Meeting, Engaging and Seducing non-ERE Allies: Carrot Vectors

[AxelHeyst]

In my mind, more important than that is to prepare myself for those who will be incapable in troubled times...

Hm, yeah, part of being ready for trouble is being ready for those who are not ready for trouble.

There's a small microcosm of that up here in my off grid neighborhood. There are OGs and New Folk. OGs bought raw land and DIY'd their own shelter and infrastructure. New Folk bought the house and infrastructure that an OG built and then sold or died out of.

All of the OGs deal with their own infrastructure, although there's neighborly help and informal favors etc.

Some of the New Folk deal with their own infrastructure. But many of the New Folk either ask for help or try to pay someone to come up here to fix their stuff when it breaks. It's not easy to get any professionals to do work up here, and if you can it's not cheap, and its not uncommon for the professionals to decide halfway through a job they're over it and just not come back. Run into one of these New Folk and it's typically <5min before they start whinging about how hard it is to get help up here.

The common trait of New Folk who don't take care of their own stuff is they don't want to learn how to do it. They aren't interested. They just want the nice views and the peace and quiet I guess. The New Folk who deal with their own stuff *want* to learn... one suspects that learning how to do all this stuff is a major reason they came here in the first place.

[Jim]

The common trait of New Folk who don't take care of their own stuff is they don't want to learn how to do it. They aren't interested. They just want the nice views and the peace and quiet I guess. The New Folk who deal with their own stuff *want* to learn... one suspects that learning how to do all this stuff is a major reason they came here in the first place.

This is a subject of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" which is a great exposition on the value (heh) of knowing "how to do stuff." If I recall, part of the point that the author drives towards is that when people pursue peace and quiet without becoming involved with the system that supports it (their off grid house in your case, their motorcycles in the case of the book), they are apt to find an uneasy peace or a disquiet where they expected relaxation and inspiration.

If this wasn't the case, your neighbors wouldn't gripe abour the inconvenience of hiring help. They view the work as inconvient and anathema to their peace and quiet, because of either their preconceived notion that work is something that is not in their interest to do or their ignorance of how to begin the process of learning to do that type of work by themselves. They need to reconcile this in order to have a real thorough appreciation of their situation.

I taught my neighbor how to wire 120v receptacles in his house. He wasn't much engaged in the actual process of wiring the outlets, but became very interested to talk about the more general systems of wiring in his house. We talked about AFCI breakers, GFCI circuits, the layout of the panel, how split phase voltages work, etc. We had a great time and he learned a lot, and became super interested. The process of wiring the outlets wasn't something we were going to have a profound conversation about, it's very simple; however there are people to whom that would've been the more interesting topic to discuss. I came away from that experience feeling as though I had not just taught him to wire an outlet, but given him an appreciation that he had not had for the value of doing that kind of work.

I think this is why there's the focus on psychological/cultural typing in these forums, because those are ways of codifying and understanding how to effectively have the conversations we want to have with our neighbors.

Edit: My point here is that showing people that doing the thing that they are averse to doing (or learning to do), is not only gratifying and engaging of itself, but also alleviates the anxiety and frustration that arises from not being able to do the thing in the first place. It just happens that this is a hard thing to communicate. It's the solution to their problem and the solution to their problem with having problems.

[guitarplayer]

Have been thinking about this thread lately. @Ego I don't think there is any shame in assigning value to others, no worries. I am not sure if you are familiar with the essay of Cipolla on the laws of stupidity but what you write above fits the framework nicely. The three groups you are describing are

1. Those who are intelligent or helpless, depending on whether you are the person who will be ready and able to help in times of trouble (former) or not (latter)
2. Those who are bandits.
3. Those who are stupid.

If you go with Cipolla, you probably overestimate the ratios in favour of the intelligent and the bandits

Preparing for refusing to take up unsolvable problems of the stupid is to make the decision to be intelligent rather than helpless. I struggle with this as well. Think many potentially 'intelligent' (in Cipolla's sense) people struggle with it, because 'the solution is here, stupid!'

Anyway, I also came to this thread as thought about ERE2 as a bunch of high quality people. I gather becoming a high quality person is not a homeotelic goal of the mainstream social system.

[jacob]

One issue the forum has had over the years, which is either a feature or a bug depending on how you look at it, has been that some has held back from posting due to the "high level of discussion". I've treated it as a feature and even tried to steer the forum in the direction of "quality" input. However, that attitude is not universal and may even turn off some people *cough* Green *cough*. This goes back to

To attract Green people to ERE2, we have to include some "incompetent" people or a plan for caring for the "incompetent" people. IOW, take the actions equivalent to how The Scientist's direction of growth is towards The Leader and The Leader's direction of growth is towards The Helper.

Some people may balk at the idea of not willingly or even actively seeking out to include everybody. I don't agree with that position, but it's there. The reason I don't agree with it is similar to why I don't agree with "no minimum bar/no holds barred free speech": If you're the group with the lowest bar, you end up with the denizens of all the other groups. The cost of carrying this burden is generally high.

Aside from Ego's categories and Cipolla, there's also Hammerstein:

I distinguish four types. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always only cause damage.

Given this cost and limited resources, it's useful to consider some form of triage. Successful systems tend to have triage built into them w/o people even thinking of it as triage.

[Scott 2]

I'm drawn to the notion of high quality people, but find it can be unnecessarily restrictive. Especially in a group setting.

Sometimes all you need is someone who will show up half the time they promise and blindly follow instructions. Throw a couple of them at the appropriate problem, and it will get handled. The advantage is they are easier to gather.

Do I aspire to live that way? No, but I can see the value in the individuals.

So the successful group has to be good at scaling entry barriers to responsibility and benefits. As an individual, it may be most satisfying to find belonging via the most difficult barrier you can pass. But there's still a place for those who need a lower barrier.

Being able to integrate others in this way, IMO, makes one an even higher quality person. Especially if they can do it without allowing the group to become mired by individual limitations.


The groups and events I have gone to, that fail to provide appropriate barriers, have absolutely sucked. Difficulty to participate is now the first thing I consider.

[jacob]

Sometimes all you need is someone who will show up half the time they promise and blindly follow instructions.

Yacht racing in a nutshell! The skipper on my main racing boat told me that half the work involved with the boat was getting a crew together on a regular basis(*). "Reliably showing up" most if not all the time was the primary selection criteria. Blindly following instructions is possible for all positions except foredeck and navigator. This is why they're called the "hands".

(*) Another skipper had the theory that the "the bigger the ship, the less likely to leave dock" was due to a <30' ship only needing a crew of 1-2, whereas a 45'+ ship generally needs 5+.

Add: OTOH, "blindly following instructions" is a pretty big ask, especially when the difference in skill is not obvious or ideologically/culturally resisted.

[jacob]

It seems to me that there are two questions being asked/answered here that both relate to scale.

If you're looking to create a small group (<Dunbar number), you can just talk to everybody one by one and offer them whatever carrot they want, or not. For communities >Dunbar (such as this forum), it's necessary to figure out the what kind of people a given carrot [vector] attracts.

[7Wannabe5]

Since I have somehow ended up somewhat in the position of arguing from/for the perspective of Green, I would note that it is more the case that I am arguing from the perspective of the Adult Feminine or ALL the cool colors of the SD model. What is the commonality between communities such as The Military, The Monastery, Graduate Program Researchers at University, The Corporation, The Libertarian Society of America, etc? Obviously, they are all composed only of individuals who are in their Adult Masculine Energy. Therefore, they do not and can not comprise a closed community at the systems level. IOW, they are inherently sterile. Maybe this is more obvious to me, because permculture was the first realm in which I encountered systems theory or maybe because I spent several years reading breastfeeding-hippie-Mom magazines and "mastering" (see what I did there ) that lifestyle as an adult, prior to my first stint as a full-time-employee-of-a-modern-corporation (actually a much easier/stupider occupation.)

At the most literal, simple human with a tertiary Fe level, what I am communicating is that I am not likely to sign off on any plan or join any community that does not include place/provision for the sweet little handicapped child burdened with leg braces and coke bottle glasses who always smiles so big and hugs me at my current "helper" place of employment. I don't care if humans survive absent their humanity, even if it is often short-sighted.

At the most general level, I am simply observing that even within the full cycle of creation of non-biological artificial intelligence, a very large budget must be put aside for training/learning growth to maturity and the failures that will occur prior to the emergence of greater success through any exploratory (randomization integrated) activity or process analogous to sexual reproduction. IOW, any economic model that is dependent upon intelligence is "false" if it does not include this expense. Every functional permaculture project requires a nursery bed, even if the current goal is to reduce overall production.

If a community such as the military, or a monastery, or this forum is dependent upon society-in-general to provide it with already reasonably functional adults to add to its membership, like sorting through the tomato plants already started at a commercial nursery to add to your garden, it must somehow account for the expense that society in general is taking on by supporting its membership to induction level of maturity/development and also continuing to provide care for those such as the sweet handicapped child I mentioned above, who will never independently find their way to step one on the path to ERE1.

OTOH, because it seems like there may be some misunderstanding of my position, I could not care less if individuals such as middle-aged, semi-millionaire-next-door, climate-change-denying, brain-locked, man-splainers are denied admittance to forum and/or denied seating in any limited lifeboat situation, because clearly extraneous to minimum functional system and the sooner they can be drained of any and all of their resources through clever application of banditry, the better.

[Jim]

What is the commonality between communities such as The Military, The Monastery, Graduate Program Researchers at University, The Corporation, The Libertarian Society of America, etc? Obviously, they are all composed only of individuals who are in their Adult Masculine Energy. Therefore, they do not and can not comprise a closed community at the systems level.

There seems to be a tendency to talk interchangeably about "Green ERE1" and "ERE2". These are not the same thing. ERE2 is not necessarily about building a community. It's about interacting mainly with other ERE1 (or similar) people as opposed to interacting mainly with the normal economy which is full of normal people who only know 1 or 2 things and work all day long.

Can ERE2 exist absent of a community? Multiple people interacting will lead to a culture or community, even if it's not necessarily the focus of the interaction. The objective in water polo is to score goals, but you can't play without the pool. If community building isn't the purpose of ERE2, it may still important to be cognizant of, or intentional about the culture/community that is being created. Or is this structure is something that is expected to arise emergently?

At the most literal, simple human with a tertiary Fe level, what I am communicating is that I am not likely to sign off on any plan or join any community that does not include place/provision for the sweet little handicapped child burdened with leg braces and coke bottle glasses who always smiles so big and hugs me at my current "helper" place of employment. I don't care if humans survive absent their humanity, even if it is often short-sighted.

I also wouldn't enjoy being a part of a society that disenfranchises the less fortunate. I do, however, like to participate in groups and activities that are inherently exclusive, in that they require a degree of competency as a barrier to entry. I don't feel that these two preferences are incompatible. Maybe a blueprint for a cohesive post-consumer inclusive community will arise as the brainchild of ERE2. Or maybe an appealing method of communicating the merits of post-consumerism will come from it, IE carrots.

Is ERE2 ERE1s interacting, or the product of their interaction? Are we talking about the group that framed the constitution, or the United States itself?

[jacob]

Is ERE2 ERE1s interacting, or the product of their interaction? Are we talking about the group that framed the constitution, or the United States itself?

Personally, sticking with the metaphor, I'm mostly interested in the framing part of the constitution and how the constitution laid the foundation to what became the United States. The constitution is fundamentally the scaffolding that supports future development or evolution of the culture and the country. (One does not need a group to author such a document. My incomplete understanding is that Madison wrote most of it.)

I'm not so interested in the "community organizing" aspect of bringing people together. I tried and I find that part unenjoyable. This is likely why I leave "organizing" to Emergence.

However, scaffolding makes such emergence more likely. Examples of scaffolding include creating ERE1 which begets people who understand ERE1 (Americans in the metaphor). A forum can bring them together. After 10 years, MMGs emerge. Very early on, I tried to organize meetups and even something akin to the Franklin Junta, but these efforts were as far as I know one-off events. A few met again, but nothing like the MMGs.

[7Wannabe5]

I also wouldn't enjoy being a part of a society that disenfranchises the less fortunate. I do, however, like to participate in groups and activities that are inherently exclusive, in that they require a degree of competency as a barrier to entry. I don't feel that these two preferences are incompatible.

I don't disagree. Let me share a quote from a book that I am not at all necessarily recommending*, which is mainly addressing audience of Broke-azz Level Green Do-Gooder/Artsy-type Females.

Instead of complaining and freaking out about the power-mongering, greed-obsessed fatheads who are perpetrating such harm on the planet, and handing them even more power by staying broke because you don't want to be like them, why not focus on getting rich instead so you can make a big difference? You can do some really cool stuff with money; don't let the jerks who give it a bad name ruin it for you.
You cannot give what you do not have, so if you want to help others you have to take care of yourself first. This is why they always tell you on airplanes that you have to put your oxygen mask on first before you help someone else with theirs. They have to remind us of this because it's counterintuitive-unless you are a sociopath, it's your nature to help. Few things lighten up the human heart like helping/bringing joy to others. Trust in the fact that when you're well taken care of financially, you'll be even more poised, and inspired, to spread the love.

- "You Are A Badass At Making Money"- Jen Sincero.

So, my question, which is also my suggestion for "carrot" for Green is "When and how does ERE2 start helping the humans who truly need help put on their oxygen masks, rather than just trickling down to the "almost got it together already" or further insuring that oxygen masks will continue to be available for those who already have oxygen masks on through acquisition of social capital and/or formation of oxygen supply network?" IOW, in more simpler, direct terms, I totally grok how humans who are already very competent, might become super-competent by forming an MMG or other social association, but it almost goes in the opposite direction from getting to the point where you feel secure enough that you can now put an oxygen mask on the handicapped child.

*Because it encourages earning more AND spending more, even towards goals such as combatting climate change. Although this does bring up the somewhat interesting question of whether or not it may be somewhat necessary to be somewhat successful at earning money at Level Orange prior to finding success at Level Yellow strategy such as ERE. IOW, it might be the case that some of those "stuck" at Level Green may have to take one step back before taking one step forward. If so, that means that a brief period of increased spending might be warranted or even promoted as carrot???

[daylen]

The investment curriculum could be rebranded into rest, vest, and quest.

Rest - sometimes helping involves doing nearly nothing.
Vest - sometimes helping involves capitalizing or liquifying projects from afar with a critical eye.
Quest - sometimes helping involves being present and ready for anything.

[Ego]

So, my question,.... "When and how does ERE2 start helping the humans who truly need help put on their oxygen masks promoted as carrot???

We spent the day yesterday with a friend who is the adult version of your Coke-bottle-glassed, leg-braced, Tiny Tim. She is one of the kindest, most generous people we know. Her positivity is contagious and she is an absolute delight to be around.

She is also phenomenally bad with money. Spectacularly bad. She makes unbelievable decisions. She never seems to notice the cliff until after she has fallen over it. Despite her charming disposition, her family, close friends, partners and children who would normally feel responsible for helping her to put on her oxygen mask, have all fled to the other three corners of the continent as self protection mechanisms.

Those who fled are not bad people. Far from it. They just realize that there are some people who - while flailing desperately as you try to help them with their oxygen mask - will unintentionally destroy yours.

[jacob]

So, my question, which is also my suggestion for "carrot" for Green is "When and how does ERE2 start helping the humans who truly need help put on their oxygen masks, ...

It's tricky. ERE1 was designed for Orange people to help themselves as individuals w/o(*) hurting others. This has self-selected the kind of person whose natural strategy to solving problems is first to ask "What I can do in this situation to solve this problem for me?" and, very importantly, second to take personal individual action towards that solution (agency).

(*) A slight Green/Blue tint.

On this forum, I think we have a group of self-selected people who are much above normal in terms of personal initiative and CCCCCC when it comes to individual solutions.

Contrast this with Green which is almost the opposite: First, "is it possible to think of anyone anywhere who might be excluded by the proposed solution?" + only take the action if/when it can be done together with others.

On first impression, these two meta-strategies are diametrically heterotelic to the point where it isn't even funny anymore. Part of the problem is that it is very hard for a person (or a group of such persons) with this pattern to see the other possible patterns. For example, Green (in the above sense) is generally shocked to learn that some other groups deliberately exclude certain people (whether it's by skill, family, tribe, ...) or that highly-skilled individuals may leave/avoid joining their community considering it more effort than it's worth. An Orange individual may be shocked how the group doesn't appreciate that they single-handedly took initiative and created 90% of the solution one their own during an all-nighter. "Why does it matter that we didn't do the work together!? I was trying to help so I solved the problem so we can get on with business." "It's not about the solution." "What?!?"

===

Currently my best idea as a green+orange carrot (twofer) would be:

"If you learn [all] these renaissance skills you can connect with so many more groups".

This formulation needs some work, because it would take all of five seconds for someone to try to shoot it down with "what about those with learning disabilities?"

[Frita]

Just throwing it out there that well-intentioned Green individuals and groups often confuse helping people do things they could do for themselves. That is codependently dysfunctional. There is a difference between “can’t” and “won’t.” Then we get into the space of “idiot compassion,” something that doesn’t work with ERE2 or healthy systems of any sort.

[7Wannabe5]

Despite her charming disposition, her family, close friends, partners and children who would normally feel responsible for helping her to put on her oxygen mask, have all fled to the other three corners of the continent as self protection mechanisms.

Those who fled are not bad people. Far from it. They just realize that there are some people who - while flailing desperately as you try to help them with their oxygen mask - will unintentionally destroy yours.

I wouldn't suggest that they are bad people. I would suggest that they are people with very poor boundary-setting skills if they have to physically remove themselves thousands of miles away from somebody they love in order to avoid having difficult conversations during which they might experience emotional growth through expressing their own vulnerability* or no longer avoiding whatever it is they fear their loved one might communicate in reply. Of course, this is a garden-variety type failing**, which could readily be addressed if any of them were to avail themselves of entry-level therapy at Level Green

For instance, one amazing thing they might learn if they faced their fears directly is that difficult conversations very often don't play out in the manner they might have predicted.

Aunt Alice: Oh, Billy, such a terrible thing has happened! My horoscope was wrong when it said that luck was in my stars last Wednesday, so I lost $40 at bingo night with the girls, and now I can't afford the bag of chow I promised to donate to the feral cat sanctuary.

Nephew Billy: I'm sorry to hear of your troubles. Unfortunately, I am unable to lend you any money, because I am saving up for my dream of retiring and living on a little houseboat that I build all by myself.

Aunt Alice: I had no idea that was your dream. I thought you liked your computer cubicle at Acme Screw and App.

Nephew Billy: No. It is actually the case that I feel like stabbing myself in the eyeballs with a pencil every afternoon around 2 pm.

Aunt Alice: You poor boy! Don't give another thought to me and the cats. I'll figure something out like I always do. You just take care of you and be sure to send me a postcard from some tropical island.(( Hugs))

Nephew Billy: For sure! I love you Aunt Alice.

Aunt Alice: I love you too!


*Semi-ridiculous exercises such as "circling" are merely practice for the difficult conversations of life. Just like semi-ridiculous story problems in basic math.

**For instance, there is somebody in my social circle who is excellent at managing his money, but I am currently somewhat avoiding his company, because I am afraid he will ask me to ride with him on his motorcycle, and I no longer trust his ability to handle such a vehicle. So, I need to consider how I might approach this particular difficult conversation.

ERE1 was designed for Orange people to help themselves as individuals w/o(*) hurting others...
(*) A slight Green/Blue tint.

Yeah, I grok this, but two things:

1) Kind of smells like what those of us semi-versed in relationship-therapy-speak at Level Green would refer to as a "covert contract."
2) With no clear plan for "helping" at Level Orange, the solution will default to Blue or Purple, not Green.

highly-skilled individuals may leave their community considering it more effort than it's worth

Yup, but ultimately the planet is not a gated community. Trust me, I learned by the 4th grade that sometimes the reward society grants for doing well is that you get to go to the Gold Star group with special privileges and cooler stuff, but other times the "reward" is that you end up having to spend an hour every day tutoring Big Carl and Little Carl. But, the problem is that even when you are the adult designing the curriculum and holding the bag of marshmallows, Big Carl and Little Carl are still there, and they are not nearly as pleasant to interact with as the sweet handicapped child with the coke bottle glasses.

Currently my best idea as a green+orange carrot (twofer) would be:

"If you learn [all] these renaissance skills you can connect with so many more groups".

This formulation needs some work, because it would take all of five seconds for someone to try to shoot it down with "what about those with learning disabilities?"

Too flip. I like AxelHeyst's "Ready for Trouble" slogan. I totally believe that expanding and improving my own selection of renaissance skills as an individual would help me be more helpful in a situation such as being the adult in charge of 16 very young and/or handicapped children when a wildfire sweeps through the town. However, there is nothing in the ERE paradigm compelling me to ever be in such a position of responsibility. I'm trying to think of a nice way to put this, but it's kind of like who cares if a grown-azz man can take care of himself financially or when the SHTF? Big deal.

[AxelHeyst]

"I'm ready for trouble now."

edit: "I'm ready to help us in times of trouble."

"Now we're ready for trouble."

"At long last we're ready to help them with trouble." [and if we don't, our trouble will be double...]

--

+1 what frita said. I codependently pursued 'helping' other people for 12 years. I didn't do anyone any good. [ETA: and now feel like I'm playing catchup in terms of developing competence/readiness for trouble/ability to be useful and helpful locally.]

[AxelHeyst]

However, there is nothing in the ERE paradigm compelling me to ever be in such a position of responsibility. I'm trying to think of a nice way to put this, but it's kind of like who cares if a grown-azz man can take care of himself financially or when the SHTF? Big deal.

Nobody cares if a grown ass man can take care of himself, but few things revolt people more than a grown ass man who can't. Just sayin'. I don't disagree with your points at all.

[jacob]

Trust me, I learned by the 4th grade that sometimes the reward society grants for doing well is that you get to go to the Gold Star group with special privileges and cooler stuff, but other times the "reward" is that you end up having to spend an hour every day tutoring Big Carl and Little Carl. But, the problem is that even when you are the adult designing the curriculum and holding the bag of marshmallows, Big Carl and Little Carl are still there, and they are not nearly as pleasant to interact with as the sweet handicapped child with the coke bottle glasses.

Being schooled within the Green tradition, I learned the second lesson by the 2nd grade but I never learned the first lesson at all(*). My initial conclusion before grokking the systemic context much much later was "never become known as the one who can fix the printer" because personal competence in a community-environment is all risk/no reward in a strictly community-oriented environment. Outliers either "figure out how to hide their weirdness" or "leave".

This is also why a both-and or third-way approach is needed. There needs to be some reward for the individualists to engage with the community. It doesn't need to be 100%, but it should also not be cut down to 0%. Conversely, there needs to be some rewards for collectivists to take initiative and stand out. Again, it doesn't need to be 100%, but ...

(*) This is also why I don't have much useful input in terms tactical considerations. I have wissen for the problem, but I don't have kennen.

[AxelHeyst]

I'm working on a blog post and it seems maybe relevant to post the draft here and see what you guys think. You won't miss much to skim quickly until Thing 3.

Thing 1: I've been lost in the void
I've been feeling a bit ungrounded recently. I think it's because I did what I set out to do, and I've yet to define the next thing to do.

I spent the last 3.5 years hustling to internalize post-consumer praxis and, lo and behold, I've just about got it. I sense that while there's a lifetime's worth of work to be done maturing my take on post-consumerism, I'm over the hump. I've escaped the gravity well of consumerism and am firmly captured by the gravity well of post-consumerism. It no longer requires the majority of my attention and energy. Momentum will carry me home.

Nice. Victory. Well done self.

And... now what?

I've been sitting with 'now what?' since shortly after my return from my bike trip in June. My ride was a break from the routine of last winter, a chance to reflect, and a reorientation to a daily routine that suits me better. Sitting with 'now what?' isn't very comfortable. It feels like floating in the void. I've been doing my best to sit with it and let it be my reality, instead of distracting myself or numbing it away. (#noalcohol2023 helps).

Void-floating makes it difficult to write posts or produce podcasts, I've found. I've got stacks of post drafts that have no core to them because I'm, well, floating in a void.

Thing 2: The other day I realized why I suck at working out now
For the past year I've made several attempts to establish a consistent workout routine. They all failed within a few weeks.

I worked out religiously from the age of 14 till about 19 or 20. I was into bodybuilding. I wanted to be a beefcake.

When I lived in the Bay I got into climbing and trained a lot for that.

When I went digital nomad in 2016 there was basically nothing consistent about my life because I was always on the move. Some people maintain a routine while being mobile, but I didn't. So since 2016 I haven't worked out consistently.

Since establishing my home base here in the mountains, though, I figured I had run out of excuses. I began a workout routine. I kept at it for a few weeks, then stopped.

I started another routine. Three weeks. Another: two weeks.

This was a puzzler. I know I'm the kind of person who can work out consistently -- I have years of evidence. I don't lack some intrinsic quality of discipline. Something else was up.

In the ERE book Jacob writes about the DVP>C model of change. Dissatisfaction Times Vision Times Plan must be greater than the 'cost'/effort of Change. With this model it was pretty clear what my problem was: I wasn't Dissatisfied enough, and I had no real compelling Vision that I cared about.

I'm basically fine with my physique, I don't want to be much bigger, and I don't super care about being stronger. Would I *like* to be more jacked? Sure. But not, apparently, enough to work for it.

I thought back to when I was lifting weights all the time. I had intense dissatisfaction (I felt puny) and a very clear vision (I wanted to be 220lbs). There was no question of skipping workouts. It was an effort to make myself NOT go to the gym when I had the flu.

When I figured this out I felt like I'd diagnosed my problem. I'm missing D and V. How to get them?

Thing 3: I had an epiphany for working out and then it flash-inoculated my entire lifegoals system

I looked around for D and V that felt real for a few days. I listened to a David Goggins podcast, taking with my forum friends about it, and batted around a few ideas.

The other day I was sketching a mind map on the theme of, uh, homeotelically aligning all of my life-goals and actions under a common superordinate theme. As one does. I was playing with thematic components like rewilding, feralization, the lifeboat flotilla, deep prepping, adaptation, and the like.

Out popped the phrase Ready for Trouble. The phrase fell out of my brain onto the paper. And I looked at it and went oh, hello. Yes, an organizing and motivating vision for working out could be: I want to be Ready for Trouble. I want to be physically ready to adapt and roll with whatever trouble comes my way. And I don't want to be physically ready to just preserve my own skin from trouble - I want to be ready and able to help others in times of trouble.

And then as I sat and looked at this mind map I'd sketched, I realized:

Oh. Being Ready for Trouble is relevant to literally everything I want to do as well. It is an organizing principle that makes all of my various interests and projects make sense.

I think there's trouble coming. I think we're in trouble. I think we're dealing with the repercussions of past trouble. We're in Trouble Soup and the burner is on high. We can either ignore this, deny this, be afraid of it, or...

....or we can howl at the sky and choose to get ready.

Thing 4: ERE brought me here
ERE guided me on the path of post-consumer praxis. It made me more ready for trouble than I otherwise would have been -- you can't walk this path without incidentally constructing a more resilient and robust life for yourself. It's how the thing is designed.

I'm ready for economic trouble because I live on very little money and I have some buffers of it. I'm ready for disruptions in services because I DIY most of my own services and have buffers in all of my primary needs (food, water, shelter, etc). I have a broad and ever-broadening set of skills that could be relevant for any number of future scenarios. I'm no McGuyver but I'm certainly readier for trouble than I was four years ago.

Now that I've internalized the fundamentals of post-consumer praxis, I've got heaps of free time to do with whatever I like. This is the question I've been sitting with since I got back from my bike trip. "I can do whatever I'd like now... what would I like to do?"

An answer to that question that feels resonant to me right now is "I'd like to get ready for trouble in a deep and holistic way that involves other people." As Vision, being ready for trouble inspires me. I really like the idea of being ready for trouble. As Dissatisfaction, being vulnerable to various kinds of trouble bothers me. It scratches at the back of my mind.


Thing 5: The vibe is exuberance and love, not isolation and fear
So, I've decided to build a bunker and fill it with guns and freeze-dried food and post a bunch of signs outside that say "If you can read this you are in range."

Ha, kidding.

I am a fan of Self Determination Theory (SDT), a branch of positive psychology that examines the relationship between well being and intrinsic motivation. A core claim of SDT is that human flourishing has three prerequisites: Autonomy, Competence, and Relatedness. For a human to really flourish, they need to feel like their in charge of their own decisions, they need to feel like they're skilled and well-equipped to deal with whatever it is they're doing, and they need to be in some kind of relationship with others. This last prerequisite, Relatedness, is sometimes referred to as Purpose, but this Purpose is always understood to be constructed in the context of relationships with others.

To me, being Ready for Trouble hits all three of these prerequisites but especially the last one. I need to emphasize this because it's probably less obvious. Let's go through it

Autonomy is probably obvious. The whole point of being Ready for Trouble is to preserve my autonomy despite facing trouble. And I need to feel like I'm making my own decisions in the process of getting and being ready for trouble. Simple enough.

Competence is also straightforward. I need to train and learn so that I feel competent to deal with and adapt to a variety of potential Troubles.

Relatedness is less obvious. What does relatedness have to do with a mindset of saving my own skin?

The answer is that being ready for trouble is not about saving my own skin. Or: being ready for trouble is about saving my own skin only insofar as preserving my own skin is necessary if I'm to help others, if I'm to be a component in my complex mesh of relations.

And this leads us to the time component of being ready for trouble. Ready for trouble implies readiness for flashes of short-duration trouble like earthquakes, wildfires, supply-chain disruptions, civic strife, and economic perturbations. It is those things.

But it is also taking a look further into the future than the next few years. To me, being ready for trouble looks decades and centuries into the future and attempts to weave a way of life that is in relation to the lives of people who will live through those decades and centuries to come after I'm gone.

And of course this is where we're connecting to the idea of the lifeboat flotilla. At a global scale, I think a trouble we've got is that the way our civilization functions isn't going to hold together for very much longer. Our current arrangement is going to morph and break and adapt and become something else entirely, and in many instances this process of change isn't going to be gentle.

I don't see the dissolution of our current arrangement as The End. Insofar as our current arrangement was always self-terminating, I don't even see it as necessarily a bad thing. But I do recognize that the breakup of our current arrangement is going to come along with a fair amount of Trouble.

How we cope with and respond to this Trouble is the game we are all playing whether we want to or not. And how we collectively and in groups respond to this Trouble has a lot to do with what cultures come out the far side. Whether we like it or not we are connected and related to everyone else on this planet at this moment and through time.

So this is how being Ready for Trouble connects to this Relatedness prerequisite for human flourishing. How we choose to be ready for trouble connects us to everyone else. And this is the tie in to love and to exuberance.

It's reasonable to look at the Trouble coming and to be afraid. I am often scared. And it's reasonable to grieve, to spend time in mourning for what we have lost and what we will lose.

But I think it's very important to not root our actions in the fear because fear manifests as hate and eats us from the inside out. If all we look at is the pain we're in for and if all we try to do is find ways to avoid that pain, we're acting from fear.

I think a better way to approach this is to focus on our relations. To dwell in honor of those we love and those systems of relationships that we love. Immediately we can look at our families and friendships, the nonhuman beings in the forest and air and waters around us, and let our love for these beings fill and guide us. And we can look at the beings that aren't born yet but will be, humans and squirrels and bugs and coyotes that will be born in 2040, 2100, and we can *see* the ripples of connections between our actions now and their lives, and we can let ourselves be filled with love for them.

And so it's in this way that I say that, for me, being Ready for Trouble implies an attitude of exuberant love.