mooretrees journal

Where are you and where are you going?
theanimal
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by theanimal »

Ah I made a reply a few hours ago but it must not have went through. +1 on hearing that things are going well part time! It's crazy what a little more time can do to improve mental state. I'm intrigued by that book (even with no kids yet). It sounds similar to Jared Diamond's "The World Until Yesterday," which has a large portion devoted to comparing parenting between traditional tribes and modern Western society. The tribes kids were much more involved and spent much more time around adults. The attitude was more carefree for better or worse (I.e. kids were/allowed to go around with knives /fire as toddlers without reprimand). Regarding praise, what were you focusing on in the past, process? Results? Both? I'll be intrigued to hear how the reduction works out

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Those books sound very similar indeed. The Inuits are presented as a culture that is extremely patient with kids and has the belief that of course they'll be messy/loud/wild etc, they're kids! I think with praise I used it as a confidence booster/acknowledgment. Plus, that's just what other parents I've been around do? I give him a smile or a nod for acknowledgment now. I think this week off with him went really smoothly partially because I started this book and used some of the suggestions. Plus, I can tell him to go outside and play when I need a break.

7Wannabe5
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

I used to frequently fill in as assistant to a highly skilled award winning kindergarten teacher who could handle a large group of disadvantaged tots in similar manner. It’s really amazing to see 25 tiny people of highly varying abilities all doing their own little jobs independently.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

I realized (with a thud) that we're unlikely to live in the school bus this year if the build continues at this pace. No slights meant to DH, but it's just going way too slowly for us to live in it anytime soon. So, after a few tense conversations with DH I'm starting to help and am going to try and organize our first work party this weekend with friends. The nature of the work is changing now as previously there was a lot of metal work that really isn't in my wheelhouse to help with. We have a group of friends that offered to come help paint the exterior at the end of June. So, now the work is focused on getting the roof and exterior ready for painting. It shifted our agenda a bit to move to painting, but it will be really nice to have a group tackle that giant project. Today I put silicon on a decent amount of the rivets on the roof, which is step 18 out of 34 before we can paint the roof. I think DH has a specific roof paint that is weather/sun proofing and is supposed to help prevent leaks.

I'm pushing DH to try and figure out small tasks that we can hire out or try enticing friends to help with. That seems to be a difficult task for him and he gets to feeling cornered no matter how non-confrontational I try to be. We're trying a different way to talk about it in the future as the face to face isn't working. Anyway, if we can't increase the pace of the build, but we have a renter paying a good portion of the mortgage I think I'll be more relaxed about finances and chill about the pace of the build. I'd still like to be in it this year, but I'm learning that this seems fairly normal for builds to take a lot longer (I just thought it wouldn't happen to us! :oops: )

Since I realized that we're unlikely to get into the bus this year, it kicked me into focusing on getting a renter in our basement. Per our norm, the basement remodel is half finished. So I'm going to get a quote from a local company to do the dry way and try and take care of the rest of the projects down there myself. I think it could be okay to pay for the dry wall as it isn't getting done and it'll lead to short term increase in money in. Anyway, I don't have to rationalize spending the money as I just want it done. Aside from the dry wall it's just grunt work: ripping up carpet, painting walls, painting concrete and clearing out the rest of our stuff. I think we can either rent to a short term student coming to do their externship at my lab, or try and find a longer term renter. We have asked $350-400 (including utilities) previously for other renters. Less for students just cuz. With the refinance, a renter paying $400-500 would cover a lot of the mortgage and bills.

Garden is going strong, lots of starts pushing up in the ground and inside. I am getting more soil this week and hope to plant a crap ton of beans, peas and many types of greens. I started a small sauerkraut less than two weeks ago and it is incredibly tasty. Seriously.

I'm starting to hire a local teen to watch our son a few hours a week. I feel like I'm just keeping my nose above water with him right now. My fuse is too short and I'm just over all of this alone time. I understand why people move back to where family is, we don't have any help unless we pay for it. I've tried to create situations where I'd watch other people's kids and vice versa, but it just stopped with covid. Now I'm resigned to hire help and give us a break. If I can get him into a preschool the rest of this school year I will. Fingers crossed for that!

Hristo Botev
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Hristo Botev »

mooretrees wrote:
Sun Apr 25, 2021 10:41 pm
I'm pushing DH to try and figure out small tasks that we can hire out or try enticing friends to help with. That seems to be a difficult task for him and he gets to feeling cornered no matter how non-confrontational I try to be. We're trying a different way to talk about it in the future as the face to face isn't working.
FWIW, this hit me in 2 ways. First, when you talk about having a work day with DH figuring out tasks to dole out, my own stress levels shot up, as anecdotally I'm one who enjoys doing work, but hates delegating and managing. This means I've voluntarily chosen to limit my potential revenue generation in my profession, because the way you scale up revenue generation in the legal profession is by bringing in a bunch of business and having others do most of the work, with you managing. I don't want to do this, which means I make less money than I could, which is fine. Anyway, it's the same reason why I don't like working with interns or summer clerks; I'm figuring this stuff out as I go myself, and to add in managing interns/clerks is basically taking on a second job, with a very different skill set that I don't really have. Just another example of this, I spent the weekend organizing and cleaning the garage, and my kids came to me a couple times and asked if they could help, and I had to weigh: (a) getting the work done quickly and correctly myself and having time to spend with the kids playing catch later vs. (b) doubling up the amount of time spent on the job because I'd have to manage them and then come in behind them to do it right, but that time would be quality time spent with the kids working on something that needed to be done, and perhaps they'd be more careful about putting their sports stuff and bikes, etc. away in the garage where it's supposed to be, instead of just tossing it wherever. Anyway, my point is my guess is the work day/delegation stuff is stressful for your DH.

Second, DW and I have learned that logistical type communications (and money/budgeting convos, or really anything that is in the realm of managing the "business" of the household) don't really happen very well face to face for us. When we sit down at the end of the day and talk over a cocktail, or while we're cooking dinner/cleaning dishes, etc., we like to talk about big picture stuff; or to talk about the goings-on of the church/neighborhood/school/work/etc. Once we start talking about budgeting or whatever, one of us will get defensive, or the other just isn't checked-in for that discussion right then b/c their head is elsewhere, or whatever. What we've found works, interestingly, is e-mails sent during the work day, while we are both at work. That probably has something to do with the fact that we've been trained to compartmentalize "business" stuff/logistics to the work day, while we're in front of our computers. Also, we're often looking for distractions at work, and that's a good time to tackle household logistics (kids' summer camps or whatever; how much to donate to the Bishop's Annual Appeal, etc. etc.). Also, an email doesn't require an immediate response--you can wait until your head is in that place.

Anyway, that's a lot of me typing mostly stream-of-conscious nonsense; so feel free to ignore.

Also, regarding living near family and the struggles/frustrations of rearing kids as a nuclear family, without help, I hear you. Just seems like it's the stupidest idea ever to have a system where 2 people pair up from different places and with no shared communities (except perhaps they went to the same college/grad school, or worked for the same corporation after college, or whatever), then they move some place far away from everyone and everything they know, they both have full time stressful jobs, and then they have kids, who necessarily have to be raised by some complicated combination (for which a spreadsheet is typically needed to keep it all straight) of school, aftercare, summer camps, babysitters/nannies, extra-curricular activities, and parents taking PTO.

Anyway, I'm only being long-winded b/c one of my kids woke up with a tummy ache and a headache, which means he can't go to school, which means I can't go to the office, which means I'm just triaging my work stuff today from my kitchen table because we don't have any family here we could lean on in these sorts of situations.

7Wannabe5
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Hristo@mooretrees:

It stressed me out thinking about the opposite; somebody doling out and supervising tasks for me to do. I am great at delegating. I am crappy at coming up with money to pay delegates.

I feel for you on the lack of nearby extended family. I would have gone nuts and broke without all the help I had. I also think it’s good for kids to get as many different adult models as possible. For instance, due to spending a lot of time with her paternal grandmother, my DD29 has extremely good lady-who-plays-bridge social skills which I am somewhat lacking.

AxelHeyst
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

DGF and I do a weekly check-in, which has been awesome for us. It's part emotional check-in and part logistics/strategy/planning session. Just because we have it doesn't mean the conversations are easy, but having that "space" for those kinds of conversations solves the "are you in the right head space for this?" issue, because we *come* to the check-in knowing what kind of conversations we're potentially in for. (And if we're unable to get our heads prepped for the scheduled check-in, we reschedule.) It never feels like something is being "sprung" on us - in fact, we get suspicious if we've gone 2-3 check-ins without some kind of challenging conversation coming up, because it probably means one of us is avoiding something.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Slow and steady wins the race.

I think you mentioned you are west of the Cascades. If so, think about the timing and weather of dramatically changing your living situation. It might make more sense to take your time on the build and try to make the transition next spring when you have three seasons of decent weather in front of you. Rushing through the build to move in as a soggy winter approaches isn't ideal IMO.

Either way, you are leading an interesting and unorthodox life, so make sure to take time every day to enjoy it. :)

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Western Red Cedar wrote:
Tue Apr 27, 2021 2:45 pm
Slow and steady wins the race.

I think you mentioned you are west of the Cascades. If so, think about the timing and weather of dramatically changing your living situation. It might make more sense to take your time on the build and try to make the transition next spring when you have three seasons of decent weather in front of you. Rushing through the build to move in as a soggy winter approaches isn't ideal IMO.

Either way, you are leading an interesting and unorthodox life, so make sure to take time every day to enjoy it. :)
Yep, a worried coworker suggested we rent out the top of our house and keep the basement for escaping the bus come winter! Yep, it's a real thought. I've gotten adjusted to the likely reality that we might not be in the bus until next year, for exactly those reasons. I was very happen not to be in a tiny house in the middle of winter during a pandemic when I couldn't go anywhere.

First work party is this weekend on the bus. A big sanding party. Sounds terrible and amazing. I only invited people who were vaccinated and so far we have eight or more people coming. Likely more as people don't RSVP and I didn't ask for numbers. We'll see how this one goes and see if it's worth the work to put it on (making food, organizing, DH having to tell people what to do!)

@Hristo, the email communication is exactly what we're going to try now. And the whole kids no help is so real! I've gotten to be a better friend to new parents now that I've enjoyed some help (meals, a shoulder to cry on, ect) from other folks.

@AH, I told DH about your process with your DH and he shuddered! He said it would be like a pop quiz every week for him.

I made candles with two friends last night. We recently bought a dedicated double boiler after deciding the one DH made wasn't working well enough. We added about 15 pounds of new wax to the last batch we had and made almost 30 tapers. I'm going to make some more this week, I really have to plan ahead and start the wax melting early enough. Last night we finished around 11! Much too late for me.

Will try and post photos of the bus and the raise, though it's not really obvious that much has happened. DH is replacing bad sections of the exterior metal and priming it as he goes. The plan is to get the roof painted, put the caboose raise windows on and then paint the rest of the bus. We're thinking of tryin tractor paint, otherwise known as 'implement paint' I think. House paint likely won't work as we're painting a metal surface. All of the windows are out and we might be cleaning them, putting new putty/sealant on the frame and then painting the exterior metal-for being matchy-matchy.

@WRC, isn't everyone on this forum sorta unorthodox? We're heading to the weird zone for sure, but not in the fast lane.

AxelHeyst
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by AxelHeyst »

Ha! From my perspective, scheduled pop quizzes are better than random pop quizzes being sprung upon me without warning, (and also you go into it knowing what all of the questions are going to be), but I get it. Also some people find the scheduled structured nature of it magic-killing.

For what it's worth, I told DGF I'd have the shipping container "comfortably finished" by the end of December, maaaaaaybe by the middle of January, if I was going slow. Everyone is always wrong about how long projects take (although rarely as spectacularly wrong as I am, I feel), and the inevitable pressure and feeling of having broken your word sucks. Good luck with the work party!

ertyu
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by ertyu »

Another person who underestimated how slow his project would go here: I'm not progressing on the apartment as fast as I thought I would. It happens. The change of pace is information; plans just get adjusted accordingly.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

mooretrees wrote:
Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:52 pm
@WRC, isn't everyone on this forum sorta unorthodox? We're heading to the weird zone for sure, but not in the fast lane.
Ha, I suppose that's true. Sometimes I feel like I'm hiding in plain sight. Just a young professional living simply in a deluge of millennials and hipsters.

theanimal
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by theanimal »

My girlfriend likes to remind me that I said everything would be done and ready to move in to my house last Oct/Nov. We just moved in last week... Living up to what you think you can accomplish is really hard. As long as you're doing something frequently, you're moving towards your end goal. At least that's what I told/tell myself. I tried to get lost in the process, always easier said than done of course.

That's great news about the work party! 8 people is a great turnout! I was always hoping to get something like that but couldn't ever wrangle more than 2-3 at a time. Good for you guys and best of luck this weekend.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

theanimal wrote:
Fri Apr 30, 2021 2:27 am
My girlfriend likes to remind me that I said everything would be done and ready to move in to my house last Oct/Nov. We just moved in last week... Living up to what you think you can accomplish is really hard. As long as you're doing something frequently, you're moving towards your end goal. At least that's what I told/tell myself. I tried to get lost in the process, always easier said than done of course.

That's great news about the work party! 8 people is a great turnout! I was always hoping to get something like that but couldn't ever wrangle more than 2-3 at a time. Good for you guys and best of luck this weekend.
Ha ha ha, that's a good reminder. I'd love to hear more about your really killer frugal keto diet sometime. I think I'd like to move back to keto, but not 100% as I can't seem to stay the course. More like 80/20 might actually work for me. Got to get going on making chili and cornbread for the work party, probably should have chosen a weekend I don't work!

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

Chili's made, cornbread is baking and I have one last success to share. In my profession (and most medical professions), students do externships. I moved to a different city for mine and since then I've hosted several students at my house. Partly for money and partly because I know how hard it is to find a short term rental. Well, we've got a renter coming in around the middle of May for 12 weeks! The nice thing about students is they have to do a criminal background check, be up to date on vaccines, and are usually really focused on their studies-so they rarely hang out.

We don't charge a lot of rent for students, $350/month as I assume most of them are living on student loans. This new renter is coming from Idaho but is Nepalese. I told him about our animals and boundary-less child and he liked it. He said he felt like he should warn me that he makes curry and it's really got a lingering smell. He says he wears different clothes to cook in! He sounded very sweet and grateful to find a place. I'm grateful to rent out a room for a short time. My favorite type of renter is short term.

DH will be working on the basement this week, no time to hire someone now. We've got to spruce up the place a bit and finish clearing out our junk. It's always good to have a deadline for us.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by Western Red Cedar »

mooretrees wrote:
Fri Apr 30, 2021 11:19 pm

We don't charge a lot of rent for students, $350/month as I assume most of them are living on student loans. This new renter is coming from Idaho but is Nepalese. I told him about our animals and boundary-less child and he liked it. He said he felt like he should warn me that he makes curry and it's really got a lingering smell. He says he wears different clothes to cook in! He sounded very sweet and grateful to find a place.
That is very cool. Make sure to get a good recipe for Momos. If he doesn't know how to make them, you can learn together. They were one of my favorite foods from India and Nepal. I once had a fleeting vision of starting my own dumpling-based food truck based around the Momo :D

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

@WRC, I've talked with one of the tenants (there's two now!) and he loves cooking and when his friends visit they will bring the correct steamer basket tool for making momos. I'm hoping we can make paneer tonight too.

Quick update..

I've been spending less time on the forum and more time doing things. The garden is close to producing good amounts of greens, radishes and peas. I've planted about 50% of the existing beds and am making a large new one in the backyard. So far I've got potatoes, lots of spicy greens, lettuce, cabbage, broc, onions, scallions, strawberries and a few other things planted. I'm trying to stagger the planting to extend the harvest and reduce daily work. I'm learning a lot and one of my main takeaways from previous years is to plant a lot more than I think I should. I'm emptying seed packets now when I plant which is an exciting (I know that's silly) change. I've started probably 70% of what I've planted from seed. My brassica starts are meh, not sure if they'll take off. I started onions from seed and they're doing well, should have started six times as many seeds! We've harvested radishes, which I don't love but they're good for a quick snack.

We've got TWO students living with us now. One was planned and the other couldn't find a place in the nearby city where he was assigned his clinical rotation. So we said he could stay with us. They're friends and both from Nepal. They're amazing. They love my son and are so interested in him, they keep cooking for us, and they're really active and interesting guys. So far it's a blast having them. I could see one of them becoming a local if he could find a job, and the other becoming some kind of super star physicians' assistant if he follows that dream. They're really good guys. Plus they're covering about 2/3rds of the mortgage and forcing us to be tidier.

We're in the meat rabbit business. This one is so strange. I heard about a guy who raised meat rabbits next door to a friend. I'd been wanting to check out his set up and see if we could do it eventually. Well, his wife got pregnant with twins and it became a high risk pregnancy and she moved back to her folks to be close to better healthcare. So he was looking to sell his whole set up. I somehow convinced a friend to house the rabbits and DH and I will do the butchering when the time comes. I'm not looking forward to that, but it should be interesting. We've bred four does not and we'll see if they have litters in a few weeks. That was the funniest morning ever, breeding the rabbits. It's a very short, passionate mating that ends when the male rabbit literally falls off the doe. We laughed so hard! My friend is doing all the heavy lifting right now caretaking the bunnies, but she's extremely passionate about eating meat that is eating their correct food so this is a really good fit her.

Bus is getting closer to painting. DH has a little bit of metal work on the roof raise and then he'll start cutting the wood for framing the interior and exterior of the roof raise windows. I don't think I'll organize another bus work party as we might not need so many people helping all at once. We're planning on painting the roof with a special reflective sealant/paint before we paint the body of the bus. I'm not sure how soon the roof will be ready to paint, but once I seal all of the remaining rivets we'll just need to sand it and then paint? Nothing picture worthy yet.

Well, I'm off to workout and then to see what kind of salad I can rustle up in the garden.

mooretrees
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Post by mooretrees »

We had our first rabbit butchering session last week. It wasn't terrible. My son was completely unperturbed by DH killing the cute little bunnies he'd just been feeding three seconds previously. DH did all of the work, I just flitted about helping as he needed. He wasn't completely happy with how they died, and is considering shooting them next time. Our neighbor who is an avid bow hunter made him feel a little better by saying that however they died by our hands, it was better than by a wild predator. He vacuumed sealed the meat, treated the pelts minimally and froze both. It was a lot of work for about 20 pounds of meat total. We gave most of the normal organs to our friend who has been housing and raising the rabbits. She said they did taste different, more fresh. We could be more efficient with the operation if we culled out one of the older bucks, we really don't need two.

School bus update. First coat of the roof paint/sealant is on and the second should be on later this afternoon. Friends come in just a few days to help paint the exterior. Lots to do before that. Some of what I need to do before they come is try and uproot/reject my stupid middle class need to make our house and garden look its best. I remember so clearly watching my mom frantically clean before her mother would visit. She would exhaust herself and then my grandmother would still manage to be an asshole about the house or the kids. And here I am doing the same thing!

I spent a few rare days without family last weekend. I was shocked how much I missed them both while I was gone.

I had a great time seeing my bestie and sorta a weird time seeing my sister. It was weird because of a long discussion/rant by my BIL. I've known him since I was 16 and we've always gotten along well. Over the years we've gotten into interesting discussions about making money, businesses and environmental issues. This last discussion had a different tone. He's starting to seem bitter. He's been very successful running a business and then he lost a LOT of money a few years ago. He invested with a 'friend' who is a scam artist it seems. That big loss, coupled with this pandemic and the way he regards Biden as hemorrhaging money, plus the black lives matter new world reality, well, I don't know what to make of him. I've thought that typical liberal thought that he's finally feeling his white privilege, because now he has to pay attention to racism. But it seems more nuanced than that. Or at least, while that might be somewhat true, it's not the whole picture. I have thought that he's operating under a scarcity framework. And now events are conspiring against him and his continued success. He and my sister live big, consumption focused lives and any threat to their ability to 'maintain' must feel very serious. He's very concerned that the federal government is wildly overspending and thus crippling future generations (his children). I was reminded of one of Jacob's slides during the Stoa presentation. The slide shows a graph of how most people only think of themselves or their close family and only focus on the near future. I thought of my BIL's focus on his success and setting up his children to succeed as the most important focus in his life. Which might read as if I don't do that as well, I do, but I have become more aware of that narrow focus.

I am still thinking quite a lot about his comments. He challenged me to study fiscal policy because, as he said, "it's going to affect you sooner than global warming.' I do think I should learn more about what he's suggesting. I've certainly wondered how all of these stimulus checks and infrastructure bills were going to be paid for. I've started reading more articles about the Fed and inflation and while it's primarily from the New York Times, I'm trying.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

We survived this awful heat wave. I think I had a touch of heat exhaustion, mainly in the form of tiredness and an upset stomach during the heat of the day. We moved one bed to our basement, went to the river a few times in the evenings, tried to cook quick meals, and generally slowed way down. DH and son went up the hills and used elevation to cool down. I went to work and enjoyed ac. We don't have ac in the house, just fans, a cool basement and heavy curtains. It sucked. We had a wonderful thunderstorm last night with tons of rain and winds to cool us down.

In other news, I've applied for a local grant to buy our library food preservation tools like pressure canners, water bath canners, dehydrators and fermentation kits. Also, some education money that might include me taking a food preservation course so I can be certified to teach workshops. I had to do some follow up work to answer questions the local organization had and submitted them this morning. I've never written a grant before. It was sorta fun. Mainly I applied for the grant to help myself, but I'm hoping that people actually use the tools. I think it is likely to be approved and that will feel pretty good. Nowadays, libraries are expanding beyond books and dvds. It would be cool to see other libraries do this, but I'll be happy if I can borrow a food dehydrator and not spend the money buying one. I'm not sure how many people will use these tools, but I'll promote the heck out of it! I think it'll be fun to learn about canning and try teaching it, I always learn more if I teach.

mooretrees
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Re: mooretrees journal

Post by mooretrees »

On Consumption:

I have been lightly ruminating on something Jacob wrote somewhere, that "ere is easy, the hard part is unlearning previous thoughts and patterns." I've been obsessing over ERE for over two years now and I still struggle with the desire to buy stuff, have a certain Instagram worthy lifestyle, please others and spend less money more creatively. I've tried and failed a buy nothing quarter. I've tried focusing on reducing my carbon footprint and ended up borderline depressed (it was during the winter and covid with significant isolation as a caveat). We have reduced our wants and general monetary output to live on my part time salary. We have mostly settled on a pattern of purchasing that is focused on quality, mostly used, and with significant pauses before purchases. We tend to buy materials to make our own solutions, mostly driven by DH's skills or desire to learn skills and my willingness to live with half-finished but mostly good enough solutions. But, I feel like there's more progress to be made, primarily in unlearning old patterns of thinking.

So, as I've been thinking about dealing with my old patterns of learned consumption based behaviors, I started researching anti-consumerism. I found a new book, Hooked! by Stephanie Kaza. It's a number of Buddhist centered essays on "Greed, Desire, and the Urge to Consume." It is in three sections; part one: getting hooked; desire and attachment, part two: practicing with desire, and part three: Buddhist ethics of compassion.

I've read all of part one and most of part two. Some quotes that interested me follow.

"Covetousness, the wanting mind, the feeling that we never have enough, is seen in Buddhism as unskillful action of the mind."

Regarding renunciation: "Whereas renunciation feels like a burden or sense of deprivation, 'non-addiction' implies freedom."

"The practice of generosity can serve as a corrective to addictive consumerism....Generosity weakens the tendency of attachment and grasping, and is intimately connected with the feeling of loving kindness."

Overall, several themes have emerged over reading these essays. The fundamental idea of suffering as a basic human condition is present over and over again. And, consumerism exploits or increases our suffering by increasing dissatisfaction with ourselves, our bodies, our lives etc. And then offers deeply unsatisfying solutions to that increased dissatisfaction; buying more stuff. Also, consumerism focuses on the importance of the SELF, while Buddhism stresses interdependence.

So far, some antidotes to consumerism have emerged. Spending time in nature is a big one. Meditating is, of course, highly stressed as a way to know oneself and see the connection from craving for/against something or some feeling and increased unhappiness. Generosity is seen as a way to deal with dialing down the never ending demands of the ego. Another HUGE focus for Buddhists is the belief in the interdependence of all life. If one truly believes in this idea, it leads naturally to wanting to do less harm which can lead to consuming less and consuming better.

I've actually made notes in this book and can see returning to it again and again. I'm finding it useful to recognize my patterns of consumption are partly from my culture and partly from my own flawed human self. I am not sure this will come out right, but this book is helping me not blame only myself for being how I am. I do take responsibility of course for my actions, but it is useful to see my actions in the light of the greater culture of consume more and more.

This is another book that helps me understand ERE in a different way. I've read it a few times, and some sections very closely. But I enjoy finding books that complement ERE. I'm not a Buddhist, but I can see how their teachings could really help one become less of a voracious consumer and understand ones triggers and deflate the ego over time.

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