@AxelHeyst Published a book titled "Deep Response: An Emergency Education in Post-Consumer Praxis". Similar to @theanimal's book thread, I thought I would start this one. That is two ERE project books in a year! Hurray!
aaaaand the book is done, at long last. The best way to describe it to people reading my journal is "ERE, but rewritten for the kind of meta-crisis aware person for whom a book with the word "early retirement" in it would be a turn-off". As indeed it was for me, since ERE bounced off me in 2017 before snagging me on my second pass in early 2020.
It's written as a conversation between 2024Axel and 2012Axel (an early title idea was "We Need To Talk").
Conversations with *many* forumites went into the creation of the book, in person and here on the forum, and gratitude is due broadly and deeply.
I was not one of the beta-readers so I got a fresh copy yesterday and read it in a few sittings. I really enjoyed the book. It brought me back to my Bay Area start-up grinding days and some nostalgia for figuring out some of the steps to get free on my own and then coming across @jacobs work and eventually this forum. There is a good blend of narrative, practicality and philosophy. I think people will be stoked to read it regardless of where they are on their ERE journey (or otherwise). Overall, a very effective package.
Buy direct from @AxelHeyst - https://tylerjdisney.com/store
Amazon (digital or print) - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DR7F5SFJ
More formats to come. As I understand it you can sign-up for his newsletter for more information on the various format releases or check back to this thread.
I also got a copy yesterday and just finished it. I really enjoyed it too! Basically reiterating mF here – I liked the tone/style of it, and how amenable it was to, umm, those of us with a less intellectual bent Just enough information to get the points across with clarity, and plenty of new books added to the reading list.
I remember reading your journal updates about its progress. Kudos for your hard work on it!
Gave the book a listen today. The focus entirely on young Axel as the audience is brilliant. There's so much that could be said, in so many ways. And that framing cuts to the heart. It's also unassailable, because who would know him better?
I found myself wanting to challenge nuance in multiple sections. I think it's a testament to both quality of the content and the challenge in making a concise message.
For my own personal edification:
1. The graphs imply incremental change and the crowbar reach identical final destinations. I firmly disagree. There are levels unattainable to those who refuse to crowbar. IMO this section is overly forgiving to incremental change.
2. Collapse is cyclical and progresses in waves geographically. It's already happened. We can see our future, looking across the world. I know Axel knows this. I wanted him to say it though!
The choice to constrain messaging around a path to autonomy, opposed to prescribing what's next, is very solid. Receiving Axel's current path as the answer would tough for me as the audience. It looks too damn hard. Bridging those Wheaton level gaps would be a big ask.
I'm curious to see what reader base emerges. There's an interesting tension, where the core message is simple, but it extrapolates to an intimidating breath of skills. The simple actions unlock the breadth, but that's a tough thing to infer.
I think those who can grasp the message, will need to be live players. Axel's eschewed mainstream accessibility, in favor of a higher caliber audience. The niche following his work gathers could be exceptional.
I just finished reading the book and really enjoyed it! It feels like the closest thing to a companion book to ERE in terms of overall ethos, though it's definitely its own unique work.
I found the concept of the two selves (present or well really past and future or present self) really clever—it got me thinking about what that dynamic would look like in my own life. I also appreciated how each chapter clearly outlined the influences that shaped Axel’s thinking, with references for anyone who wants to dive deeper.
What really resonated with me was Axel’s journey of confronting the cognitive dissonance between his early life and his ideals. The idea of embodying the change you want to see felt so impactful—if you can’t live those changes on a personal or household level, how can you expect the larger world to shift? That message really hit home for me.
Overall, I loved the book and the way these ideas were presented. I’m looking forward to revisiting it again in the future. Thank you for writing this book!
1. The graphs imply incremental change and the crowbar reach identical final destinations. I firmly disagree. There are levels unattainable to those who refuse to crowbar. IMO this section is overly forgiving to incremental change.
I agree with your disagreement. Long story short, I couldn't figure out how to nuance it without getting lost in the weeds. I'm sure there's a concise skillful way to pull it off, but I didn't nail it in the context of this project so I erred on the side of too-simple. People who pursue the options will figure it out. That said it's a topic I intend to take on in a lot more depth in a future project...
I'm curious to see what reader base emerges. .... I think those who can grasp the message, will need to be live players. Axel's eschewed mainstream accessibility, in favor of a higher caliber audience. The niche following his work gathers could be exceptional.
Totally. In a sense the project is a doubling-down on the strategy of running up ye ol' freak flag and seeing who crawls out of the woodwork, as opposed to trying to find them all individually on my own.
I'll add that my roommate ended up skimming through part of the book the day that I left it in the living room, which has spurred some fun ERE discussions with them.
Deep Response sparked more of a conversation, than times I've mentioned other topics on the forum. Although, they did talk about how for them, a more community oriented, Fe approach or carrot would be a stronger vector.
I think we need a Deep Response "Fe version" written by someone on the forum now
Yay AH!! The book is Earth-side. I deeply enjoyed hearing AH in my head as I read. The graphics and level of headiness were just right in my opinion. I think the concepts that ERE has were translated so well. I wish I could have had this book a few years ago myself!
I started the first chapter and you have me hooked. I wish this was out in 2019 when I was going through my eco-depression as I like to call it. Great job Axel, I can't wait to read this all.
Thanks for the kind words and responses everyone! Congrats on the layoff robert, may it help lead you down the road to further good things like it did me.
Just finished the book (been my morning tea accompaniment for the past bit), and I enjoyed it a lot. Definitely a good supplementary follow up to ERE1. Gave me a deeper insight into AH’s character / background as well, and helped me gain some insight into why he is what he is / internal motivations.
New to me was the response to the idea of a slow and tapering falloff of availability of things as a consequence of overshoot (I guess I held a more naive assumption of a drastic short term and global rebalance, which is pretty naive tbh).
I also agree with Scott up thread where he says there is a limit to the value of incremental changes versus the crowbar approach. I think this is very true. The incrementalist approach makes it harder to see the forest of spending habits as consumerism because of all the small cost optimizations.
Actual physical book copy could use a little work though (I bought my copy from Amazon), as my book copy has really bad curling in the corners. The corners are raised 2 inches higher than the rest of the book! Reminds me of some of the weird shapes we would integrate over back in my 3d calc classes. I’m not sure if I got a bad copy, or if this is something more endemic to the printing, so just speaking up in case it’s a trend that needs to be addressed.
Actual physical book copy could use a little work though (I bought my copy from Amazon), as my book copy has really bad curling in the corners. The corners are raised 2 inches higher than the rest of the book! Reminds me of some of the weird shapes we would integrate over back in my 3d calc classes. I’m not sure if I got a bad copy, or if this is something more endemic to the printing, so just speaking up in case it’s a trend that needs to be addressed.
I got 10 paperbacks here w/o any issues. However, sometimes (rarely) the print-on-demand printer doesn't do a good job.
This is a known issue with KDP publishing. There can be issues with the paper or with the binding. I think the overall incidence is just high enough to happen somewhat regularly. My estimate would be something like 0.25-0.5% of books.
I finished it this morning and thoroughly enjoyed it. I got sucked in and read it in 24 hours. I'd read four chapters as a rough draft, so it was really cool to see it as a finished product and read it through from start to finish. I agree with @b7, in that it reminded me of Ishmael as I was reading it. A few thoughts:
-I think the narrative structure works really well for exploring ERE concepts. This type of format would have been more approachable for me to grok the theory and understand how it all flows together as I was initially exploring ERE. @jacob mentioned somewhere that ERE could have been rewritten from a variety of perspectives (community, adventure, spirituality, etc..) to appeal to different audiences. Deep Response seems to do just that.
-I enjoyed how @AH was able to integrate discussions and ideas that we've had in the forums over the last 5-10 years. It provides a format for new audiences with a cohesive look into ERE, and how it evolved in the forums, without needing to mine multiple discussions and piece together the pieces on their own.
-To that end, I found the dialogue actually helped me reassess some of my own critiques or reservations around ERE. It also helped me reflect and make sense of some of my internal deliberations. I liked how succinct @AH was with salient parts of ERE theory.
-The last two chapters were the most interesting to me. I'd picked up some of this over the years reading @AH's journal, but it was powerful reading about the emotional and psychological journey and the necessity to decouple from the machine and established habits. I appreciated the vulnerability.
-I'm also interested in seeing what kind of audience emerges with the book. Encouraging @AH to circle back a while down the road to report out on what he hears.
aaaaand it's up on Audible. Stand by for non-Amazon options, I wanted to wait and see if it got through Amazon's QC process before initiating a parallel version.
Just enough information to get the points across with clarity, and plenty of new books added to the reading list.
