RoamingFrancis' Journal
Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:45 pm
Hello everyone, this is RoamingFrancis. I recently moved to a permaculture farm in my hometown, where I am doing 10-15 hours of labor a week in exchange for room, board, and skills. I am also working in legal translation and landscaping.
When I first arrived here, I realized, shit, this Gert stuff is real. I believe the people living here can be classified as mini-Gerts. I am now a micro-Gert. When I first arrived, ERE stopped resonating. I just want enough free time to relentlessly pursue my passions; the FI component doesn't matter very much. In fact, if I retired early I would probably end up back working someplace, because I like the skills and socializing that workplaces provide. So my goal is Gertitude and a passionate, meaningful life, and ERE is the map I'm using.
I realized another thing - that I am pretty useless. I am still a long way from the Renaissance Ideal, and still have a lot to learn by hanging around these forums. But it felt like a chapter had ended in my ERE journey, so I made a new journal. My previous journal is largely about getting control of my life and time. The goal now is to pursue the Renaissance Ideal. And so, with the closing of one chapter and the opening of another, I symbolized the shift with a new journal.
On the Renaissance Ideal—when I first got into ERE, I wanted to know everything. And I tried to do everything at once. And made very little progress on actual skill development. I also realized building new skills takes time. And you have to be focused. And no one can really know everything. As such, I believe each person's pursuit of the Renaissance Ideal should be like finding a Renaissance ecological niche, rather than trying to be kinda good at a lot of things. Some degree of specialization and mastery is worth pursuing, depending on each person's unique inclinations.
This is all a long-winded way of introducing the 6 categories of my Renaissance Ideal, my own niche. These are my areas to strive for mastery. I'll review where I'm at in each category and propose a next action for each.
Language
High degree of fluency in Spanish and German. Conversational ability in Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, French, and Esperanto. Beginner level in Sanskrit. Still looking for the indigenous language I want to learn. I've flirted with Potawatomi. I know how to learn languages, but I need more exposure time to level up. The key reason I was able to achieve fluency in Spanish and German is that I spent a lot of time in social environments with native speakers. My others have petered out around intermediate because I learned over the computer, but have never been able to speak and interact with real people. I think to really level up I'll have to travel. (By the way, there is an excellent Sanskrit course at https://en.amarahasa.com/start-here/)
Next action: complete Sanskrit course
Fitness
I am healthy. I have yoga, weightlifting, climbing, martial arts, and diet/cooking all listed as skills worth developing. I am at a beginner-intermediate level in all of them.
Next action: find more challenging yoga videos
Meditation
As you may know, I am dedicated to this as a lifelong practice. We're aiming for stream entry, baby!
Next action: enroll in Unified Mindfulness Pathways course
PEB:
This is my acronym for Permaculture, Ecology, and Botany. In my mind, it's all just one thing. Since arriving at the farm, I have become a beginner in beekeeping and landscaping. I've learned how to mulch, plant trees, and do edging work. Ecological stuff is starting to click more intuitively. I can't express it yet, but I can feel my brain changing. My difficulty here has been establishing deliberate practice loops. It's like, how do I practice understanding how nature works? Like sure, there are practice loops for individual skills involved in beekeeping, or planting or watering, but what does deliberate practice for running a farm look like? I'm hoping that just living here and doing stuff will be enough.
Next action: learn as much as possible during my time here? Maybe some of you accomplished permaculturalists could give some advice
Relationships:
This is a hugely important category, but tracking relationships linearly doesn't make sense to me. What's a heuristic and set of Best Practices for one's relationships? How does one even begin to intellectualize this?
Next action: Let the forums INTJs come up with a mental model for tracking this because I am clueless
Music:
I used to play piano. I was pretty good. Compile, maybe. But then my teacher died and I stopped playing. Now I haven't practiced for a long time. I suspect/hope what I used to know will come back quickly. I also have intermediate guitar skills. Unfortunately, singing is really uncomfortable. It just feels weird in my throat. I don't know how to articulate sounds. I'm not god-awful terrible, and I'm not afraid to sing in front of an audience. It's just that I know it's my biggest weak point.
Next action: Take voice lessons
Conclusion
This is the start of a new and exciting chapter; I am extremely grateful to have the support of these farm folks to build my life. I couldn't do this without them. Hope everyone is well out there.
Peaceably,
RoamingFrancis
When I first arrived here, I realized, shit, this Gert stuff is real. I believe the people living here can be classified as mini-Gerts. I am now a micro-Gert. When I first arrived, ERE stopped resonating. I just want enough free time to relentlessly pursue my passions; the FI component doesn't matter very much. In fact, if I retired early I would probably end up back working someplace, because I like the skills and socializing that workplaces provide. So my goal is Gertitude and a passionate, meaningful life, and ERE is the map I'm using.
I realized another thing - that I am pretty useless. I am still a long way from the Renaissance Ideal, and still have a lot to learn by hanging around these forums. But it felt like a chapter had ended in my ERE journey, so I made a new journal. My previous journal is largely about getting control of my life and time. The goal now is to pursue the Renaissance Ideal. And so, with the closing of one chapter and the opening of another, I symbolized the shift with a new journal.
On the Renaissance Ideal—when I first got into ERE, I wanted to know everything. And I tried to do everything at once. And made very little progress on actual skill development. I also realized building new skills takes time. And you have to be focused. And no one can really know everything. As such, I believe each person's pursuit of the Renaissance Ideal should be like finding a Renaissance ecological niche, rather than trying to be kinda good at a lot of things. Some degree of specialization and mastery is worth pursuing, depending on each person's unique inclinations.
This is all a long-winded way of introducing the 6 categories of my Renaissance Ideal, my own niche. These are my areas to strive for mastery. I'll review where I'm at in each category and propose a next action for each.
Language
High degree of fluency in Spanish and German. Conversational ability in Arabic, Portuguese, Russian, French, and Esperanto. Beginner level in Sanskrit. Still looking for the indigenous language I want to learn. I've flirted with Potawatomi. I know how to learn languages, but I need more exposure time to level up. The key reason I was able to achieve fluency in Spanish and German is that I spent a lot of time in social environments with native speakers. My others have petered out around intermediate because I learned over the computer, but have never been able to speak and interact with real people. I think to really level up I'll have to travel. (By the way, there is an excellent Sanskrit course at https://en.amarahasa.com/start-here/)
Next action: complete Sanskrit course
Fitness
I am healthy. I have yoga, weightlifting, climbing, martial arts, and diet/cooking all listed as skills worth developing. I am at a beginner-intermediate level in all of them.
Next action: find more challenging yoga videos
Meditation
As you may know, I am dedicated to this as a lifelong practice. We're aiming for stream entry, baby!
Next action: enroll in Unified Mindfulness Pathways course
PEB:
This is my acronym for Permaculture, Ecology, and Botany. In my mind, it's all just one thing. Since arriving at the farm, I have become a beginner in beekeeping and landscaping. I've learned how to mulch, plant trees, and do edging work. Ecological stuff is starting to click more intuitively. I can't express it yet, but I can feel my brain changing. My difficulty here has been establishing deliberate practice loops. It's like, how do I practice understanding how nature works? Like sure, there are practice loops for individual skills involved in beekeeping, or planting or watering, but what does deliberate practice for running a farm look like? I'm hoping that just living here and doing stuff will be enough.
Next action: learn as much as possible during my time here? Maybe some of you accomplished permaculturalists could give some advice
Relationships:
This is a hugely important category, but tracking relationships linearly doesn't make sense to me. What's a heuristic and set of Best Practices for one's relationships? How does one even begin to intellectualize this?
Next action: Let the forums INTJs come up with a mental model for tracking this because I am clueless
Music:
I used to play piano. I was pretty good. Compile, maybe. But then my teacher died and I stopped playing. Now I haven't practiced for a long time. I suspect/hope what I used to know will come back quickly. I also have intermediate guitar skills. Unfortunately, singing is really uncomfortable. It just feels weird in my throat. I don't know how to articulate sounds. I'm not god-awful terrible, and I'm not afraid to sing in front of an audience. It's just that I know it's my biggest weak point.
Next action: Take voice lessons
Conclusion
This is the start of a new and exciting chapter; I am extremely grateful to have the support of these farm folks to build my life. I couldn't do this without them. Hope everyone is well out there.
Peaceably,
RoamingFrancis