Hristo's FI Journal

[Salathor]

Hey Hristo,

I've been reading Paul Kingsnorth's substack thanks to your recommendations. I'm absolutely loving it so far. I'm not sure I 100% agree (although I think it would be odd if anyone 100% agreed with anyone else who expressed themselves as eloquently as Paul), but it's been a great ride. I've introduced him to my brother, who disagrees with him more than me on a progress:humanity ratio perspective (IMO; he might describe it differently), but it's been wonderful to talk about.

Don't have anything much to add to your journal, just wanted to add thanks for the rec. I have also gotten into the Hermitix podcast. I hadn't heard of it before you. I have listened to several since and I love it.

[jacob]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmvQPsFnvA8

[Hristo Botev]

Thanks as always for the Kingsnorth video links; that might be the 3rd you've sent my way (at least the 2nd)--always a joy to hear him speak, even if what he has to say is often a bit crushing to hear.

Speaking of which, you know who really had it coming? Prometheus. Thanks a lot, jackass.

[Hristo Botev]

I've introduced him to my brother, who disagrees with him more than me on a progress:humanity ratio perspective (IMO; he might describe it differently), but it's been wonderful to talk about.

Thanks Salathor. Would be interested to know what you (or your brother) mean by progress:humanity ratio perspective.

[Hristo Botev]

It's been a bit since my last update. I won't give a full update now as things are still very much in flux. But, the short of it is that we told the kids last night that we are moving back "home"--home being the town where my wife and I went to middle and high school, where my dad still lives, and where most of our closest friends still live.

The end goal is to have somewhere between 20 and 80 acres in the northern/rural part of the county that we will ultimately turn into a homestead and perhaps a minor revenue generator using Salatin and Greg Judy concepts. The land we will pay for in cash; and we'll stick the Airstream on it unti we build something more permanent. In the interim we are going to buy (with a mortgage) a modest 3br home in town, which will be our base for the next 5-10 years as our kids finish school (the same schools where my wife and I went; funny, at this point we went to school with or were taught by the parents of most of the teachers and the administrators at those schools). Likely that home will be a rental property for us when we move to the rural homestead full time; at least that's the plan and that's what I'm telling myself as a justification for restarting the amortization schedule yet again, even though we don't need to. (Aquinas was right about usury.)

Property prices for both rural land and for in-town homes are of course laughingly high right now; but, so be it, 'tis the upside down world we live in.

We'd originally considered moving north, rather than south; "climate migration" and all. But then we realized we don't like climate migrants, and we certainly don't want to be them. So we figured we'll return home and hopefully things will sort themselves out, with those who can't take the heat getting out of our kitchen, as they say.

My wife has taken a job at the local hospital that will more than support our family, without us having to dip into any savings. This is thanks to Dave Ramsey --> MMM --> ERE --> Kingsnorth and Berry and Plato and Aquinas and everyone else who has influenced me as of late to get a much deeper understanding of Christ and of what evil is and what it looks like--and what the Good/True/Beautiful is (and, most importantly, what it isn't). Years and years now of fighting against lifestyle inflation and slowly recognizing everything in the world that is fake and gross.

I will likely continue doing what I do remotely, perhaps to a lesser degree, or else I'll finally take the plunge and hang my own shingle. If things work out right, my "commute" will be driving from our in-town home, after dropping the kids off at school, to our rural homestead, where I will put a few hours of attorney time in and spend the rest of the time developing the property (with less and less time spent on the former, over time, with more and more time spent on the latter), turning it from a weekend/vacation getaway and hunting property, to a hobby farm, and eventually to a full time working farm that provides most of our food with some farmer's market goods to sell for some extra income. I'm in no hurry, as the fruit trees I plant and the systems I'll put in to place will be for the benefit of my children and their children. Plus, we need a place to part the Airstream; so there's that as well.

Funny, I know I've talked on here about wanting to do the "gentleman farmer" thing, but until I just did a search I didn't realize what a constant theme that has been in my writings here over time. E.g.,

That's the dream. Spend the next year or two finding the right land, and then buy it and stick an airstream on it and then spend the next 10 years just enjoying having an escape, where we can invite friends and where our kids can go get lost in the woods. And in the meantime we'll tackle project after project, with no real rush, as we figure out what makes the most sense for us; maybe it's a single family homestead with a beautiful large house where family and extended family can come for generations for holidays, weddings, etc. Maybe it's a revenue generating campground. Maybe it's an instagrammy event space with cabins, etc. we can rent out for family reunions and weddings and the like. Maybe it's a hobby farm. Maybe it's just hunting land. Maybe it's just a parking spot for my airstream and for some friends' campers. Maybe (and most likely) it's some sort of combination of all those things.

My point is I've known for some time that I crave some version of John Adams' Peacefield, with feet in both the urban and the rural worlds. I have men in my lineage who both practiced law (and were active in town politics and had interests in various town businesses ) and also owned and managed small farms. I'm looking to do something similar, even if I know that it's always going to be my salaryman job that pays most or all of the bills. The ERE angle is to just make sure that those bills are as small as possible.

[AxelHeyst]

Exciting!

We'd originally considered moving north, rather than south; "climate migration" and all. But then we realized we don't like climate migrants, and we certainly don't want to be them. So we figured we'll return home and hopefully things will sort themselves out, with those who can't take the heat getting out of our kitchen, as they say.

This resonates. My ancestors 2-4 generations back were dust bowl refugees, and so where I'm "from" is the place everyone else has been trying to jam into since 1849. I've recently become minded to (quietly, to myself) question the assumption that certain places will become totally uninhabitable, and put some effort into figuring out how to scratch it out there. We got to the moon once - surely a few ERE nerds can figure out how to live in a little pocket somewhere even if it does get warm and dry now and again. The future north is looking uncomfortably crowded and.... testy.

It seems to me that when people say "this place is going to be uninhabitable" mostly they mean "The government services that magically supply water, electricity, food, and Netflix via these tubes in exchange for money is going to get unreliable". Indeed.

[mathiverse]

Awesome update, Hristo! It's really wonderful to see someone make such a huge change from their previous situation. It can be hard to get out of corners you're in due to initially following the typical path of society. It can be harder when you have children. I'm inspired! Thanks for sharing!

I believe you mentioned that you thought *ideally* you would homeschool your children. Have you thought about doing that rather than sending your kids to the local schools during this transition? What went into your decision there and how are you thinking about the decision for the future?

[Hristo Botev]

This resonates.

I've probably posted this before here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbQQtOJvSkA); but in our house "Tracy" (7:15 minute mark) has become our shorthand for insufferable climate migrant types who, having successfully destroyed the coasts, are now setting their sights on the hinterlands in between those coasts; looking for a place culturally "close to San Francisco," even though Tracy will have "a lot of work to be done" to teach us how to live "independently and together."

This isn't going to turn out well.

[Hristo Botev]

I believe you mentioned that you thought *ideally* you would homeschool your children. Have you thought about doing that rather than sending your kids to the local schools during this transition? What went into your decision there and how are you thinking about the decision for the future?

Yes; thought about it a lot--think about it almost constantly. Here's where we are on our thinking currently.

- We've come to realize that if our ultimate goal as parents is to set our kids up for sainthood then the absolute worst thing we can do is to continue to send them to what is effectively a cheap private school with a religion class, that is Catholic in name only.

- We went to the (very large) public school where we will be sending our kids; we know many of the teachers, parents, and coaches. There will be NO fake-ass religion class or any facade that whatever is going on at that school has anything to do with the Catholic faith. That is good.

- Homeschooling is the ideal solution. BUT, I've come to believe that effective homeschooling involves the kinds of communities and large families that, although they still exist somewhere, we don't currently have access to them. What that means is that although my kids have lots and lots of cousins who they love spending time with, those cousins are spread all over the country, and they get cousin time only once or twice a year via shared vacations, or weddings, etc. Also, we only have two kids. That arrangement--2 parents, 2 kids, no cousins around--is not conducive to a proper homeschooling environment, in my opinion.

- Maybe I'm wrong; and/or maybe I'm being lazy. My kids might do better if they stayed at home and read through Plato and Aristotle and Aquinas and Euclid; I'm sure they'd be more critical thinkers. But, it's a fine line between educating my kids in a way that I believe is authentic; and having them growing up resenting us. I think the best we can do is to be 100% honest as to what we're doing and why.

[mathiverse]

Thanks for your thoughts! Once I have children, I want to homeschool them, so I'm always curious to hear about these sorts of things.

[Hristo Botev]

Thanks for your thoughts! Once I have children, I want to homeschool them, so I'm always curious to hear about these sorts of things.

I know folks who made the transition to homeschool (from public or private or parochial) when the kids are a bit older; like middle school age. It's difficult but do-able; not sure I have the fortitude for that. It's hard to de-institutionalize; easier to not institutionalize in the first place. We thought we were kinda doing that when we pulled our oldest out of our public school here (a very fancy school district) and putting her in our parish school. We were wrong; the parish school was worse. There's some stuff out there in the interwebs about "unschooling" as a concept; I get it. I frankly don't know what to do in that regard; so I suppose that's why my wife and I ultimately have landed on: "well, let's just do what our parents did--worked out well enough." That makes as much sense to me as constantly trying to re-invent everything.

I honestly don't know a whole lot of adults who are practicing Catholics who went to Catholic school; which is weird, I should, since that's the world I spend all my time in. I've come to think Catholic schools (at least the one my kids go to) do more harm than good at their primary objective, which is evangelization.

[AxelHeyst]

Not that your larger point isnt valid, but it's not clear to me that that Tracy is as bad as she seems. Cultural fit is pretty important in California because if you're off by even a few blocks you're either in Bouge-town, in the DMZ between the Nortenos and the Sorrenos, or in Meth city. That's *in* SF,don't get me started about the cultural landscape in inland California where you'll get chased off rural roads with guns if you look like you might be a narc. Non oblivious Californians tend to be perceptive about where they are and are not welcome, because it's kind of an important skill to have around here. Presumably the work she was referring to was that everywhere is going to be impacted by climate change to some degree, so it's not like she was expecting to be able to show up to Duluth and not pitch in to help with resilience and food sovereignty and whatever else needs to happen so the place doesn't get caught with their pants down.

That's being charitable though. Maybe she is one of The Bad Ones who thinks SF has it right and meant exactly what you implied. Most people are probably a mixture of both, but it's the outlier crazies who wind up on CNN. I'm worried less about the particular sort of persons who are going to be moving around, and more concerned about the inevitable emergent effects / increased pressures of that much moving around.

Eta: I don't mean to be contrarian. I am just kneejerk suspicious of any narrative delivered via television, even (especially?) if it confirms my viewpoints.

[Hristo Botev]

Tracy is a trope. I'm sure Tracy the individual is a wonderful person who I'd love to have a cup of coffee with. But, Tracy should probably stay where she's at.

don't get me started about the cultural landscape in inland California where you'll get chased off rural roads with guns if you look like you might be a narc.

I think we need more of this. I'm serious; and I'm not just trying to be hyperbolic or whatever. I think Americans as a culture have been defined in large part by the frontier and the mobility and the tendency toward re-invention that goes along with there always being more "West" where one can go. But, this way of living is necessarily wasteful--cuz we got no buy in on an individual or even generational/family level--concerns of posterity (if there even are any) are focused on setting your kids up to exploit and take and destroy in the same way that you did; not to create and preserve. But but, the country is full at this point; and it's probably past time we took a more continental mindset and figure out a way to improve what we've got where we're at. And you can only do that with borders; and in the absence of actual borders, you need tribal borders of the sorts exercised by inland Californians.

If you watch that video I believe there's a part where the mayor or something of Duluth is touting the fact that Duluth is/will be/can be the San Francisco of the upper midwest. I get why she thinks that is in her best interest as a politician; but it's gross.

Regarding "habitability," I think it's probably less the land/climate that is going to make a place uninhabitable (though there is that also), as it is the people who live in that land.

If you got something good, the Tracys of the world are going to figure out a way to take it. If you have something not good that you make good, by your own sweat and energy, the Tracys are going to figure out a way to take that as well. And in both cases the Tracys are going to f@*k it up in short order such that it is no longer good.

[chenda]

@Hristo I watched that report. I'm genuinely curious as to why you found Tracy so objectionable in wanting to relocate further north? You considered doing the same? Not criticising, just intrigued.

[AxelHeyst]

I basically agree with all that, although I'm far from certain what the best or most virtuous response or course of action is. (My reason for bringing up the inland cultural barriers was because many people think the whole state is like SF. In fact Most of the rest of the state is as resentful of people from SF as the rest of the country appears to be.)

[Hristo Botev]

@chenda: Because Tracy's mindset is that of a consumer. She is consuming places. She has consumed San Francisco, and so now she is throwing it away and replacing it with something better/new/shiny/different; which apparently is Duluth. She will now consume Duluth until it is consumed, and then she will throw Duluth a way.

This is destructive. It is not creative. It's gross and will be the end of us.

[Hristo Botev]

I basically agree with all that. My reason for bringing up the inland cultural barriers was because many people think the whole state is like SF. In fact Most of the rest of the state is as resentful of people from SF as the rest of the country appears to be.

I get it. FWIW, I've listened to WAY too many Victor Davis Hanson* podcasts to not recognize that California ain't all San Francisco.

*That I've listed to VDH podcasts is not necessarily an endorsement of his opinions.

[Hristo Botev]

although I'm far from certain what the best or most virtuous response or course of action is.

Me neither. But, us moderns weren't the first people to try and figure this out. The Greeks had Prometheus. The Jews had the forbidden fruit. I'm sure there are examples from other ancient cultures coming to terms with "The Machine." How do we best live in harmony with God? Or if the God thing doesn't vibe, then I think Aristotle talks about happiness being action in accord with reason. How do we do that? I don't know; living without a "home" does not seem to me to be in accord with reason. Neither does living without any sense of posterity; and not posterity in some abstract way that you might can stick on a meaningless yard sign, but posterity in a real sense that you got kids, and they've got kids, and so on. Anything else is probably just hedonism as far as I can figure.

[theanimal]

Wow, how exciting! I'm eager to see how this unfolds for you all. I enjoy reading your perspective on here and I'm sure it will only be enhanced with your new time on the land.

What do your kids think of the move? Are they on board or just begrudgingly going along?

[Hristo Botev]

@theanimal: They are mostly on board. Lots of tears, of course. They've been blessed with some good friends. It's going to be hard to leave. DW and I are trying to be cognizant of the fact that we both moved around a lot growing up (she as a military brat, me as the son of a manufacturing plant manager), and so we've both been inclined to the itchy feet thing; getting restless every couple years and ready for the next thing. But that's not been our kids' experience. But, this is the time. We were going to wait until DD finished middle school to make the move, but we figure that would be much harder for her than moving in middle school, so she has some time to find her people before that group moves on to high school.

DW and I have spent a LOT of time and energy trying to build a community here. Hours upon hours upon hours of coaching youth sports, serving on the HOA board, the parish council and various other committees, teaching Sunday School, municipal committees, officer-ing on civic orgs, playing in neighborhood poker games and regularly-scheduled pick-up basketball games, and just generally doing all the things that my reading of Bowling Alone way back in college told me was missing and that would make the world better if only more people did it again. There has been and continues to be some fruit from those activities that is capital "G" Good. But, viewing this "community" from a collapsology lens, this isn't the kind of community that is going to have your back when the SHTF; it's all a bit too transactional, I suspect. I don't know, except that I've only got so much time and energy and I just don't think that the cost/benefit analysis makes sense. I'm not an extrovert; I'm not someone who volunteers for things cuz it energizes me in some way. I've looked at in the past as "investing" in community; I'm starting to think that's all kind of a lot of bullshit. We're just not as dependent on one another as we perhaps used to be back when we were in our ghetto-ized "tribes" when Putnam wrote his book. I mean, I suspect that the "bowling leagues" Putnam was talking about were happening, for example, in a Polish neighborhood in Cleveland filled with Polish people who all worked for 2 or 3 employers, who all attended the same church, and whose kids all went to the same school. That's a community that served a purpose. I don't know what purpose these metro-area HCOL meritocratic corporate wage slave-type "communities" serve. I think community might be more like: I've got eggs, you've got milk, let's trade. I need to head out of town for a wedding; can you feed my livestock while I'm away--I'll of course return the favor. I mean, my neighbor doesn't even ask me to check in on her house when she's away cuz she's got ring cameras everywhere. She doesn't ask me to feed her cat cuz she pays a service to do it.

This community I'm in just feels very fake, or at least shallow. It's all for show. Someone has a family member die, or gets sick or something? Meal train. OK, great, but you also kinda secretly know that it's very likely that the meal train recipient is a bit annoyed b/c you just added some logistical mess to her life, cuz now she's got to reschedule the food delivery she normally gets, or find space to freeze stuff--and then has to google how to freeze entire meals or how long X can sit in the fridge.

"Let me know if there's anything I can do for you"; translation, I've done my part by making the offer, knowing that you're not going to ask and I'm not going to actually do.

"Hey, coach Hristo: do you mind working with Johnny on his layups; I think he's really showing some progress and he's just missing that component." My response should be: "Listen asshole, I'm a volunteer; I'm already doing more than I should by sitting my own son for more than anyone else lest I have to hear you talk about favoritism. I'm not a personal coach that you're paying along with Johnny's math tutor and violin instructor and therapist and whatever to make sure that Johnny has the best chance as possible at getting in to the dumbass college and getting the dumbass job with the dumbass Fortune 100 company that is literally doing everything it can to make sure that Johnny's kids end up with their heads uploaded to the Machine."

Or something like that.

Sorry, I'm in a mood. The kids are good.