Early Retirement Extreme Forums

It came about because he realized that it's possible that at some point in the future, he may want to leave his land (a prime reason would be wildfires). He also realized I might get my own land sometime and want to spend time doing my own thing. Also it's possible (but unlikely) we'd fall out. And that any of those scenarios would be much simpler to deal with if ownership was clearcut.

My concerns over losing my spot in the container are << my concerns about investing a bunch of time and money in a thing that I sort-of kind-of not really own. Also, by getting paid for it, it prevents me from staying here even if the best thing is for me to move on, because I won't have as much loss aversion. So I feel freer. I trust my friend a great deal, and while I always know that things could go south, I trust his desire to treat me fairly, however things shake out.

I never expected to stay here longer than 5 years, and only 50/50 seasonally at that. So the new arrangement is honestly a relief. Worst case scenario, I had a cool time building out a shipping container once and have a bunch of new skills.

Sounds like a good plan. All the fun and skills without the liability.

Thanks for mentioning the Dark Green Mountain Survival Research blog. I'm really enjoying it.

+1 on Dark Green Mountain; brand new to me and will likely ensure I bill all of an hour today, at most.

ETA: Seriously, just a whole lot of truth bombs on that site.

The best way I have heard this presented was by the late Micheal Ruppert, who said, “We may be forced by necessity to live the way we probably should have been living in the first place. ”

I’m going to flip that statement a bit. The way we probably should have been living in the first place, we may be forced into by necessity, to simply LIVE.

https://darkgreenmountainsurvivalresear ... m/contact/

Your situation sounds really good! I also think it's better to have things simple regarding ownership. I really admire the way you seem to just get an idea and go with it. Keep safe and best regards to you!

AxelHeyst wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 22, 2021 6:17 pm

Are you on to Edward Tufte?

I'm loving the pictures and hearing about your progress on the build. Sounds like you found a good compromise with your friend that puts you in a better position moving forward. I must admit that your dual homesite strategy has left me scratching my head at times, but you are actively doing cool shit and pursuing your dreams so I'm definitely not questioning that approach as I sit in front of my computer for 40+ hours per week.

I vaguely remember learning about Tufte in school, but haven't read any of his books or research. I'd typically jump on it if I wasn't actively planning my exit strategy I appreciate the suggestion though and may dive into him on "work time" when I get a chance.

Western Red Cedar wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 24, 2021 7:40 pm

I must admit that your dual homesite strategy has left me scratching my head at times,

I helps if you replace "strategy" with "path-dependent response fabricated in an iterative ideation process between an ENFP and an INTJ that is *almost certainly* going to change in to something totally different within three months, every three months, forever". At least that's how it seems to me. At the moment the plan is more like "wander around building stuff for people".

I synthesized a thing today. I call it "doing a Katy Cal-Beau", after Katy Bowman, Cal Newport, and Beau Miles. The basic idea is from Beau's A Mile An Hour video, which is incredible.

Shortly after waking up, I open my timeblock planner and write down a list of tasks to do. As many as I can think of. It works best if most of them are "shallow" tasks, but one or two "deep" tasks are good as a mix. It's also good to have a mix of physical and non-physical tasks.

Then for a set period of time (today I did 0900 - 1700), I take a short walk on the hour, between 5-10 minutes. Going for a short run would be better. Kettlebell swings or burpees would do the trick as well. I'm at the top of a steep (30*) hill over rough natural terrain, so mostly I just walked down to the creek and back.

When I'm not walking, I'm cranking on my list of tasks. Any "big rocks" I'll have timeblocked (cal newport), otherwise I just do whatever feels good from the list. I channel digital minimalism (cal) to avoid distraction and just focus on what I'm doing. I found that having the strict deadline of "at the top of the hour, I gotta drop what I'm doing and go walk the hill" helped me focus and work with urgency. It also was simply great to move that often, get the blood moving, and not get "zoned out" on my computer.

Throughout, I'm mindful to adopt natural movements as inspired by Katy Bowman. For example, instead of sitting on the couch to study Bodie, I squatted until it became uncomfortable and then stood. I wore my five fingers all day. I alternated sitting while doing 3d modeling with standing at my computer for writing. I did calf stretches while cooking breakfast, and stood and looked at mountains 9 miles distant while eating.

--

I've been struggling a little lately with energy/motivation. This is partly due to having a lot of projects running in parallel, most of which are new processes to me so they require a fair amount of thinking, iterating, etc - they don't lend themselves well to "cranking through it". But I DO have a bunch of other tasks that kind of piled up that are of the "just do it, this is super trivial stuff/failure is cheap" variety. A day to channel some manic Beau energy to jam through that list felt great. I also physically feel quite good, even though I didn't really do that much.

I've really been enjoying the Beau Miles videos over the last few days. I probably broke Cal Newport's rule by listening to an interview with him while cranking through some emails today, but that doesn't really qualify as deep work.

DW was wandering in and out of the kitchen this weekend while I was watching his walk to work video and asked if I was watching an Aussie comedian

Western Red Cedar wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 29, 2021 8:31 pm

DW was wandering in and out of the kitchen this weekend while I was watching his walk to work video and asked if I was watching an Aussie comedian

Today I dumpster-dived some new-fangled candy called "smashmellows" that inexplicably said "sustainable" on the front and I asked myself the same question.

They were anticipating that no one was going to buy that shit and the only consumers of their product would be dumpster divers...

Jokes on them, I gave it away to a bunch of heroin addicts.

Cool experiment. I reserved the Katy Bowman book you recommended. I've read up on timeblock planning; I use it occasionally but am not very good at it.

Watched Beau's video as well. What a wacky Austrailian. XD

WRC the beauty of Cal's approach is that he isn't against digital media, so for myself I allow what brings highest value to my life. Podcasts are such an amazing educational/enlightment tool that this is high value then.

@AxelHeyst this is an inspiring update from you ! Good luck with the new system and personal challenge.

Money


I have a medical expense coming up of about $4k. I plugged it into my accruals tab, and it comes out to $8/mo for the rest of my life, assuming I die at 75. I find depreciation a useful tool for thinking more clearly about expenses. I initially balked at the expense of the procedure (aw man that's gonna make my numbers look bad!), but $8/mo for getting back to 100% health isn't bad.

Health
The medical expense is a hernia repair operation. Most repair ops are $8k, which conveniently is what my deductible is. I searched around and found a doc who specializes in this, has won all sorts of awards, and does it for $4k out the door. Sold. I'm seeking to get in asap so I can move on with my life.

Digital declutter
I'm doing a Cal Newport style digital declutter, inspired by @stasher. I've got pretty good digital minimalism practices, I don't use social media at all, etc etc, but I want it a little better. I've been addicted to email and a few other things, and my mind hasn't felt as clear as I know it can be.

The Container Build
I'm abandoning it in place. It dawned on my that the whole point of the container build was that Serenity isn't big enough for both DW and I. Well, DW skipped town a month ago, and at most she'd only come visit me here. I realized there was no actual point in me building the thing out for myself. I chatted with my roommate, and let him know that I was unlikely to utilize the container anymore, but could finish up some of the projects. He's deciding if he wants to use it as a woodshop instead (he was going to convert the other container in to a woodshop, but since I'm vacating this one and it's further along, maybe he'll just use this one). Bottom line, I'm done, we're going to square up on the work I did (it should almost cover my hernia repair op, ha!), and I'll schlep my stuff back to the family land after I heal up from the op.

So, uh, what're you gonna do....?
Phase 1: get the op done, heal up, move out of the container, get Serenity back to family land, and tie up a couple logistical issues like selling my truck.
Phase 2: Hop on my motorcycle, ride around, and see friends until I want to do something else.
There is no phase 3.

I went from 40hrs/wk to 8hrs/wk last July. I was pretty burnt out, I'd been cranking hard for 11 years with no single break longer than 2 weeks. And engineering school for 5 years before that wasn't exactly a romp. Right after dropping to 8hrs, I did at least 3 months of chilling, relaxing, "coming down" from the mad hustle.

...And then I chucked myself at this container build, a big project with a tight deadline, high stakes, and the deck stacked against me. Same shit, different day, really. It occurred to me that maybe I'm still burnt out, still recovering. Or, perhaps I've had enough time to recover my from my actual burnout, but I haven't yet had enough time to relearn new ways of being. So it's not just that I've got to "recover", I've got to "deprogram" my behavior.

It's a way of thinking that I haven't yet untangled. DW and I keep trying to "solve" our wandering ways with intense thought and planning. Get land and homestead? Two homesteads? Get a skoolie? Go to Mexico? Stability and rootedness, or wanderlust and easy come easy go? Do this? Do that? And we've been attaching our happiness to getting this puzzle right. We'll be happy when _____. Maybe we've just been thinking about this all wrong.

I definitely feel like I've just been too effortful, too gripped. It's my whole "GROW DAMMIT!" attitude towards everything, that I'm pretty sure I was born with. It's extremely difficult for me to just enjoy shit. I get a real kick out of healthy hustle, but striking the right balance is difficult, and I almost always err on the side of way too much.

And it's not *clever* hustle, either, which makes me feel like an idiot. Some people hustle at startups or investing schemes or their own businesses. For my whole career, I output a startup-level hustle for the same pay as the dude in the next cubicle over - there was no potential massive upside to my hustle, I just did it because that's what I do. Did. What a fucking waste.

So that's the thinking behind my spring and summer plans. Get on the bike and go. It's the least sophisticated plan I've ever come up with for anything. Most of my grocery trips involve more logistics. I don't have any answers to any of the sensible questions one would ask.

How long are you doing to do it? Till I don't want to.
How's that work with having a girlfriend and all? Not sure, we'll find out.
You have good rain gear, right? Nope.
How are you going to work wile living off a bike? With some difficulty, I'm sure.

I've reached a point where the kind of thinking I've employed for years isn't working to my satisfaction. I keep running myself halfway in to a project, location, initiative, going "oh wait, fuck this tho", and pivoting to something else. Which results in a lot of waste (money, time, effort, opportunity cost). So for now I'm done, or am attempting to force myself to let go of, that kind of thinking.

I have to give credit where it's due. I think this is what c_L was trying to tell me last year when I dropped to part-time, and he was encouraging me to not have a Plan and just do whatever I wanted to do. I didn't get it at the time. I think I had to have the experience of the past 9 months to see that the problem wasn't "being burned out", it was "having a mental process that leads me to burning myself out, no matter what my w*rk situation is".

AxelHeyst wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 03, 2021 11:36 am

We'll be happy when _____. Maybe we've just been thinking about this all wrong.

I definitely feel like I've just been too effortful, too gripped. It's my whole "GROW DAMMIT!" attitude towards everything, that I'm pretty sure I was born with. It's extremely difficult for me to just enjoy shit. I get a real kick out of healthy hustle, but striking the right balance is difficult, and I almost always err on the side of way too much.

I hope you heal up well and enjoy some nomadic adventures. I've plugged this video and research elsewhere on the forums, but I think it might be useful. One of my favorite TED talks and a good reminder to reframe my perceptions on happiness and success.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLJsdqxnZb0

Just starting to read some of your journal - you’re a good writer. I wish you a speedy recovery w upcoming surgery.

Yeah, I tend to fall into the same trap of conditional happiness...if I could just do “X”, then I’ll be happy. It’s critical we remind ourselves often that it’s OK to be happy right here, right now.
Don’t know if you’ve ever read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance”, but you might like it! It’s an oldie from the 70s that I read in college - pretty good.
When my brother-in-law comes over from Germany, he just gets on his damn bike and heads out west with a vague plan and let’s the road take him. Seems to work out every time!

You se to say that you enjoy the hustle - the creativity - the creation of what you build (school, work for others, work for yourself - container etc) but you do not like the lack of reward. Also you feel bad about going after rewards because the goal is supposed to be about something else. Am I understanding your thought process?
When have you found fulfillment or joy or accomplishment or whatever sensation you value? Should you seek more of that? You might also be correct that something is missing - only you can decide that just be careful of letting anyone else’s voice of a correct way to live intervene in your choices.

Married2aSwabian wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 03, 2021 9:34 pm

Don’t know if you’ve ever read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance”, but you might like it!

I read it years ago, well before I got on my first bike. I think one of my first quests when I hit the road will be to find a beat up copy in a hole in the wall bookshop and keep it in my saddlebags for a nice re-read.

Qazwer wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:23 pm

Am I understanding your thought process?

Your question implies that I understand my thought process. You ask good questions though.

I like to think that my behavior is intrinsically motivated. I think that to the greater degree my actions are intrinsically motivated, the better. I often do things from the self-assumption that I'm intrinsically motivated. I worked hard professionally because I was intrinsically motivated by a) a love of hustle generally and b) a Mission greater than myself (sustainability). But then I became disillusioned with (b), and it became apparent that I was sacrificing my health and relationships on the altar of (a), I was out of balance. My intrinsic motivation rationalization disappeared, and I had no decent external motivating factor to justify my actions with either - I wasn't getting paid enough, or exposing myself to enough potential upside, to justify my efforts. So I just felt like a sucker. Does that make sense?

Qazwer wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 03, 2021 10:23 pm

When have you found fulfillment or joy or accomplishment or whatever sensation you value? Should you seek more of that?

Yes! I find it difficult to productively remember instances that I want to replicate, in a way that is actionable. Maybe because I think I'm not supposed to. I initially wanted to laugh and tell you that I'm not constrained at all by anyone else's voice of a correct way to live, but I might not be right about that. "I'm not swayed by society's narratives" is a story I tell about myself, but maybe it's less true than I want it to be. And the fact that I've been fooling myself about it means that I haven't done the work to undo limiting narratives I've adopted.

One of the best periods of my life was in university when I lived in a tent in the hills behind campus, and then in my truck when the rains came. The other best period of my life was when I was doing knucklehead stuff with Occupy. I've not tried to replicate these times because otherwise I've always had a gf, and I tell myself I can't do weird shit like that *and* have a gf. Which is a false dichotomy. Probably.

Have you read “Scanners” by Sher or similar works? She spends a good deal of the book trying to convince people who are not conventional careerists that they shouldn’t beat themselves up for quitting if/when they got what they came for. For instance, might just be pleasure of scaling a new learning curve.

I have a reasonable amount of experience sleeping in the back of jeeps etc with variety of male partners. The key piece of advice I would offer that transcends birth gender is that if you are a human that tends to take the lead, it is best practice to consciously engage in practice of “honoring preferences of other.” I am obviously already assuming that you aren’t just conveying “Suck it up, Sally” (except in attempt to evoke laughter), so what I am recommending is considering maximizing consideration of preferences of other as a cognitive challenge of leadership. Important note here being that I am not recommending dull compromise. Secondary note being that some of this philosophy of leadership I learned from a guy who thought he could win at craps, so grain of salt

@AH: The struggle is real brother.

I've become increasingly convinced that Jacob's real genius isn't the early retirement schtick. The motherfucker just knows what he wants to do and then does it. Total internal guidance. How? HOW?!? He never gives up this particular ghost.

This problem is one of the reasons I started recommending semi-ERE. Don't be fooled by DLj, who somehow just knows and does, retirement takes fucking practice.

7Wannabe5 wrote: ↑

Sun Apr 04, 2021 11:08 am

The key piece of advice I would offer is that if you are a human that tends to take the lead, it is best practice to consciously engage in practice of “honoring preferences of other.” I am obviously already assuming that you aren’t just conveying “Suck it up, Sally” (except in attempt to evoke laughter), so what I am recommending is considering maximizing consideration of preferences of other as a cognitive challenge of leadership. Important note here being that I am not recommending dull compromise. Secondary note being that some of this philosophy of leadership I learned from a guy who thought he could win at craps, so grain of salt

Ok, I edited this by deleting 4 words and now it totally captures my current understanding of how to be a decent dom. Well played.