - Foxtail Pine
- 2 - clarks nutcracker
- 3 - Western White Pine
- 4 - Snow comic

#### MECHE - 500 Hours Sketchnotes - T/W
- Bicycle mechanical engineering zine (50 pages sketchnotes)
- MechE Hand Book 1
- MechE 4th Edition 2
- MechE Design Book
- Birds Engineering Math Reference Book
- Bicycles and Tricycles - Concepts applied above
- Bicycle Science - Concepts applied above

#### Planet - 1000 hrs
- Flexible - Conversation, Hangout, Neighborhood Walks
- Gravel Zine collaboration with DW
- 1 - Ride, Map Viz, Nature, Essay, Illustrations
- 2 - Ride, Map Viz, Nature, Essay, Illustrations
- 3 - Ride, Map Viz, Nature, Essay, Illustrations
- 4 - Ride, Map Viz, Nature, Essay, Illustrations
- 5 - Ride, Map Viz, Nature, Essay, Illustrations
- BC Permaculture Farm Trip Zine - with DW
- Date Nights
- Cook Meals
- House Cleaning
- Medium sized van projects
- Fire wood gather, split, stack, dry, store

#### Move - 500 hours T/W/R/F/S/S
- All Round Mountain Athlete
- Advanced Training Program (Uphill Athlete PLUS)
- Bike (MTB and Gravel)
- Trail Run
- Hike (weighted)
- Ski (Nordic, Downhill, BC)
- Begin Base Training Phase with 10 hours- Later Goal TBD

#### Life - 500 hrs
- Personal Hygiene
- Think
- Write/Journal
- Read
- Blog
- Exercise data - data viz portfolio
- Cook Meals
- Grocery Shop
- Frugal Explorer Nutrition Zine
- House Cleaning

#### Sleep - 3285 hrs
- mmmm ....dreams

[guitarplayer]

Yeah sleep definitely stands out on the graphic, great idea!

[mountainFrugal]

Thanks @guitarplayer

---
I used some social capital in exchange for some custom tailored coaching, exercise plan design, and nutrition plans. The coach is a local hard man, physical therapist and endurance athlete. He is also older which helps in plan emphasis and what he wished he would have done when he was my age. I am really familiar with the training concepts and some of the literature he was referring to so it was easy to think larger picture and go more into the weeds in detail on different heart rate zones, perceived effort, nutrition, recovery, sleep, etc. While some of my local friends are great athletes, they are not necessarily into the research behind it so it feels REALLY good to have someone to talk about this with who also knows the local landscape and how hard various runs/rides/skis actually are. Anyway, we came up with an integrated plan for the next year starting with a 12 week base training that will be perfect for spending many hours doing low impact skate skiing, uphill touring, biking (stationary mostly to get very specific workouts in), and some running. Each week also has 2 kettlebell and body weight strength/mobility sessions and 2 days of core exercises (usually on the same day as strength). The base period focuses much more on Z2 training because I have such a great base.

- 120-155 - **Zone 1** - all-day pace
- 156-162 - **Zone 2** - A bulk of my training is going to be Z1/Z2 this go around - awkward but still possible conversation pace ***
- 163-173 - **Zone 3** - 1.5-hour pace for me, or many shorter bursts
- 174-184 - **Zone 4** - Shorter **HARD** efforts
- 185-195 - **Zone 5** - Pushing max pace/effort

"If you are training your strengths you are doing it wrong." -Steve House

The one thing that I notice with the hardcore mountain athletes in town is they tend to have money by just being frugal and focused on what they are doing. It is a slightly different kind of dirtbagging. Work part of the year and have the winters off to get insanely fit doing skimo workouts. It is not exactly ski bumming because there are very specific mountain objectives instead of endlessly chasing powder at ski resorts. There is something with the training intensity and focus that is inspiring because it is completely self imposed and intrinsic. This makes me wonder more broadly if an alternative edit [PATH] to ERE IS something like this. The money saving, frugality, and low consumption is a side effect of being focused on a larger objective. There is some beauty in it because athleticism like this is a lifestyle in and of itself. There is very little infrastructure needed to do these backcountry pursuits. Perhaps the skis and/or bikes are the most expensive items that are owned by these individuals. What matters is the work/play of human powered adventures. For me, I come at this inspired by the specialists, but want to remain an all rounder. I think it is more holistically healthy.

After my last hardcore training year (2022), I took 2023 to do a larger base year. I was feeling largely uninspired by doing another hard year of training. 2024 set me back a bit because I spent my long weekend workout time on the art gallery remodel early in the year. Now I am back to a good cadence and am ready to plug along on another actual year of training starting with a proper 12 week base period and a lot more strength workouts. The other piece I am really excited to see is how even occasional alcohol during training in 2022 was limiting my ability to recover properly after hard efforts or through alterations in deep sleep. No more!

Last year I did a mini-multi-sport adventure to course mark the local ultra race. This year I get free entry so I will train for this race at the end of June. The last time I did it was in 2022, so I hope to improve significantly on my time having a few more years of solid base and strength under my belt despite being older. I also plan to trail run the watershed where I scattered Late DWs ashes this year for collecting additional photos, changes, journal entries, and thoughts as part of my "Let's Be Ecologists Together Zine" for 2026.

I joined the free version of Strava again as a private account. My "coach" wanted to see how my workouts were going and provide feedback through this year of training.

I am honestly stoked for training in 2025.

*** I am now writing blog drafts staying in Z2 while on the exercise bike by talking to Siri in the notes app. Expect my manifesto soon .

[Western Red Cedar]

This makes me wonder more broadly if an alternative to ERE IS something like this. The money saving, frugality, and low consumption is a side effect of being focused on a larger objective. There is some beauty in it because athleticism like this is a lifestyle in and of itself. There is very little infrastructure needed to do these backcountry pursuits.

I've been pondering this for a few years now. It has been most apparent for me with outdoor adventurers/athletes. Dirtbag climbers, surfers, backpackers, etc... who have figured out a way to focus on and embrace their passion and create a more adventurous life with alternative lifestyles that prioritize extremely low consumption. They naturally try to tread lightly on the earth because they love it so much.

I've also seen a contingent in long-term travelers as well. Those who get the travel bug so bad they pick up odd jobs along the way, figure out new ways to travel more economically (cycling, trekking, hitchhiking, volunteering) all in order to extend the trip as long as possible. Some of them creating a completely new lifestyle and identity, and continue the trip for a decade.

One potential trap with the conventional ERE path is over-prioritizing finances. It is such an easy metric to track, and provides some semblance of "success" on the journey. Many of us naturally look at an "accumulation" phase, but there is a serious problem if we aren't prioritizing our passions and interests for such a long period of life. This is perhaps an area to learn from the dirtbags.

[Ego]

Yeah, it seems natural to be frugal, in order to get free, in order to do particular things.
Being frugal, in order to get free, only to suffer an existential crisis about what to do with the freedom, seems backwards.

One caveat, very early retirees who retired to do a particular thing, then find their interest in that thing waning, must be able to cultivate new interests or suffer the same existential crisis.

[guitarplayer]

This makes me wonder more broadly if an alternative to ERE IS something like this. The money saving, frugality, and low consumption is a side effect of being focused on a larger objective.

But this is literally what Jacob would say time and again when talking about his physics times, saving a big chunk of the stipend etc. I mean, this is ERE1, the original one.

[mountainFrugal]

But this is literally what Jacob would say time and again when talking about his physics times, saving a big chunk of the stipend etc. I mean, this is ERE1, the original one.

I fixed my language! There is supposed to be a PATH in there.

When I talk to my athlete friend he is actually so focused that he would never bother making an account here. Maybe he would do some reading.

@WRC - yes...and where are these folks? Not saying there are not people here from that path, but it seems like there could be a lot more. Are they on here and just do not participate?

@Ego - Where are all the freedom-to people? As a test I counted the "views" of my journal. I had nearly 10000 since I posted my monthly update. Who are these people? What are they up to? Are they all bots? We have almost 1000 journals and I am unclear how many accounts. Certainly some of them must be freedom-to. I am just really curious about this.

[7Wannabe5]

@mF:

As I implied in my most recent post on AxelHeyst's journal thread, if you consider all the known lifestyles that are suggested as possible patterns for frugality, such as Grad Student, Bohemian, Artist, DirtBag, Permie, Neo-Primitive, Hippie Mom, Chained-to-Tree-perch-Eco-Warrior, Yoga Nun, Prepper Poet, Garret-Dwelling Chess Champion, Full-timeDeadHead-Part-time-Girlfriend-Experience-Escort, HackerSquatter, etc. it is clear that all the people who are living these lifestyles are examples of Freedom-To people who either just use frugality as a tool or simply generate frugality as a second order effect of choosing to spend most of their time on a not-highly-renumerative passion. However, those who aren't consciously/innately choosing/valuing frugality or resource conservation will tend to become less frugal if/when they do somehow get a windfall of money or if they hit some sort of bottom that sends them scurrying for more conventional comfort/security. For example, my Bohemian Musician sister chose to enroll in law school after declaring bankruptcy due to medical bills for two bouts of cancer, and the fact that her work-from-home position is not very demanding and leaves her enough time to work on the punk symphony she is composing tends towards pushing her more towards spending more money on rescue dogs rather than being as frugal as she used to be.

Some of the best examples of this I have come across were in a humorous books ("It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It: Misadventures of a Suburban Hunter Gatherer" and a sequel)written by Field and Stream contributor, Bill Heavey, when describing the passionate or obsessive modern hunter gatherers he hung out with while researching the book and learning some practices. For example, the guy who lived in his van by the water so he could spend most of his time just fishing and the woman who killed and ate Canada geese from urban parks.

Another quite large category would be all the people who just manage to squeak out a living running a business related to one of their passions. This would include just about every used book dealer or scout in America except for Jeff Bezos. I don't know how much money you are making from your current ventures, but if you had started them first, you might have quit your more renumerative employment earlier. INTJs are generally more risk-averse/pessimistic and consciencious than eNTPs, so dunno.

[mountainFrugal]

"It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It: Misadventures of a Suburban Hunter Gatherer"

I don't know how much money you are making from your current ventures, but if you had started them first, you might have quit your more renumerative employment earlier. INTJs are generally more risk-averse/pessimistic and consciencious than eNTPs, so dunno.

Sounds like a fun book! haha.

I have done a lot of jobs in my life so I never really worry about it from that perspective. I do think that focusing way too much on making a nest egg takes away some of the hunger and perhaps some self efficacy of being able to earn a little here or there. I think this is mostly for egoistical reasons having doubled down on some career that gives you some semblance of prestige. People have a lack of imagination that stems from optimizing too long. Rather than optimizing rewards points from spending you could just not spend and get paid to do a few menial tasks on a very part-time or seasonal basis. "I am a ________ I could never make sure toilets are stocked with supplies and occasionally clean them to earn $15/hour to take care of a hut in the backcountry. What would my colleagues think? That is not how to best earn money!" But I do agree that INTJs are more risk averse.