The Education of Axel Heyst

[calamityjane]

Enjoy the final slide into FI!

[Dave]

Very cool AH, congrats! It will be so nice to have that behind you, and have your financial flows setup to more passively/homeotelically support other endeavors that may or may not produce cash, so you don't have to worry about that anymore.

Like Jin+Guice, I also see your story as a favorable example for Team Semi-ERE/non-linear paths. You did things your own way without just grinding 5 more years, and it lead to this place in the end.

Anyways, I've been following along the whole way with great interest, and just wanted to chime in on this milestone. And to say thank you for sharing so much of your journey, it's been incredibly beneficial to others. Awesome stuff, appreciate it!

[AxelHeyst]

Thanks calamityjane and Dave!

--

### The FI Threshold, OMY, and Self-Sabotage
I'm in week 2 of business deload. The timing is good as we've got a natural lull in clients, our product is getting more polished (fewer "hey this thingie is broken" emails), and my growing library of training automations are starting to show results (fewer "how do I do x?" emails). I've added an hour of writing in the morning, and 1-2 hours/day of A's work into my routine.

I found myself engaging in 'slop' time - staying at my computer even after business stuff was done for the day, faffing around, not really working but not really not working either. I realized I hadn't quite adjusted to the fact that I had more free time than I was used to. I'd become accustomed to being at the computer doing "work" stuff, and just had muscle memory for that. Since I haven't actually fully quit, I'm still doing some work, it isn't really clear when to stop working and go outside and play. I don't want to fill my surplus time with low quality faffing time. I'm going to cap my business time (to something like two hours/day) with the intention of forcing myself to 'go outside and play' with the rest of my day. ('Play' here simply being defined as non-business non-faffing time. It could include jamming on A's projects, which to the outside observer wouldn't look any different than my normal business activity.)

Mostly I think the slop work was just a form of muscle memory - I've had the hammer down on business activity for several months and it'll take a little time and intention to realize that it's okay to re-balance my life into other activities.

However, considering what to do about slop time made me think more about my Freedom-To visions and projects because they're more real now. If my Freedom-To projects are so compelling, why wasn't I immediately Getting After them with my freed up time?

There are two mundane answers and one existential answer, I think.

Mundane Reason #1 could just be that I need some rest/rejuvenation in that moment. The move here is to avoid draining, low-quality psuedo-rest of the "I'm going to watch standup comedy shorts on youtube for three hours" variety. Also, it just might take some time to get out of the "must stuff every cognitively capable moment with billable hours of productive client work/product development" mindset.

Mundane Reason #2 is that since my FI-ish status kind of snuck up on me, I'm not well prepared with detailed plans and next actions for my freedom-to projects. This is just standard GTD/Project Design stuff - you can't do a project you can only do a next action, etc. For a lot of my freedom-to projects, the next step is actually to make a plan/design the project, clarify next actions, etc. That being said, Rest/Rejuvenation and time in default mode thinking could be what's called for in this moment, so there isn't a good reason to force/hustle towards my freedom-to projects immediately.

The existential reason is that the responsibility of freedom is terrifying and awful and my subconscious is almost certainly trying to sabotage my dreams, as per usual.

"I have to work" is a solid excuse as to why you aren't fulfilling your dreams, doing amazing stuff, and becoming the version of yourself you just know is inside you but being stifled by them (capitalism, stupid bosses, the System, obligations, etc).

Once you escape "them" you realize that what you're actually escaping is your bullshit excuses as to why you aren't awesomer than you appear. And now it's put up or shut up time. Are you actually as dope as you think you are? Do you actually have all those creative projects inside you? Are you actually an intrepid world traveler? Will you actually become a master furniture maker / motorcycle fixer / beer brewer / philosopher / novelist / socialite / intellectual / ... ??? Well? Will you show us who you really are or not?

At least, as I run out the clock on MY bullshit excuses and meander over my FI number (which is made up!), these are the voices/feels going on inside my head. I can't be the only one. I think a lot of people who OMY Syndrome might not actually have some baggage around financial security. They might have baggage around identity security. They might be realizing that they're not as ready as they think they are to drop trou, to put up or shut up, to see who they really are, etc. I can clearly sense a part of myself shying away from the burden of responsibility implied by freedom that I'm on the verge of claiming.

This has been talked about before but I'm now experiencing it for myself and gaining an appreciation for the dynamic.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

The existential reason is that the responsibility of freedom is terrifying and awful and my subconscious is almost certainly trying to sabotage my dreams, as per usual. ...This has been talked about before but I'm now experiencing it for myself and gaining an appreciation for the dynamic.

Aye, same. I'm 12 months post-jobby job now and that hits home. And then Jin+Guice throws at us that we're actually just empty meat sacs jerking from preprogrammed want to preprogrammed want:

Mimetic theory suggests that there is no innate self to discover.

Best of luck extracting your self (if you have one) from the morass. Personally I'm starting to wonder if the morass is where it's at, in a This is Water sorta way.

[Henry]

Rene Girard, the philosopher behind mimetic thinking, was working off a Judeo Christian anthropology. That is why the concept of the scapegoat is essential to understanding Girard's conceptualization of mimesis. Mimetic thinking is as much about the psychological explanation of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (or if you're not into that, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery or Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter) as it is about wanting your richer neighbor's shit and once obtaining it, wanting your richer neighbor's shit. Mimesis is a psychological/philosophical investigation of the human heart as defined within the Judeo/Christian framework. Reducing mimesis to a genetic predisposition is supplanting the foundations on which it was based.

[Biscuits and Gravy]

@Henry I’m not going to pretend to have a better grasp on mimetic thinking than what a one minute skim of Wikipedia while sitting on the pot while my kids are banging on the door can produce. All I was trying to say was, AH wants to know if he’s awesomer than what he is, if he has all of these projects/images which are piled and perched precariously on a pedestal in him, but this is it, this is him, this is life, and there’s really no inherent value difference between strolling on a SE Asian beach having read 1,000 books or sitting in a hard plastic chair while some dude changes your oil having watched 1,000 TikTok shorts. AH doesn’t need freedom-to to do these projects; he needs freedom-from the perception that the projects are the point.

[AxelHeyst]

Best of luck extracting your self (if you have one)

Ha!

I suspect you're right about the morass being the point. I've been essentially on board with the existential premise that there is no basic point, or rather, that the "real" point is living the absurd tension between "there is no meaning" and "humans want to see/find/feel/believe in meaning". What "living the absurd tension" looks like to me (as far as I've figured out) is recognizing that there is no steady-state existential balance where I'll be able to set it down, it's like balancing a chair on one leg, so it's a constant process of falling out of balance and rolling my eyes at myself and re-balancing the thing the other way etc etc forever. And being cool with that.

And bonus points for not just being cool with that, but for actually taking absurd joy/delight in that state of things. Which most days I do. But some days I'm a bit out of balance and drop to one side or the other - I either forget that my projects and ambitions are, existentially speaking, hilarious, and I take them too seriously, or I forget that just because they're hilarious doesn't mean that I ought not do them and I indulge in a little old fashioned existential despair/ennui wallowing.

I also haven't read the Girard stuff in any depth but my first hot take on tl;dr'ing JnG's posts is that the idea that the source of our desires is socially constructed (although which desires we're attracted to and how we execute them will be largely guided by our intrinsic wiring in a no doubt inscrutable way) is highly calming. The Search for the Real Authentic (TM) Axel can finally cease, and I'm not a moron or a poser just because I haven't been able to get hands on that Platonic version of myself. I was looking for an atomic unit of Self like trying to figure out how much a soul weighs by weighing people pre- and post-death, but Self is actually just an emergent phenomenon and like Meaning maybe it's better that it doesn't actually exist in the way I assumed it did.

[Stasher]

At least, as I run out the clock on MY bullshit excuses and meander over my FI number (which is made up!), these are the voices/feels going on inside my head. I can't be the only one. I think a lot of people who OMY Syndrome might not actually have some baggage around financial security. They might have baggage around identity security. They might be realizing that they're not as ready as they think they are to drop trou, to put up or shut up, to see who they really are, etc. I can clearly sense a part of myself shying away from the burden of responsibility implied by freedom that I'm on the verge of claiming.

Since 2017 when I left work I will keep it simple by saying what constantly floods into my mind that I battle is ego, status, boredom, lack of purpose, routine, what ifs (financial future) and of course if only I was working I could afford this or that. Everything chatted about in your journal here as well as the mimetic desires discussion @J&G is having in his journal have been great insight for many of us I feel and my thought is we will continue to struggle to suppress these internalized concerns. My hope is thanks to support like these forums will help us all "keep the demons" at bay.

Cheers AH as you navigate this stage.

[7Wannabe5]

I think this might be a bit different for Ni/Fi users than Ne/Fe users. I rarely concern myself with notion of "one big integrated authentic self." In fact, it almost seems like a Golem to me. The way I occupy my Freedom Too is much more like a kid digging her way through a box of costumes, both old favorites and newly found or created. So, for example, the fact that recent tiny data science project revealed that my YouTube usage is drifting towards Hip-Hop, Politics, and AI, and away from the Meta-crisis and Frugality does not concern me. It's just that I have at this juncture pretty much run out of things to learn/do about the Meta-Crisis and Frugality. Although the "do" part of this could change/reboot if/when my health improves.

[Henry]

I also haven't read the Girard stuff in any depth but my first hot take on tl;dr'ing JnG's posts is that the idea that the source of our desires is socially constructed (although which desires we're attracted to and how we execute them will be largely guided by our intrinsic wiring in a no doubt inscrutable way) is highly calming. The Search for the Real Authentic (TM) Axel can finally cease, and I'm not a moron or a poser just because I haven't been able to get hands on that Platonic version of myself. I was looking for an atomic unit of Self like trying to figure out how much a soul weighs by weighing people pre- and post-death, but Self is actually just an emergent phenomenon and like Meaning maybe it's better that it doesn't actually exist in the way I assumed it did.

I think Girard would agree with your take on desire. But would disagree with your take on the self. Girard didn't like the labels imposed upon him - philosopher/literary theorist/anthropoligst/theologian because each group had issues with him and vice versa. He was always an outsider in each discipline. He referred to himself as an exegete. As in biblical exegesis. And his enterprise was to expand the moral insight into man as understood within a biblical framework. So I think he would take issue with the replacement of a different understanding of the self because it's the foundation of how he understands desire which is a moral issue for him. I don't think his project was just to relativize desire or to hand a heuristic to the advertising industry. I think he believed there was a static, moral self that needed to be honored through a proper understanding and expression of desire.

[ertyu]

If he worked within a christian framework wouldnt he have been into the immortal soul

[Henry]

It's nuanced within the numerous Christians traditions, but generally speaking, yes. The real issue to understanding Christian anthropology is made in image of God. That's where Girard's foundational view of the static nature of the person rests. And being made in the image of God makes man morally responsible to God. Girard's view of Christianity was apocalyptic. He believed the social embedded nature of mimesis ultimately leads to destruction. I'm not sure if he believed in annihilation, soul sleeping or eternal punishment/reward.

[AxelHeyst]

June Update

General
I ended my Season of No, began reducing business hours/wk, and brought a couple other projects back onto the front burners, after I realized that I was almost inevitably going to cross my FI number in the next few months with at least one node in my WoG being income generating AND stoke-led (that's my work with A).

The big chunks of my rebalanced WoG for the next couple months looks like:

• Focus on operationalizing my business and getting it to a cruise mode by end of August (and then test its resilience by hitting the road for a bit).
• Up my hours working with A, because it's fun and satisfying.
• (re)spin up a studying, writing and podcasting practice.

I'm also looking forward to traveling the lower 48 in September/October, Fest25 in ~Oregon, a build or two at Quail Haven, tidying up some loose ends down there, etc.

MMG Project
We're a couple sessions into a new cycle in the MMG, and my project is the spinning back up of my writing/content production system, as well as figure out and habituate a study system that works for me. One of the outcomes is to be consistently putting podcast episodes out again.

I've got a bunch of ideas and themes for writing, podcasting, study, etc and was hammering away on how to make it all fit together because it felt like instead of One Project I had a box full of somewhat related Projects, a heap, and then on Saturday - wham - the pieces all fell together and I've got a clear vision for the superstructure for the thing. A heap to holon moment, at least in my head. It'll take a couple weeks to get it put together and begun but I'm excited for it.

Training
An output of my self-actualization project is that I try to be better about discerning that which I'm genuinely stoked to do regardless of socialized/internalized baggage that I "should" want something else or "not" want that. It occurred to me that I've never been as stoked for training as when my goals are physique based. I like being strong and mobile and all, but I'm *stoked* to train (and eat) in a specific way with a specific physique goal in mind. I've been pretending I didn't care about this for about fifteen years now, and I decided to give it up and just admit I like it.

So I tweaked my training to focus on hypertrophy and to target relevant muscle groups, and began eating to gain weight. I got my hands on a scale for the first time in a year and was pleasantly surprised to learn that I've put on about 12lbs since starting to consistently work out (although without a specific hypertrophy goal or bulking diet) a year and a half ago. I'm up to almost 180 from my body baseline of 165. My rough target is to build up to 185 or possibly 190 and then cut to 175 and probably maintain there.

Reading
I stumbled across a comment on the forum somewhere that thermodynamics is borderline useless for living organisms, and is only applicable to dead, inert matter. To me this is roughly similar to telling a devoutly spiritual person that God (/the Divine) is only useful for confessing your sins, otherwise it's irrelevant to living your life. I went searching the internet for ammunition to engage in the thread (as one does) and stumbled across this absolutely lovely paper summarizing the history and current state of affairs of the integration of thermodynamics and ecology, an inquiry that has been going on for quite some time. Lotke, Prigogine, Clausius, Odum and Odum, exergy, negentropy, dissipative structures, far from equilibrium states... mmph. The burn to engage in whatever thread that was drifted away in my nerdy ectasy.

Speaking of nerdy, I also picked up a copy of Messenger and Ventre's Photovoltaic Systems Engineering and have been thoroughly enjoying that. I picked up most of my PV systems design knowledge from a) my dad and b) old dudes arguing about PV systems on the internet. I've read a few PV books aimed at non-technical DIYers, and I generally found them to simply add to the confusion or at least not give satisfying answers to WHY certain things are done certain ways (because if you don't know the why, you can't make design-level decisions about systems and have to just do whatever the Rule says. This works insofar as your circumstance matches the circumstance the Rule was created for, but when you circumstance does NOT match the circumstance the Rule was created for, the Rule might be actually Dangerously Wrong, in which case you're now up a creek). I'm enjoying the thoroughness of this book a lot, in other words.


Numbers:
Total Expenses June: $712

• Food $203
• Shelter $304 (water, electricity, internet, HOI, property taxes)
• Transportation $75 (bike helmet. Arguably Shelter?)
• Education $88 (nom nom books I am a consumer whore for books)
• Random $40 (website, bought another domain, claude so I can help my brother alpha test his agent-first PKB system)

YTD Expenses annualized: $9,532
TTM Expenses Annualized: $15,658

YTD SR: 87%
Stash at YTD Expenses: 22x
Stash at TTM Expenses: 13.4x

---

Changemongers thus have the following four variables to play with: Increase your dissatisfaction with present situation. Strengthen your vision of future situation. Build a plan to get from the present to the future. Lower the perceived cost of the plan.

I realized I forgot about the "lower the perceived cost of the plan" portion of the formula. I would just think about DVP. Ways to lower perceived cost could include: stoic meditations/fear-setting exercises ("Is this what I fear?"); counter-cultural myth-making (dirtbag culture as exciting adventure rather than "living down by the river" failure), etc. I think the "cost" of the plan (when it comes to ERE praxis) for a lot of people is tied up in Status issues, although sub-consciously. Regardless of what people say their resistance might be, I think the fundamental perceived Cost of a post-consumer makeover is the hit to their status.

[Stasher]

All the best on the future goals you have set for yourself, they seem well thought out and clear objectives. Just don't forget to mix in a little fun, stoke and adventure in whatever means you define those.

Dang double dang....$712 for a month, thats less than just my mortgage payment. I'm realistically more a frugal MMM person and not sure I can get to a real ERE status level in the near future. I enjoy reading the levels that others are able to achieve of actual ERE goals.

[AxelHeyst]

Just don't forget to mix in a little fun, stoke and adventure in whatever means you define those.

I'm looking forward to my road trip in September as a nice dose of adv - otherwise, my version of fun and stoke tend to be easy to miss to the casual observer haha. I've been meaning to unpack that a bit and your comment is a fine trigger, so thank you.

I've been tracking my "collins score" for a couple months now. I had my second or third +2 day (scale is neg to pos two) on record this past Saturday. What was up with that day?
- I woke up with a fresh insight as to how to tie my writing and podcasting projects together and filled a few pages of my journal with planning and execution notes.
- I spent about an hour with that thermo+ecology paper I mentioned
- I spent an hour and a half with the engineering textbook

My previous plus two also involved brain-flow time on something terribly nerdy I'm sure. Many of my recent "1.5" days involved working on a spreadsheet I'm building with A to integrate PV production, plug loads, the thermal energy storage of building mass and also dedicated TES buffers, and grid rate structure/cleanness/intermittency.

From an outside/observer perspective, some of what are in reality some of my finest, most stoke-fueled days look like me scribbling into a notebook with an entirely blank expression on my face (you'd think I was mad, looking at me), or scowling at a spreadsheet on the computer. I'll get up and float around a bit like a drunk and blink at the sun like I've never seen it before and then go "oh!" and scramble for the notebook again.

Almost none of my high-stoke days involve other people in the activity I'm having stoke with, although many many of my 1's and "type 2 fun" days involve other people. "Being in nature" (hiking, biking, etc) is rarely more than a 1, although I consider it entirely necessary for my general well-being. The winter hut to hut bikejoring trip I did with @theanimal in March was stunningly beautiful and checked all the boxes for fun, adv, and stoke... and was at most a subjective +1 for me. Not a two.

I'll also add that when I make an attempt to "have fun" via methods more commonly recognized as fun, I get tuckered out and grouchy after day two at most. I learned early on in my dirtbagging days that I can only spend one or two days with my "fun" friends (the friends capable of stringing together "fun" for multiple days in a row) and then I need to go be solo and be "not having fun", otherwise I'll get into 0's and negative 1's despite being involved in fun/stoke activities.

Point is, I had to learn as an adult that the meat and potatoes of fun and stoke for Axel is stuff that is not commonly filed under those categories, and that I can take "normal" vectors of fun and stoke in small doses only. I relay that here in order to encourage readers/lurkers to be aware of the fact that what is fun and stoke for their unique wiring might be quite different than what is fun and stoke for most people, and they'll have to arrange their WoG accordingly (it has non-obvious implications for social dynamics, for one thing). Writing your own user manual can be a lot of trial and error.

This whole discussion also is relevant to the "overthinking/ruminating or lost in stoke?" question. From the outside I don't think it's easy to discern the difference between unhealthy ruminative overthinking and 'enjoying the processes of one's own mind.' Possibly the only real difference is the subjective experience of the process. If the subjective experience is negative (anxiety, getting worn out, making poor decisions/inability to make decisions, etc), then it's unhealthy rumination. If the subjective experience is enlightening (feelings of stoke, joy, contentedness, satisfaction, leads to making iteratively better decisions and motivating action...) then it's fun brain-flow.

---
*I'm discounting chemically enhanced plus 2 days from this summary, although it's interesting here also to note that my VERY BEST chemically enhanced days... were also solo and occurred mostly inside my own head, even if there happened to be people around. e.g. at festivals other people become dynamic complex environment which I observe and these observations feed insight or serve as allegorical towards fresh understanding of something or other...

---
ETA One of my hypotheses is that being around other people, particularly in non-structured environments, is a cognitive overhead cost *of a certain kind* that will typically prevent me from getting lost in flow/pure stoke. It isn't that I don't have a good time around other people, it's that it somehow blocks at least one of the prerequisites for flow/pure stoke so my subjective well-being score is capped at around a 1 while that "around other people" routine is running. When I'm alone (or in a very structured social environment where that module can calm down a bit) then that limiter goes away and I can enter the higher realms of stoke and focus.

--

Also relevant:

Some people seem wired appropriately to just have fun and simply enjoy themselves. I am not. ... I’m wired to run, arms flung wide and eyes open, into the sweet embrace of the sublime horror.

From my newsletter today.

[berrytwo]

I'll also add that when I make an attempt to "have fun" via methods more commonly recognized as fun, I get tuckered out and grouchy after day two at most. I learned early on in my dirtbagging days that I can only spend one or two days with my "fun" friends (the friends capable of stringing together "fun" for multiple days in a row) and then I need to go be solo and be "not having fun", otherwise I'll get into 0's and negative 1's despite being involved in fun/stoke activities.

Point is, I had to learn as an adult that the meat and potatoes of fun and stoke for Axel is stuff that is not commonly filed under those categories, and that I can take "normal" vectors of fun and stoke in small doses only. I relay that here in order to encourage readers/lurkers to be aware of the fact that what is fun and stoke for their unique wiring might be quite different than what is fun and stoke for most people, and they'll have to arrange their WoG accordingly (it has non-obvious implications for social dynamics, for one thing). Writing your own user manual can be a lot of trial and error.

Dang, this hits! Been reflecting on ideas like this a lot recently, and something about the way you wrote this connected a few of things. To add on, I have been reflecting on flow in relation to wiring and "unburdened parts" *. Finding the combination of the two has been unlocking more 1+ days for me. Basically if flow is systemic harmony, burdened parts create blockages and inner tension.

I believe that flow states are examples of when all your parts are fully aligned with the purpose or pleasure of the activity so the Selves meld with yours .... Those flow experiences don't characterize our daily lives, because most of the time we are blended with our parts that are working inside to keep us safe functional and happy. As you unburden, and your parts feel increasingly trust each other and you, you do feel increasingly integrated and clear about your purpose, so more and more of your life is spent in the unified flow state.

* No Bad Parts, Richard Schwartz describes the mind as a system of parts, each with its own role and intelligence. Burdens are the emotional and belief-based legacies parts take on like shame, guilt, fear that push them into extreme roles to protect the system. These burdens create internal friction. The burden isn’t the part, it’s just what the part is carrying.

[Henry]

My therapist works off the Dick Schwartz IFS model. It seems to be working. Just the other day, I publicly tore my neighbor a new asshole without dropping one F-bomb.

[chenda]

Just the other day, I publicly tore my neighbor a new asshole without dropping one F-bomb.

Gentrification.

[Scott 2]

Reading and writing are asynchronous socialization. Our society discounts it. I experience it as deep connection, with just the right amount of sensory intensity. While there is a physical or temporal gap, I would not characterize it as isolation. It's very reasonable your "solitary" activities align with +2 days.

You are satisfying the need to peer, with others at comparable stages of development. Those who might grow with you. That's dope.

[Henry]

I have exhibited self-destructive behavior throughout my entire life. For instance, I am an inveterate bridge burner. Show me a bridge, and I will fucking torch it. I once kicked everyone in my band out one by one. The problem was I was a shit ass bass player who couldn't sing or write a song so all that left me was all alone in a hole in the wall practice studio banging out 1-4-5 blues lines and fending off heroin salesmen. I always thought this part's intention was to hurt me. But here comes old Dick Scwhartz and he says actually, Henry, those parts aren't trying to hurt you, they are trying to protect you. The arsonist is actually a fireman who just so happens to be a pyromaniac. It's insightful shit.