The Education of Axel Heyst

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jacob »

Salathor wrote:
Sun Feb 20, 2022 2:16 pm
I have a hard time with this as well, and I wonder if it's an ERE-mindset thing. I see so many products/services that achieve market success and think, "My word, why would anyone need THAT?" I would never even consider it as an idea because it seems so utterly useless.
It's very hard to occupy two non-overlapping mental spaces simultaneously. Part of the key to unlocking this apparent mystery is to think in terms of "wants" instead of "needs" and realize that consumers can not distinguish the two. This is how a free brochure or a page on wikipedia can be turned into a $400/day seminar by dressing it up with terms like "secret" and "exclusive".

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

It’s difficult to develop empathy for those you hold in disdain, and it’s difficult to channel your creative energy where you have little empathy. Therefore, maybe it would be better to think in terms of creating tools for producers rather than junk for consumers. Think about people who are specialists in fields other than your own and how your skill set might help them make more money towards obtaining their own financial independence.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Ego »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Fri Feb 18, 2022 11:22 am
Faith: That one guy said it's a cool trail, and what the hell it's probably better than this parking lot. Good enough for me, let's go.
A theme that runs through everything we discuss here on the forum is the desire to encourage ourselves and others to avoid overconsumption. Yet we often fail to consider that it is possible to overconsume information.

Being well read and well informed is not the same as being astute. The ability to consume vast amounts of information should not be confused with an ability to evaluate and incorporate that information into ones life.

The difference between understanding and groking is not in the knowing. It is in the doing.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Eh, that’s just like saying it’s useless to workout if you don’t use your muscles to do something like haul bags of corn. Reading widely and well provides its own reward in expanding perspective. It brings greater depth to all of your experiences. It also allows you to crank out grad school papers like a machine! My current rate is 15 minutes per paragraph no outline needed.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by prudentelo »

jacob wrote:
Sun Feb 20, 2022 2:35 pm
It's very hard to occupy two non-overlapping mental spaces simultaneously. Part of the key to unlocking this apparent mystery is to think in terms of "wants" instead of "needs" and realize that consumers can not distinguish the two. This is how a free brochure or a page on wikipedia can be turned into a $400/day seminar by dressing it up with terms like "secret" and "exclusive".
Is there a point at which you ask if extracting resources from others (by whatever means) is the central purpose of this life, that it isn't compatible with a naturalistic outlook to strongly oppose it? It's by no means unique to humans, and the simpler forms of life only do this.

I have a sense that ERE appeals to people who recognize some truth in this but want to step outside the game rather than playing it.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Ego »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Feb 21, 2022 9:36 am
...that’s just like saying it’s useless to workout if you don’t use your muscles to do something like haul bags of corn.
I think of it as an acknowledgement that it is possible to workout too much.

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be stoked." May Plutarch forgive my slight alteration. Keep stoking.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Ego:

I agree. That's why I like Taleb's reading practice. You read for 30 hours/week, but you drop any given book and switch to another as soon as it no longer provides stoke.

Anyways, I think what AxelHeyst and you are addressing is the gathering of more and more information towards decision-making!! which is not what I am about. I'm more of a scout than a decision-maker. IOW, my masculine energy is largely arrested at the level of juvenile.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

The Renaissance Report: February
We’re in Portugal now. We landed with only four days booked (in Lisbon). Currently down south in a smaller town. Will be getting into a month-long stay next, and then looking for a Workaway somewhere.

Portugal eased all their covid restrictions days before we arrived. I was listening to stories on the plane of people being held up for hours upon landing with PCR tests and all sorts of paperwork. We just… walked out of the airport. In Lisbon people wear masks but the city is open.

Because I was so busy finishing up the studio in the weeks before we left, I’ve done almost zero planning for our trip. As Alastair Humphrey’s says about doing Grand Adventures like bicycling around the world, it doesn’t matter if you’re in shape before you start. Pre-trip training isn’t that important. You just need to be in good enough shape to begin, and then you get in shape on the journey. Similarly, since we’re planning on traveling for a while, we have time/space to plan as we go and iterate our processes and strategy.

Economic
February was pretty spendy with all the travel related costs, $1,300. A lot of that was “mandatory” expenses, but I also intentionally let loose on controlling spending. We went out to a tapas bar and split a bottle, got coffees out, had lunch out, etc. I don’t want to bring DGF on her first trip out of the country and insist we only eat beans and rice inside our apartment. Most of the things to spend money on aren’t totally worth it, but how would she know if she doesn’t experience it herself? And how will I remember if I don’t do it again? My strategy (‘justification) is to let us experience it so we won’t wonder what we’re missing out on, and then re-pick up on an ERE approach to spending. For example - learning how to make local recipes, picnics in public spaces, etc.

I expect March to be considerably lower spending, and then am aiming for April to be more along the lines of where I want all the travel months to be at in terms of spending.

With all the market volatility my portfolio is at 97.3%.

I might be diving in to some fun 3d work, part time, which would a) bring in income, b) motivate the creation of infrastructure for the Viz Studio my buds and I are building, and c) provide some structure to my days. Looking forward to it, if it happens.

I made this table in my journal:
10,000/yr, 833/mo, 192/wk, 27/dy
5,000/yr, 415/mo, 96/wk, 14/day
2,500/yr, 208/mo, 48/wk, 7/day

The first line seems excessive, the second seems challenging but doable, and the third seems…. enticing? I feel about the third line similarly to how I feel looking at a long classic trad climb that’s a couple letter grades above what I know I can do. But it doesn’t feel like, idk, solo’ing Freerider or anything. It feels like something I can do if I take it seriously, train, and don’t fall.

I realize that fixating on things that don’t actually exist like “amount of money I spend” is a potential trap, the flip-side to the consumer-obsessive mindset, and I’m being very conciencious about Missing the Point. But I’m also quite taken with using numbers in an extreme way so that I can “forget the numbers” [Waitzkin, the art of learning, talking about chess] sooner than if I had a less intense approach.

Physiological
A week’s interruption to my training, but now we’re both working out together (body weight, based on the Reddit /bw recommended routine).

Emotional
DGF did some heavy emotional work days before we left and the changes have been profound. In a good way. Our emotional reality is revolving around navigating this difference - in some ways it feels like she’s a different person. Because of this, we realized that doing a workaway immediately would be a bad idea - she needs some time to process without being up in someone else’s space. That’s why we’ll go for a month-long rental next and hold off on workaway’ing till later.

Ecological
I’m reading Plotkin’s Wild Mind. It’s blowing my mind a bit. I’ll be participating in mF’s thread once I’ve got my head wrapped around his stuff a bit more.

Social
DGF is an ENFP. I’m…. taciturn by nature, particularly with strangers, even though I really enjoy being social once I warm up to people. This is problematic when traveling and you don’t have much time to engage before either you or they are off forever.

I figured DGF’d be a great icebreaker and help *start* conversations and relationships with people, that I’d then be able to engage in. So far she’s made friends with three different people in the airports/planes, the owner of the tapas place we went to, a couple in the tapas join at another table, an airbnb host, the owner of a market, and this random family we walked past on the street. So far so good.

Intellectual
I brought a Ken Wilber book and “Informal Logical Fallacies” by Van Vleet, in addition to a stack of ebooks on my phone. My attention has been a bit saturated with all the new stimulus I think, so I haven’t felt able to really dig in to any of it. I reverted to re-reading Wool by Hugh Howey a few nights ago.

I finished Howard Marks’ “Mastering the Market Cycle” right before we left, but wasn’t able to process notes from it. My intention is to be zettelkastening my reading and then getting new books, since I’m living out of a backpack.

Technical
Wrapping up the studio build was the big thing. I’m very happy to not have any big builds on my plate at the moment. I need to sew a pocket and replace a backpack zipper, but after that I need to find something to Make or Repair. I brought my sewing kit and am thinking I’ll make a haversack and then a roll top backpack out of (probably) canvas.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jacob »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 11:51 am
Because I was so busy finishing up the studio in the weeks before we left, I’ve done almost zero planning for our trip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Men_on_the_Bummel

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Ego »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Tue Mar 01, 2022 11:51 am
I figured DGF’d be a great icebreaker and help *start* conversations and relationships with people, that I’d then be able to engage in. So far she’s made friends with three different people in the airports/planes, the owner of the tapas place we went to, a couple in the tapas join at another table, an airbnb host, the owner of a market, and this random family we walked past on the street. So far so good.
It is great that you are so unplanned. These serendipitous meetings will often be course altering for us. When a fellow wanderer tells us they enjoyed a place, we think of it as the universe giving us suggestions.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

jacob wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 1:47 pm
Let me attempt an analogy here:

School classes that were once fun and interesting became boring and tedious once tasks became repetitive and the pace of learning slower to a crawl. Perhaps the core idea of learning was enjoyable but we're weighed down by grades and endless textbook problems.

We have within the school system several opportunities to graduate from a class and more onto the next class but maybe after a while all classes begin to look that same much like how there is a difference between the challenge of running your first marathon and the challenge of running 10 more.

But one day we graduate and become free of the daily repetition of solving problems and writing essays that nobody but the teacher will ever read.

It is possible that the solution to school boredom and eventual graduation lies in not trying very hard or abandoning classes halfway through. This way one can stay in school forever. The challenge remains and one never runs out of classes to try. If the school work becomes too easy perhaps the motivation to engage drops too much. The answer could be to try to make it harder for oneself.

Does this argument sound crazy?

But isn't this the argument that's being made for staying in the workforce rather than treating of career+FI as just another phase to get through before living begins in earnest at age, say, 30. Yet, society likes to extend the 10-year period from 20 to 65. Why is that?

Once you've done all the school classes and graduated, there's little desire to go back to the same classes. It's the same with jobs and careers. So I don't think it's reversible. As such it's a little bit like a red pill blue pill issue. You technically can go back but your experience will never feel the same because it's technically no longer exploring---like running your first marathon---it's more to see if one can repeat the same exercise over and over in a dependable fashion.

The primary problem here, I think, is not necessarily to calibrate one's effort to stay in a job-stage between the school-stage and the retirement-stage as if human potential went something like: born-toddler-school-job-retire-die ...

It might look like this: born-toddler-school-job-X-Y-Z-die ... and the main issue here is that we don't really know just what X, etc. looks like. Also see viewtopic.php?p=255129#p255129

But it depends!!

Take a look at https://mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm ... and then the answer becomes a lot more personal. If you're an explorer, exploring the same territory over and over is no longer exploration. Conversely, a socializer would be happy to stay within the same system forever(?). And so on ...
AxelHeyst wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:43 pm
I think Jacobs point is that forcing oneself to articifially stay in the category of activity of [job] *should* sound crazy, just as crazy as gaming the system to stay in school forever. Some people do try to stay in school forever. Most of us judge these people as being stuck, possibly afraid to face the real world of the next stage of being an adult (getting a job/career).

X and Y aren't different jobs or positions, they're not even unique or extra challenging jobs. X is something qualitatively different than a job or a position. And Y is something equally different from X even.

....

If I'm getting this clearly, Jacob is suggesting that the danger of the semiERE approach is that it perpetually traps the semiEREr in stasis, keeping their mindset stuck navigating the "job" level of development... Forever. Or much longer than is necessary, anyways.

Which is fine if you're good with that. But it's a bad strategy if you want to know/experience what X or Y is.
jacob wrote:
Sat Mar 05, 2022 5:46 pm
That was my point.

Add: There are people who become perma-students and spend 20 years in college collecting random course credit. However, since education is considered a phase and intended to obtain a degree to go to work, they're considered crazy by others for doing so. The next phase after student life is work life, but since most people are perma-workers we see this phase as normal or even desirable or if nothing else as the only alternative. It is seen as the end-stage of western adult development. And so most people spend all their life on this and becoming the best worker they can be until they're incapacitated by "age". But what if there's a phase after being a worker, lets say "contemplation", ... and another one after that, say, "Kegan6". If so then semiERE is a form of arrested development in the work phase just as the person who spends 20 years in college was arrested in the student phase. This would not be a problem except life is finite.

At fifteen I set my heart upon learning.
At thirty, I had planted my feet firm upon the ground.
At forty, I no longer suffered from perplexities.
At fifty, I knew what were the biddings of Heaven.
At sixty, I heard them with docile ear.
At seventy, I could follow the dictates of my own heart; for what I desired no longer overstepped the boundaries of right.


compared to the standard 20th century(*)

At five I went to school
At twenty I went to college
At twenty five I went to work
At seventy I went to Florida to await my death


However, since there's little experience aside from a few individual experiences outside job-life, there are no ready examples for those other potential phases. But it could also be that human potential is finite---that there are no further stages. If so compressing the entire industrialized mass-consumer experience from college to retirement into 10 years instead of extending it to the usual 50-60 years would be a mistake. One could end up staring at a wall in meditative contemplation for 20 years and find nothing.

(*) One result is that there's a lot of 70yos who are psychologically no more mature different than when they went 25 having spent the past 45 years exercising the same brain cells and not creating new connections.
The idea behind what I've called AxelERE is that I can employ a FU stash and WL6+ thinking to engage in activities that I choose to for reasons other than income generation, and that it's likely that enough of those activities will throw of incidental yields of $ that I'm "as-if FI" immediately and can sidestep or end-run a trad accumulate-to-FI phase.

The above comments from Jacob don't destroy that as-if FI strategy (they weren't meant to), but they did make me stare at the ceiling for an hour or two last night, thinking about what it is exactly that I'm trying to do.

I have enough liquid cash lying around that I don't need to earn more money for a few years. My NW including retirement accounts is 10-20x, 20x at what I *think* my stable CoL will be (I'm quite philosophically and emotionally dedicated to the idea of a mature <jafi CoL)

At the very least, I have a voice in the back of my head going "you have to make *some* more money, at some point in the not too distant future". More typically, I have a voice in the FRONT of my head that wonders exactly how I'm going to do that. It has a smattering of answers - the voice is not at all frantic, it's just that a non-insignificant percentage of my cognitive bandwidth is devoted to this future requirement to earn more money.

And it's also a reason to *not* do some things I think I want to do. Needing to earn money is a reason to not do a Deep Analog period of 6 months, is a reason not to walk around the entire Mojave, is a reason not to get a neck tattoo, is a reason to not be *too* radical on my podcast/what I write on my blog, is a reason not to get too deep in a non-remunerative volunteer activity because I might need to duck out as some point to go make some money. There's a "don't do a career-killer" subroutine in my head, and I can sense (now that I'm thinking about it) cognitive barriers in my head that encircle an Income-generation mindset. These barriers are intended to keep me from straying too far from an ability to generate income. It's good that these barriers exist right now, because it's something I have to do. But I *want eventually* to stray quite far from those barriers indeed.

And... getting to FI wouldn't be that hard. If I put everything on the shelf and focused on optimizing out my earning potential, I could probably be FI in a year. Two, tops, and that's with what I think would be an extra-comfy margin of 40x or so. I'm struggling a bit - particularly with Jacob's comments swirling around in my head ^ - to compellingly explain to myself why I shouldn't buckle down and knock FI out and be done with it.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jacob »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:44 am
And it's also a reason to *not* do some things I think I want to do. Needing to earn money is a reason to not do a Deep Analog period of 6 months, is a reason not to walk around the entire Mojave, is a reason not to get a neck tattoo, is a reason to not be *too* radical on my podcast/what I write on my blog, is a reason not to get too deep in a non-remunerative volunteer activity because I might need to duck out as some point to go make some money. There's a "don't do a career-killer" subroutine in my head, and I can sense (now that I'm thinking about it) cognitive barriers in my head that encircle an Income-generation mindset. These barriers are intended to keep me from straying too far from an ability to generate income. It's good that these barriers exist right now, because it's something I have to do. But I *want eventually* to stray quite far from those barriers indeed.
Jin+Guice wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:48 am
Yes, this was what I meant. Since money is now secondary and worries about career null, we have the freedom to pursue work for other goals. Paid employment will always come with its own set of constraints, but it will also always come with its own set of opportunities which are not available elsewhere. In terms of pure possibility, semi-ERE is a disadvantage bc some money still needs to be earned. In terms of external motivation, this is an advantage.
So it comes down to whether enough/not enough money is a feature or a bug in terms of what external constraints or motivations it comes packaged with.

There seems to be three solutions: not enough money, enough money, and no money at all as exemplified by Mark Boyle and Rob Greenfield. The latter two are interesting in that MB seems to have loosened the no-money constraint a bit finding it (IIRC) simply too much social-capital-work to do entirely without it. Whereas the more outgoing RG actually enjoys this aspect. Bug vs feature. I agree that this is temperamentally driven. As such the discussion also has implication for means like UBI.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by zbigi »

My impression is that, for most people life is still pretty hard. Even the arguments about school being boring doesn't convince me - if anything, I think school was tough and stressful for most of people and it was only boring for the "cognitive elite" (maybe it's different in the US?). Work life is tough and stressful as well. The best the majority of people can hope for is settling into a career that pays well and doesn't grind them into burnout, depression or destroy their health (there's even a term in Polish language that describes such situation - "być ustawionym"), and just work it until retirement.

The boredom is least of these people's problems and they often regard it as a good thing, because they know that life could get much much worse than just boring. At least that's the prevailing perspective I see in Poland. The US is possibly more ready for alternative approaches like ERE, mostly because it's more viable there to save up a lot of money within a span of 5-10 years and thus "cheat" the system.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by J_ »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:44 am

"And it's also a reason to *not* do some things I think I want to do"

And... getting to FI wouldn't be that hard. If I put everything on the shelf and focused on optimizing out my earning potential, I could probably be FI in a year. Two, tops, and that's with what I think would be an extra-comfy margin of 40x or so. I'm struggling a bit - particularly with Jacob's comments swirling around in my head ^ - to compellingly explain to myself why I shouldn't buckle down and knock FI out and be done with it.
Quite an education Axel!; good to get such an insight in yours.

Is it in the end about optimism? I notice a strong believe in your own money creating power, now or in some future.
I think there is nothing wrong to postpone earning more "margin". You bet then on staying healthy, competent and a prosperous environment to live in.
But if that is your choice: stop pondering and enjoy your upcoming journey. Then you can concentrate on your (ad)venture and let serendipity do it's work

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Scott 2 »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 8:44 am
There's a "don't do a career-killer" subroutine in my head
A lot of the examples you list, have little negative impact on a career. I worked with a man who, in his late 20's, left work to wander Europe and Asia for a year. He made a scrapbook and would share his stories with coworkers. At the time, he was in his mid 30's and the senior most IT person at the 20 person startup I was in.

The vast majority were tremendously interested in his adventure. In my experience, 90% of office workers aspire to do more than sit in a cubicle. Someone who did it, holds experiential status. People admire what they did, love the chance to talk about their own travels, the travels they aspire to, etc. Provided you acknowledge why it's not immediately attainable for them, how fortunate you were, etc.

A deep analog period, walking the Mojave, deep volunteer work - it's all highly viable. The people who wold discriminate against someone for those experiences, aren't people you'd want to work with anyway. The live players are bored by someone else's perfect career. Almost everyone respects - "I decided to do X, Y and Z while I was young with few obligations". Most wish they had.


I'd agree a neck tattoo or making radical statements online could be more limiting. Since institutionalized bureaucracies are the way people operate at scale, I'd hesitate to close those paths off entirely. Even if you have no financial need, you may develop into someone who wants the leverage offered by a large organization.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Thanks for the comments. I also just had a great discussion with my MMG on this topic, and my current tl;Dr is that it's not something I have to think about at the moment, because I'm likely to cross the FI line in the next few years anyways as a side effect of two initiatives I want to do anyways: build this visualization studio, and drive my CoL down super low.

Whether it's optimal or not, I'm *going* to cross the threshold into "money is a solved problem" in a couple years, probably. There's no sense in my situation to going back to work and getting a normal job, as it'd only shave a handful of months off the process and wouldn't have as many other positive yields, and would have considerable negative effects.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

J_ wrote:
Sun Mar 06, 2022 10:13 am
But if that is your choice: stop pondering and enjoy your upcoming journey. Then you can concentrate on your (ad)venture and let serendipity do it's work
This advice is good. It’s the recurring theme of my life - let go enough to relax into the decisions I’ve theoretically made.

I’m reading Plotkin’s Wild Mind (thanks @mF!!). I found the book impossible to get into a few years ago when I first got it, and still find it difficult. But I’ve now gotten far enough into it that the book itself is explaining why it’s difficult for me to get into it. Speaking of Serendipity, I mentioned some emotional stuff DGF is going through. Well, her emotional phase change is uncovering emotional/psychological work I’ve got to do, work that I thought I had already done but in fact had just scooped dirt on top of. The framework and exercises in Wild Mind appear to be precisely the sort of material I need right now.

In Plotkin’s vernacular (which I’m still learning so I’ll butcher this), I have an overdeveloped North face, or rather an underdeveloped South and West face, and extremely strong North sub personalities, the Loyal Soldiers of the North. The work I’ve been able to identify so far is reassigning the Loyal Soldiers, and development of South and West facets of mySelf (Wild Indigenous One and the Muse-Beloved).

I have a closer relationship with the West facet (and the East as well, incidentally), and something like faked incompetence with the South. What I mean by that is, the South facet of mySelf would get me hurt as a kid, so that’s the shit I had to put a lid on, reject, repress, pretend didn’t exist, despise, etc. I found ways to have some kind of relationship with West and East, but South was a hard no.

Looping this back up to J_’s comment, and comments c_L made to me over a year ago to “just do what you want”…
It is impossible for me to relax in a deep way, because there are elements of my psyche that find relaxation dangerous. These elements protect me from that danger by compelling me to keep moving/working/thinking/efforting. Imagine an old-timey war movie where the new recruit stops for a second to sit on his helmet and look at the sunrise, and then the DI comes along and screams at him and the new recruit scrambles up back in line. The DI screams at the recruit because, years ago, the recruit got shot in the face because he was wandering off in a field somewhere, not paying attention. The DI doesn’t hate the recruit; the DI loves the recruit more than anything in the world, and will do anything to make sure the recruit doesn’t get shot in the face again. The DI doesn’t know there aren’t any more snipers in the woods these days.

Relationship-wise, I find people who are heavy South with dysfunctional subs, and who “need” someone with a strong North facet in order to function in the world. In these relationships I find another excuse to not develop *my* South: not only would it be dangerous for me, it would be letting down my partner, because I ‘have’ to take care of them and can’t let my guard down. I have to be vigilantly North for two people. It’d be selfish to relax into Southness.

The work DGF is did a few weeks ago was to complete a cycle of healing learned helplessness, become grounded, and begin to refuse to play the victim card. It’s been amazing, beautiful, incredible. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it. And, as you can imagine, it’s incredibly destabilizing for the recent state of my psyche. Particularly because this change made obvious all the work I *hadn’t* done - this dynamic I’m describing is something I’ve been aware of and working on for years now. DGF and I have had long and explicit conversations about these roles we both tend to inhabit. But the last couple weeks have made it obvious that we were fooling ourselves with how healthy we thought we were. The sub personalities are devious buggers, they’ll go underground and wait things out, then pop back up looking totally different and then get back to their old tricks. We’re having to come to grips with the fact that we’ve been habituating dysfunctional patterns for years now.

Nothing terrible, we have almost no drama in our lives. But we’ve been subtly allowing each other to relax into comfortable limitations and roles that keep us from really flourishing and becoming the people we have the potential to become. So. Figuring that out is the thing, now. At the moment, I’m looking to Plotkin’s book as a map of how to navigate this.

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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Riggerjack »

+1 to everything Scott 2 said.
Additionally, consider the non-salaryman earning options ahead in your future. How do your protective subroutines interface with those? Helping, or irrelevant? If the subroutines are irrelevant, running them to failure is a good way of turning up the "squelch", until the noise goes away.

that keep us from really flourishing and becoming the people we have the potential to become.
The DI doesn’t know there aren’t any more snipers in the woods these days.
Have you considered the relationship your DI has with your ideas potential? More awkwardly, have you considered the relationship between your DI and "your idea of DF's potential"?

In my experience, people who test well on standardized tests, are often beaten severely with the "potential stick". Those that survive are often extremely driven, and have an unhealthy relationship with "potential". Internally, potential and obligation become synonymous. Thus, living up to one's potential becomes living up to one's obligations. Then failing to live up to one's potential, becomes failing in one's obligation. With the disastrous emotional baggage that implies.

Sometimes, releasing the idea of the potential can help with letting go of the obligation. That's what has worked for me. YMMV.

I'm not familiar with Plotkin, so maybe that was what your post was about.

In any case, have fun in Portugal!

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Riggerjack wrote:
Wed Mar 16, 2022 1:46 pm
In my experience, people who test well on standardized tests, are often beaten severely with the "potential stick". Those that survive are often extremely driven, and have an unhealthy relationship with "potential". Internally, potential and obligation become synonymous. Thus, living up to one's potential becomes living up to one's obligations. Then failing to live up to one's potential, becomes failing in one's obligation. With the disastrous emotional baggage that implies.

Sometimes, releasing the idea of the potential can help with letting go of the obligation. That's what has worked for me.
:shock: I never thought about it that way. That's some wise and probably very relevant stuff. Thank you.

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jennypenny
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by jennypenny »

That's a great observation @Rigger. DS2 (who's my smartest on paper) has been getting flack from people for choosing culinary school over 'real college'. Maybe I should intervene more so he doesn't internalize the idea that he's selling himself short.

Sorry for the OT AxelHeyst.

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