RoamingFrancis wrote: ↑Tue Apr 20, 2021 5:40 pm
Of course, me being a damned anarchist I take this as an invitation to overthrow the state.
Anarchists have it better in modern democracies I think. Ceaser would have tortured you to death by nailing you to two sticks and letting the birds eat your eyes out. Jesus did that bit So You Don't Have To!
--Update:
Health
My energy and stoke has been low for a while. I re-read Tucker Max's "How to Naturally Increase Testosterone", and the short version of that book is 1) Sleep enough, 2) Stop eating grains and carbs, and 3) Lift Heavy Things.
I'm good on 1, I can't do 3 until June, but I've been eating TONS of grains and carbs since at least September. Oatmeal, rice, and flour, tons of it, every day.
So a week and a half ago I switched back to the slow-carb diet (eggs, meat, veggies, legumes, with a cheat day 1/wk). I feel SO much better. I'm not doing blood testing, but it's rather obvious that my test levels are up. My energy is more even. Without trying, I've dropped to two meals a day rather than three plus snacks. I'm more excited to do stuff, and my stoke lasts longer, whereas before I was forcing myself to put in more than an hour on any project at a time. The only downside is it is difficult to get myself to wind down for sleep at night, which I've dealt with my whole life.
It's trickier to eat according to the slow-carb diet inexpensively (oats, rice, and flour are pretty damned cheap) if you insist on 100% grassfed/pasture raised beef. Wanting to get below $200/mo is why I went off it in the first place. But I think I'm going to be able to get back down to <$200/mo after maybe an initial high month. Just more lentils, is all.
Hustles and Such
I'm juuuuust about to launch some digital assets for sale. I think I've identified a niche within a niche, but it might require a little education/marketing to get my stuff to the people who could use it. I don't expect to make much at first launch, but hope to grow over time as I tap into the right market. I could also be totally wasting my time and won't make a damn thing, but at least I'll have gotten my first failed attempt out of the way and can move on to the next.
The connections between several of my different domains seem to be connecting in my head. Specifically, my 3d art, dirtbag design-build, seminomadicism, writing, dirtbag/frugal/alt lifestyle, and video editing domains all seem obviously connected. I have a few ideas on how to thread them together, where they aren't already, but mostly I plan on building up the weakest ones and implementing systems (rather than goals) to keep them driving up in the C^6 model of mastery. And then exploiting opportunities, ideas, and stoke as they arise.
I do find I have to keep reminding myself I'm trying not to build too elaborate of plans right now.
Mental Health
Due to increased testosterone, sun, warmth, daily improvement of living situation in the container, and letting go of clutching after Big Plans and Projects, my mental health is dramatically better than it was over the winter. I've been spending a fair amount of time thinking through how "happiness/contentment <> suffering" is orthogonal to "working hard/achieving stuff/success".
For most of my life I've pegged happiness to achieving stuff, even when I knew that wasn't quite right and it never worked out that way. The time away from full time work is allowing me the space and time to actually step back, examine that, and work with "doing less" as a way of demonstrating to myself that it's possible to be happy and content while not actually accomplishing all that much.
Financial
I went through a small flurry of getting up to speed on and executing some basic FIRE stuff: setting up and maxing out a tIRA and HSA. I looked into p2p microlending, but it seems you need to be either an accredited investor or higher NW than I am (e.g. prosper.com/invest), so that dead ended.
My new accounts are still all in cash. I don't understand what's going on in the markets, and the internet seems to be blowing up with GET IN NOW!!! which I take as a sign to not get in. My current investing strategy is "read more".
I cranked through the McConnell, and started Bodie before switching to "stop doing anything you don't feel like doing, so you can decouple happiness from achievement in your mind", and haven't picked it up since. I'll pick it up again at some point, but at the moment feel I'll get more return on my time from developing income-generating entrepreneurial efforts.
I launched an online shop with some digital assets I made. I realize I've produced goods for a market that I need to create first, so I don't imagine I'll make any sales until I've pushed out some tutorials and marketing efforts. My business strategy is terrible, upon reflection, but I'm learning a lot in the process and am not going to quit at this point - I have a lot of iteration and testing to do before I'll have convinced myself I'm in a dead end. If I am able to "create" the market that wants my stuff, I'll be the only person selling to them, so it might work out nicely anyways.
Also, the digital assets I'm creating for this idea will be useful to sell/package the next digital asset idea I have, so I'm just making stuff I kind of need anyways, and trying to sell them.
Container Build
I built a bookshelf out of a few twisted 2x4's and scraps from the floor. It's ugly, but it got my books out of boxes, so I'm good with it. Burning and oiling crap wood goes a long ways towards making it look less crap.
I finished the interior framing, from cedar that my roommate free-hand chainsaw milled. This is the sort of nonchalant badassery he does on the regular.
I used a kreg jig, and the pocket holes will be hidden by the wall paneling. Thanks Jacob for the mention of that - I got the single-pocket one, and while it's best if you can clamp it in place, I found that it's possible with the right leverage to simply hold it in place with one hand and drill with the other. I'd like to make a DIY kreg jig out of some scrap hardwood, now that I've got this one as a template.
I put up the Heat Recovery Ventilator. It needs a wrap of insulation (that some friends gave me from their yurt build), and to make a little control panel for the fusebox and switches, but otherwise it runs good.
I wrote more about it
here, for anyone curious enough about wtf an HRV is to click.
My roommate had an old dining table that he didn't want. It was way too deep for the container, so I cut it in half to make a desk for DW and a kitchen counter.
This is pretty much the state I'm going to leave the container in for the summer. I'm unlikely to do more than stop by for a few days until the Fall.
In a week I'm off to have a man stick a knife in my lower abdomen while I'm asleep, and then I'll putter around not doing much at my parents for three weeks. By the time I'm cleared for full mobility, I'll be fully vaccinated. Then it's game on for the summer.
Going #cagefree and a Random Anecdote
I haven't driven my truck since the end of February. DGF still has it (and I haven't seen her since mid-March for a couple days). I haven't been too bothered not having it - rather the opposite, in fact. I'm going to aim to sell it in the next couple months. If I can get by in the heart of winter alone in the woods during a build without it, I don't need it.
I ran out of propane this morning. I knew it was going to happen soon. I haven't filled up my bottles because conveying 5gal propane on the back of a 250cc motorcycle is just too much even for me, and I haven't bothered to ask my roommate to fill mine the next time he goes. Honestly I wanted to allow a failure to happen, and then deal with it, and then have confidence in case a similar thing happens in the future unintentionally. Sort of like red-teaming myself, to abuse the term. I was
pretty sure I'd be fine, but now I'll
know.
So I just took my pot of mildly warm lentils over to the woodstove in the container, fired it up, and finished cooking my breakfast on it. #looselycoupled #diversification #resiliency #ereAFbaby