The Education of Axel Heyst

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RoamingFrancis
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by RoamingFrancis »

Possibly helpful insight on work ethic: I think it's good to cultivate work ethic for intrinsically motivated projects (self-discipline) and best to do the bare minimum to get what you want when working for someone else (discipline from others.)

With regards to altruism, I think real altruism benefits yourself and others. In the West, compassion usually has the connotation of excluding oneself. The Tibetan word for compassion explicitly includes oneself. #AllSentientBeings

Agreed on the strength of your "successful professional walks away" story - that is powerful and if you are looking to reach others is a good marketing angle to play.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

RoamingFrancis wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 1:08 pm
Possibly helpful insight on work ethic: I think it's good to cultivate work ethic for intrinsically motivated projects (self-discipline) and best to do the bare minimum to get what you want when working for someone else (discipline from others.)
I suspect I don't understand what you're trying to say, because I strongly disagree with everything in this paragraph.

Self-discipline isn't required for activities that I'm intrinsically motivated to do; that's sort of the whole point of intrinsic motivation. Self-discipline is required for stuff I know is good for me, but I don't really feel like doing, like eating broccoli or not watching youtube until 3am.

[I had written a rant here, but since I suspect I misunderstand you I took it down. It boiled down to "A strongly held belief of mine is Do a Good Job or Don't Do It." Doing the bare minimum is one of the closest things there is to an immoral act in my moral universe, since creating things of Quality (zen and the art of motorcycle maintenence) and value is sort of the purpose of life, as far as I see it. Doing a shit job, to me, is to deny/refuse my own divine nature. It sends a literal shudder down my spine. --Dammit, I'm ranting again.

Instead I'll ask: why on earth do you think it's best to do the bare minimum to get what you want when working for someone else? And how does that belief square with your concept of compassion for all sentient beings? I’m genuinely very interested in your thoughts on this because it baffles me, and I don’t like being baffled.]

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Mister Imperceptible
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Mister Imperceptible »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Sun Sep 26, 2021 9:44 pm
Instead I'll ask: why on earth do you think it's best to do the bare minimum to get what you want when working for someone else? And how does that belief square with your concept of compassion for all sentient beings?
If you are working for evil people, the answer is: retribution and sabotage.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

@MI yeah i’m fine with that, but that’s not what RF stipulated. His proposed work ethic heuristic is “do the bare minimum if the work is for someone else”. I’m wondering if he thinks only evil people hire other people to do work, or what. Honestly confused.

7Wannabe5
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Maybe the issue isn’t good or evil, but rather equity or ownership. IOW, what Beyoncé is singing about with “If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it.” Any situation in which you allow yourself to hold responsibility out of proportion to authority/dominance/ownership/very-clear-well-boundaried-contract is somewhat likely to devolve to resentment which is the ultimate stoke killer.

That said, I don’t agree with RF’s statement at face value, because in our culture one’s resume as reflection of reputation is under personal ownership.

zbigi
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by zbigi »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Mon Sep 27, 2021 4:27 am
Any situation in which you allow yourself to hold responsibility out of proportion to authority/dominance/ownership/very-clear-well-boundaried-contract is somewhat likely to devolve to resentment which is the ultimate stoke killer.
Very few contracts have well-defined boundaries.

For example, I just hired someone to come clean my apartment twice a month (I'm coming back to full time work in October and her fee for cleaning is equivalent to 13 minutes of my post-tax earnings - it would not be rational to clean myself). What can be simpler than cleaning? And yet, she can do the bare minimum above me being fed up with her and firing her, or she can do a genuinely good job and clean as if she cleaned her own home - or something in between. RF's policy is, as I understood it, to always to the bare minimum. I personally wouldn't want to work like that, as it would probably erode my morals.

7Wannabe5
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@zbigi:

True, but as an independent contractor she has the ability to “fire” you too. For instance, if your standards were ridiculously above the average, because it’s also in her best interest as an independent service provider to routinely dump the 5% of her clients that give her the most trouble.

Unfortunately, many or most people locked into 40 hours/one employer do not have that luxury. IOW, the contract is more inequitable.

zbigi
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by zbigi »

My personal solution to prevent being "fired" by my cleaning lady is to pay solidly above market. Golden hancuffs work! I know because I'm in one at my current place of employment and I see how effective they are on me - hence I try to overpay everyone I hire too. It's a cheap way to buy a lot of loyalty.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

That’s all fine, but lets not muddy the waters with details. The question is, what’s the basis (moral and strategic) for doing the bare minimum for other people, *as a rule*, full stop, and how does that square with a compassion for all sentient beings imperative.

RoamingFrancis
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by RoamingFrancis »

Perhaps I didn't express myself very effectively.

As you know, I dislike working in institutions, authority figures, or "playing the game." When I say "working for someone else," I mean that in the sense of an authority figure or playing the game.

A concrete example of this would be my high school U.S. History class. I love history, so I learned a ton, but I thought our essay writing homework was a waste of time so I didn't do it. This resulted in me getting a C in the class (minimum necessary to placate my parents and teachers) but a 5 on the A.P. test (because I was super fucking into U.S. History and got really good at it).

I said "someone else" because my work experiences thus far have been working for bosses / The Man figures. And given my history as a rebellious teenage anarchist, I tend not to do well. I'd do a lot better if the "someone else" is a client, not an authority figure.

So yeah, for me it has more to do with my relationship with authority than not caring about people. My apologies for the lack of clarity in the original comment.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

That helps. But I thought you’d described at least some of your previous bosses as people who were really into you as an individual, gave you arguably special access to job opportunities, and otherwise encouraged you to avail yourself of their generosity in terms of mentor ship etc. Are you including these figures as The Man? If so, why?

RoamingFrancis
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by RoamingFrancis »

Hm. I think I may be wrong here; I have some thinking to do.

https://giphy.com/gifs/star-wars-ewan-m ... AC7arPk1Ak

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Ha… well memed. Respect.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

The Renaissance Report | September 2021

Physiological
I'm off my PT program. I get exercise via walks and whatever working on the bus counts for. I *feel* pretty healthy.

I'm sleeping on a very thin mattress on top of a platform I can feel the slats through, and I use a wadded up sweater as a pillow. And I sleep great. Mattresses and pillows are a total scam.

Intellectual
I'm *really* enjoying Zettelkasten with Obsidian. I'm also finding my work to define structure, philosophy, and approach for the visualization studio to be extremely intellectually stimulating - it's giving me a reason to synthesize all the strategy and philosophy of work stuff I've been reading for over a decade.

Cal Newport (Ep ? ) revealed that his new book is going to be about "The Deep Life", which has been a major element of his podcast. It represents him broadening his scope from just Deep *Work* to the idea that a Deep Life is an inherently meaningful one. He proposed the following Elements of the Deep Life:

Escape
Mastery
Discipline
Service
Appreciation
Awe

His idea is that anyone who's lived a Deep Life has all of these elements, with one or two taken to an extreme. I like the direction he's going with this - he's been exploring the Deep Life heavily in his podcast, it'll be nice to see him flesh it out more formally in a book project.

Emotional
I learned that I care about work ethic. A lot. RF's comment about work ethic actually upset me, which surprised me. Almost nothing upsets me. I did some thinking and reading to try to sort my feelings out. I unpacked a lot of my thinking around work, work ethic, workaholism, responsibility, authority, etc. The ranting was cathartic.. also probably good that I managed not to post any of it for longer than three minutes.

Economic
//Expenses
My other mastermind group project is to live below 1 jafi September through January. Since I'm including depreciated living expenses in that number, which are $144/mo, that means I can actively spend $565/mo. Considering I don't have rent or health insurance costs, live in town, and my long trips are going to be at 50mpg, it should be pretty doable. My stretch goal each month is to live at 0.8jafi, or $423/mo active spending. So far so good for September:
Image

Even though my NW took a small hit due to the markets, my runway(s) increased dramatically:
Image

And here's a look at my "one graph to rule them all":
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Squished vertically and stretched temporally, to tell the story of my vision of the next decade:
Image

The big expenses are guesses at buying land and developing it in the next couple years. I'm guessing I'll earn 20k/yr beginning mid-next year, and my portfolio will grow 2% a year. I haven't incorporated inflation into this yet, maybe next month.

Social
My meatspace social life revolves around Mooretrees' family, which (from my perspective) is going great. I've never had a 4yo roommate before, which has been a mostly fun learning experience. Having almost zero experience around kids, I was mentally prepared to have a much harder time than I'm having with him. I get along with her DH great (our working relationship is to both be in the bus with headphones on, ignoring each other except to make sure we don't drop anything on the other, which suits us both perfectly). It's been really cool to see how they're interconnected into their community and work with social capital. They get eggs in exchange for coffee. There's free fruit and veggies all over the place. She's constantly fermenting stuff. I ate like three pounds of dumpstered kale the other day.

I miss DGF. We've been apart more than together this year, and the first two months were rough due to circumstances. As of a few days ago our plan for the rest of the year was to remain mostly apart, so she could continue an accumulation phase through the spring, and then we'd head off to the Midwest to buy property.

But a) we don't know how much capital we "need" to get started, b) it's entirely possible we don't "need" any more than we already have to get what we want, c) it's entirely possible we'll decide not to buy land after all, obviating the need for any extra capital at all, d) we miss each other and are tired of getting laid less frequently than most single people in a pandemic lockdown, and so maybe e) fuck this noise we're going to go vanlife somewhere nice this winter and then go to Portugal after all.

Technical
So much fun!! Getting back in the swing of building something weird has been great.

The extra layer of fun comes from the fact that I'm incorporating my 3d modeling skills into the process. I made a 3d model of the existing condition of the bus, and before I do anything physically I build the project in 3d, then go over it with The Boss to make sure we're on the same page.
Image

Image

I'm also playing with some Scrum techniques for organizing tasks, just as a way to start learning the methods.

Ecological
...nothing to report.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

Also I started keeping a Table of Contents on the first page of my journal.

RoamingFrancis
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by RoamingFrancis »

Sorry I upset you. Hope we can still be friends :)

Cal Newport's book sounds interesting. What exactly does he mean by escape? Autonomy and such?

Western Red Cedar
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Very cool to see and hear about the bus build. Seeing you and @MT achieve ERE goals through collaboration is something to celebrate. There is some beautiful synergy here.

AxelHeyst
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by AxelHeyst »

RoamingFrancis wrote:
Thu Sep 30, 2021 10:56 pm
Only if you tell me the results of your introspections about the relationships between work ethic, the Man, and compassion, someday. ;)

ETA: On the theme of emotional intelligence since that's the category I put this under: me getting upset over an offhand comment a friend makes about their views on a topic on the internet is 100% "my shit". I'm grateful for the opportunity to have had the reaction, notice it, and dig around to learn about it. I know myself better than I did two days ago.

Escape refers more to "escaping normal life to get away and think every once in a while". Could range from having a backyard studio with no internet, to a villa in the mountains (Freud?), to going to a park to journal, all the way to "full monastic" like, say, Steven Pressfield who locked himself in a cabin for a year.

mooretrees
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mooretrees »

The description of your relationship with my DH is still cracking me up! I read it to him last night and could barely finish it I was laughing so hard. It's just too perfect. I'm so glad you both are fine with it and it seems like more than fine from DH's perspective. I've asked him once or twice what you were doing and he said he didn't know. I was surprised but then he explained that he has zero interest in micromanaging and he trusts you. I would just be in your grill too much if I was running this show, so thankfully I'm not. Also, from our perspective this is going GREAT!

Cool charts as always. I am so curious where you and DGF will end up and how much you can smooth out those variable on-the-road expenses.

I'm extra motivated to find free food now as I know you'll eat it! There's food everywhere I'm finding.

mooretrees
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Re: The Education of Axel Heyst

Post by mooretrees »

Western Red Cedar wrote:
Thu Sep 30, 2021 11:02 pm
Very cool to see and hear about the bus build. Seeing you and @MT achieve ERE goals through collaboration is something to celebrate. There is some beautiful synergy here.
It's awesome to be living it too! I'm about to send money to AH and I'm so happy to do it as it feels great to see the progress being made and knowing he's getting some good stuff out of this too. So many wins here.

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