RoamingFrancis' Journal

[RoamingFrancis]

• I have some money invested now. I will be experimenting as I learn more.

• I'm getting an interpreter certification and finishing an associate's degree this fall. The goal is to make myself look somewhat more presentable to employers. Will be able to use the school's resources for ADHD support, and get better at working within the system. I'm susceptible to Cal Newport's First Control Trap, in which I want autonomy without having the capital to back it up.

• Have been reading Carl Jung. Created a separate journal for recording my dreams.

• Looking for an opportunity to go hunting.

• Listening to some great historical podcasts on the Comanche, Tecumseh, and Black Elk.

• Continuing with my martial arts training. Planning to do a weeklong intensive outdoor training in the fall or early winter.

• I have an open invitation to hang out with mountain men in the Appalachians - planning to roll down there in the not-too-distant-future.

• Planning to do Long-Term Dhamma Service early next year. I will be able to take some courses during that time and get my total number of retreat days to 65, which leaves me with 300 in order to fulfill my goal of doing a year of silent retreat practice before I'm 30.

[RoamingFrancis]

Languages
Making steady progress with Duolingo Hindi.
Formed a relationship with some indigenous people from Southern Mexico who were visiting Chicago. We got along very well and the told me I had an invitation to come visit them. I'm thinking I will do this around January. They speak an endangered language with very few resources so I will be focusing on Hindi until I get down there.

Contemplative Practice
A number of my friends are theosophists and Zen practitioners who had sesshins this weekend. I feel a deep commitment to Vipassana, and had a couple phone conversations with my teacher over the weekend. Am curious to explore shamanic practices and druidry, which could cause conflict because Vipassana requires so much focus, but I trust it will work itself out.

Emergent Renaissance Ecology
Am working on a horticulture team. Not exactly what I'm looking for, as my job is more focused on maintaining a certain aesthetic than on holistically healing and understanding the land, but it's a step in the right direction. And I get $$$. I've noticed myself falling into family dynamics at work. Recentered this weekend and I think I'll be better able to deal with it this coming week.

I'll have a general associate's of the arts by December. Am asking myself what the hell I'm thinking because I don't think this degree will be good for anything, but it will at least be a box checked if I decide to transfer somewhere. Am also looking into the horticultural division of the community college, which has some great programs. Urban agriculture and arborist were some of the ones that grabbed my attention and have earning potential.

At this point, I'm really on board with the "just accumulate to FI and get the whole damn thing over with" school of thought. I've learned how to work within the system on some level, which is good. In the words of David Allen, "I'm still just as crazy as I ever was; you're just seeing me in a state of high cooperation." I'm essentially going to have to choose between the WorkingMan and SalaryMan quadrants to chart out an accumulation path. SalaryMan would likely be easier because society is built that way and I would just have to learn how to learn how to plug into the existing system in a way that doesn't suck, but I think that WorkingMan would be better for maintaining a strategic mindset. I think it'd be too easy to go on autopilot in SalaryMan.

I ordered spore syringes for the reishi, cordyceps, and lion's mane mushrooms and will be starting a grow project once I can find some good substrate. Also, I will be keeping an eye out for the mushrooms that have positive antiviral and anti-mite properties that have been used to extend honeybee lifespans (I forget the name but know there's a Paul Stamets talk out there). Since I have been helping out at a hive I will be able to use them there. If things go well I could potentially establish a side hustle selling gourmet mushrooms to restaurants, medicinals to athletes and hippies, etc.

ADHD Management
I should be clear that Spiral Dynamics leave a somewhat sour taste in my mouth, but I can't quite put my finger on why. That said, the concepts have some value so I'll use them occasionally. I learned in some recent conversations that I am somewhat allergic to the Orange meme, hence why I've been avoiding "productivity systems" and the like.

As such I was really kind of avoiding David Allen's Getting Things Done system. But this weekend I learned more about his underlying philosophy, how it's really about "Mind Like Water" and really more focused on not getting things done (the doing mind is crazy!) and now I can vibe with it. I've been converted and I will now proselytize from the rooftops. (thanks to @AxelHeyst for enlightening me.)

Relationships
I've been watching Marshall Rosenberg's talks on Non-Violent Communication with my mother. It's been really good for us - the relationship has some underlying issues that we haven't quite gotten to discuss yet, but the talks are helping to open the door. If it's like previous work I've done in this area, there will be a somewhat tumultuous period followed by a plateau with a greater level of peace and harmony.

Music
Really been digging Glenn Gould's interpretations of J.S. Bach. Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Goldberg Variations in particular. Bach is so mechanical and mathematical with his counterpoint compositions, but it has a uniqueness and a vibrancy to it that lets you know it's not just about having interesting technical chops.

I've been thinking a lot recently about what I really want out of my musical practice. I played piano when I was a kid, and I was pretty good. But unfortunately my piano teacher died and I never quite stuck with it after that. But it stayed very much a part of me and I still feel a very strong connection with music.

Recently I haven't been so much playing as understanding new layers of music and broadening my palette. The interest in Bach is totally new. I think that there is an inner block that is preventing me from writing and playing more than I do.

Key to this point in my learning is going to be learning music theory. My early training was very focused on a "monkey-see, monkey-do" ability to read sheet music and play pieces by rote. I got some pretty complex stuff under my belt this way, but I never learned to understand what was going on in the deeper layers of the music. It's like memorizing a poem in a language you don't speak, without ever learning what the poem means. So I'm going to have to learn my alphabet.

[RoamingFrancis]

To retrace my steps a bit...

In June of 2021 I was WWOOFing and strongly considering quitting money and going full Suelo. But I decided to take a step back because I felt there were deeper callings I would not be able to pursue if I dropped out of society entirely.

Fast forward a year and I have really "found my people" locally. I have such a rich social network here that I am incredibly grateful for. My lifestyle has shifted to a fairly normal one as I have just been focused on work and school. I completed an associate's degree this fall, which I am glad to have out of the way. I have additionally been working in horticulture as one of my core interests is permaculture, forestry, herbalism, and other Deep Green Shit.

I have come to realize that the structure of something like work or school is actually very good for my ADHD. And I have been contemplating whether I would not be happier in a career that I really enjoyed than being early retired and sitting at home all day. (Maybe it would be cool to be a college professor? Or create an entrepreneurial structure? Idk.) Also, being at work does give me a chance to socialize which is important given how high I score on the extroversion scale. Or maybe @Jin+Guice's take on high-level semi-ERE* would be something to emulate.

*To be clear, I do not really like the term semi-ERE as it could have the connotation of just being half-assed ERE. I want deep post-consumerism, but being conscious of ADHD as a factor means that my interaction with our society's standard structures will change a lot.

I am grateful to have a job that I don't hate. I can't pretend to love it either, but not hating a job is a first for me and is a starting point. I think I am in the right field, or at least close, but I am not learning anything in my current position. At all. I do think that there is some wisdom in just accumulating what I need to and getting the whole money problem over with, but as @J+G pointed out in a recent journal entry there are potentially a billion subtle gradients between standard FIRE and something like semi-ERE. So I would need to find something that works for me. I also think that calculated risks are extremely important, especially when I am 22 and have time to recover should something fail terribly. I have a higher-than-average capacity for risk tolerance, which I consider to be an asset.

I have also come to the conclusion that it is important for me to base my work life around my intrinsic interests. Yes, there is a risk that I could ruin something if my job is centered around it, but this is a risk I'll have to take. I just can't do things that don't interest me, and I would *much* rather view work as an opportunity to learn something interesting than drudgery in exchange for cash. I would rather work an interesting and fun job for low pay than a boring or stressful job for high pay. These are all factors that I should include when navigating towards FI and making my life decisions.

For the time being I am mostly just figuring out career stuff, while pursuing my other interests in my spare time. I think that it's important to invest in these regularly, as these will be the seeds that grow into solarpunk polymath shit later on.

[RoamingFrancis]

Some notes on my other interests:

- After having had a dedicated Vipassana practice for four years (holy shit, time flies) I have decided to put a pin in that practice and come back to it later. There are other things I have been exploring, and I diverge from the tradition in that I believe that skillful synthesis of multiple spiritual disciplines is possible. Emphasis on skillful.

- My favorite jazz album of the year has been Eastern Sounds by Yusef Lateef. That shit rocks!!!!!

- I am getting into the work of Stephen Harrod Buhner, a well-respected herbalist. I am going to keep digging here for a while.

- I have made contact with Lakota people and started work on the language. I am coming to realize that I need more structure in my language learning practice. Besides English, my most fluent languages are Spanish and German. I have also studied Russian, Arabic, French, Portuguese, and Esperanto, but never made it past the conversational level. In retrospect, even though I never enjoyed formal language classes, I realize that the structure they provided and opportunities to interact with high-level speakers were very helpful. If I found an instructor that I really clicked with, I think that I would be willing to use a more formal language learning structure in the future. It also helps that my local community is heavily Hispanic (I feel like I'm basically an adopted Mexican) and that I have had opportunities to travel to German-speaking countries and be fully immersed in the culture for longer periods of time. Since I have not had these opportunities with my other languages, my interest has faded or jumped around after I reach the conversational plateau. It took me a long time to find speakers of endangered languages, but now that I know speakers of Zapotec and Lakota and Nahuatl, I am starting to find that I will need more structure around my language endeavors in order to move past the conversational stage.

- I have made some progress in my martial arts practice. Though probably just enough to be overconfident in my abilities Dunning-Kruger comes to mind.

[RoamingFrancis]

I think that mindfulness of spending is more important than quantity of spending...

I am noticing that certain kinds of spending (e.g. paying a friend for a massage) feel really good and are aligned on multiple levels. The enemy for me is consumerism, which is destructive and harmful, and primarily comes from a place of mindlessness. I may not be able to efficiently accumulate if I include occasional massages as part of my lifestyle, but I really question whether accumulation is the right choice in the world we live in.

[kane]

[...]but I really question whether accumulation is the right choice in the world we live in.

Maybe I don't really understand what you mean by that, but I'd say that accumulation is a byproduct of not needing much (either because you don't crave much in terms of possessions or you just have skills to compensate for buying most of the things [e.g. give your friend a massage], or... both!). The other thing that you could mean is defending your stash (from inflation etc.), which probably can be done effectively, but you would probably need to upgrade your investing skill.

[grundomatic]

I just can't do things that don't interest me, and I would *much* rather view work as an opportunity to learn something interesting than drudgery in exchange for cash. I would rather work an interesting and fun job for low pay than a boring or stressful job for high pay.

This is totally ok. It's how I've approached jobs in the past. At some point, though, you may get tired of convincing people to hire you. Or they may just not want to hire you. Or you may even get to a point where learning things won't be enough to endure the BS that comes with paid jobs. Ask me how I know.

This is why it's important to be reasonable now and save your money (50%), so that 20 years from now you won't have to find the magical next job (that is fun and educational and saves the world) and convince them you are the best person of the hundreds of applicants. You get to just do what you want. This is the easy and good way. You could also go the fast and good way, I know you've heard it but here it is again:

I skyped with Vicki Robin a couple of years ago. She told me that Joe Dominguez's approach was the "render unto Caesar's [that which is Caesar's]". IOW you need to "put on your own oxygen mask first". Extreme FI is ridiculously easy. Get it done. Once you rendered unto Caesar for 5 years, you're done. Surrender some ideology to work within the system in order to move things forward. Unfortunately, people get stuck within their egotic ideology. Getting stuck in an ideological quadmire makes dealing with Caesar a lot harder than it has to be.

Maybe giving some to get some is the way to unlock optionality? IOW get to FI first, then proceed onto your life's work. Engaging with the LR requires developing and including more perspectives.

Ideologists often get stuck on not wanting to touch finances at all whatsoever. That's a severe handicap. However, if you're willing to spend <decade extracting yourself from Plato's Cave, opportunities to change the world open up.

[RoamingFrancis]

Okay guys, honest reflection time. I have been focused on other things for the past couple months and not really paying attention to my finances. Time to open this back up and see where I can go.

My job is bringing in about $1000 / month, working part time. I am not getting very many learning opportunities at my current job, and have started to apply to other positions at hardware and garden stores. My spending has gotten out of control. I spent a bunch of money on books last month that I could have gotten for free from the library. Not the greatest decision I have made but I will live with it. I have not been keeping track of spending closely, but I know that it has not been good.

I bring up massage therapy because I realized that I want more touch than I am actually getting. I have a pretty high need for touch that I have neglected most of my life. I have never been much interested in accumulating possessions, as my multiple years as a vagabond can attest to.

But I do want experiences. Martial arts classes, adventure travel, concerts, social events. All of these things really do matter to me. And given my ADHD, I don't think it would be a bad idea to pay someone to do my taxes. Because otherwise they just won't get done.

Given these goals, restrictions, and needs, I am going to make spending decisions that align with my values. I am thinking about things a little differently now - I am no longer super concerned with getting my spending number to be as low as humanly possible - but rather managing resource flows in such a way that is balanced and leads towards wholesome financial interdependence over time. I say financial interdependence because we live in an interdependent universe and any attempt to extract yourself fully is doomed to fail. Someone that has approached FIRE is no more independent of the system than an immigrant laborer; they have just learned how to make the system work for them. Independence is an illusion.

If there is a massage or two in there, so be it. It helps with my mental health and allows me to wake up feeling good about myself and energized.

I skyped with Vicki Robin a couple of years ago. She told me that Joe Dominguez's approach was the "render unto Caesar's [that which is Caesar's]". IOW you need to "put on your own oxygen mask first". Extreme FI is ridiculously easy. Get it done. Once you rendered unto Caesar for 5 years, you're done. Surrender some ideology to work within the system in order to move things forward. Unfortunately, people get stuck within their egotic ideology. Getting stuck in an ideological quadmire makes dealing with Caesar a lot harder than it has to be.

Maybe giving some to get some is the way to unlock optionality? IOW get to FI first, then proceed onto your life's work. Engaging with the LR requires developing and including more perspectives.

Ideologists often get stuck on not wanting to touch finances at all whatsoever. That's a severe handicap. However, if you're willing to spend <decade extracting yourself from Plato's Cave, opportunities to change the world open up.

This is very tempting. It is good advice. However for me it is not so much about ideology as it is about wanting to make sure that I'm proceeding in a way that is good for me holistically. Work has the potential to be positive and life-affirming. I am in a really good place in my life. I am happy and fulfilled, have an amazing network of friends, and have my spiritual practice. And I'm not going to sacrifice that if it means I have to give up my mental health to accumulate financial wealth. For me it is less about clinging to ideology and more about the Mexican Fisherman story...

[RoamingFrancis]

Just finished Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh. For some reason I came to associate the phrase "spiritual teacher" with shady snake oil salesmen and New Age hucksters, instead of BAMFs like Thomas Merton. My apologies to all the real teachers out there.

[RoamingFrancis]

Cross-posting @Fish's diagram for my own reference: viewtopic.php?p=197249#p197249

Much love to you INTJ folks who make data easy to visualize! This is helpful.

I could just... be done... I could ERE by 27...

[RoamingFrancis]

Careers

I kick ass at teaching and breaking down complex ideas. Only thing is that I don't think the public school system can be reformed. And I don't want to teach a bunch of rich kids.* So I would have to find the right institution... I could go the academic route too but that would mean a lot more training and postponing financial independence.

Carpentry, beekeeping, gourmet mushrooms, herbalism. This is all stuff I am experimenting with on the side that could lead to income or a small business. I like marrying academic work with practical work. I can get lost in abstract philosophy too easily and like to bring it back to earth. Some marriage of academic and practical, hands-on work would really be ideal. I fucking love ethnobotany as a discipline, but I don't know if there are any real career opportunities in the field.

*Not that I have anything against rich kids. I just wouldn't want to teach rich kids exclusively. Like, teaching at some fancy Waldorf school would not be worth it if all the kids going there were super wealthy. I have a lot of grittiness that wouldn't fly at a bougie institution.

[AxelHeyst]

I have a lot of grittiness that wouldn't fly at a bougie institution.

Why not? Have you tested or observed this? What if the leadership of the bougie institution loved the fact that their admittedly sheltered kids were getting some exposure to Real World Grittiness?

[grundomatic]

...My spending has gotten out of control...I have not been keeping track of spending closely, but I know that it has not been good...
I am going to make spending decisions that align with my values.

Given these comments, I recommend you read Your Money or Your Life AND do the exercises within. No skipping them, and you need to stick with it.

[RoamingFrancis]

I would like to become a regular contributor of this forum again. This is a really good space. I hadn't really posted in a while because I went through a couple months of feeling really incompetent or like I was failing at ERE. I was also negatively comparing myself to some of the higher-level ERE journals that initially inspired me (theanimal, mountainFrugal, AxelHeyst). I'm learning to accept my own neurodivergence. Seeing a therapist who specializes in ADHD.

ADHD means that a lot of normal society is extremely challenging for me. Remembering to feed myself, doing laundry, cleaning my room, keeping track of appointments... the accumulation of all these factors is really fucking hard and has affected my life in ways that I am only beginning to understand. My entire life in the factory farm school system, times that I have been fired from jobs due to my neurodivergence... after several months of seriously questioning whether I was the problem, I'm starting to think that society's bullshit is the majority of the problem. Currently experiencing feelings of anger and injustice in this area.

I am accepting and embracing the inner child. I am truly just a child on the shore of the cosmic ocean.

I am cyclical and non-linear. I will need to take forum breaks sometimes. This is part of my own internal process. Ideas don't always flow into each other in ways that neurotypical people can see. I can make connections which I think is the strength of my own process. I think non-linearity is something that is sorely needed in the world.

Spreadsheet project

I organized my Google Drive!* Everything that I have now is in one of four folders - Old, Lifetime Creative Output, ERE, or Relationship Resources. I deliberately gave Lifetime Creative Output a name that sounds intimidating because I like being tongue-in-cheek. Not sure if I'm going to keep relationship resources as a folder. I want to minimize the number of folders I have - 5 as an absolute maximum - but currently it's holding a letter that I wrote to my mom.

*Noticing that a part of me wants validation when I organize things. Not sure if this is good or not. I don't really like depending on external validation. But external validation might be helpful to get me in the habit of organizing things.

I started an ERE Master Spreadsheet. This is the first spreadsheet that I have made but I want to keep it updated. For a long time I was keeping track of my monthly expenses. It was hard for me to do but it was during my initial "honeymoon phase" with ERE. Eventually it stopped being interesting so I stopped keeping track of the details. Life of an ADHD person.

I would like to request help with this project because I'm so new to spreadsheets. Currently the contents are a list of high-leverage skills I identified based on AxelHeyst's podcast episode. These are the ones I have identified for my own personal life, not ones that I think apply to everyone.

High-leverage skills:
Bicycle Repair
Cooking
Gardening
Herbalism

Maybe Would-Like-to-Do skills:
Carpentry
Beekeeping
Hunting? I would like to sort out some of my thoughts on hunting and animal rights.
Bushcraft

I don't have any information about lists of monthly expenses. This is often the kind of information that leads to overwhelm for me.

Goal-setting

My non-linearity means that traditional goal-setting methods don't work for me. I have 4-6 areas of deep interest in my daily awareness that I typically journal about. These are Contemplative, Linguistic, Ecological, Music, Martial Arts, and Relationships. I believe that these have arisen as themes in earlier parts of my journal. Different categories are more specifically defined than others. For example, Music includes my entire creative practice, which at the moment is geared more towards poetry and writing. I would like to transition to music eventually, but the fact is that my life does not have space right now for the dedicated practice that an instrument demands. So I think my best bet would be to leverage my linguistic strengths by focusing on my writing, and use my lyric-writing skills to transition to music. This doesn't need to happen even in this decade. I am not in a rush. But this is on my mind. Martial Arts is my Hapkido practice, but also includes my general physical health. This year I took one of Paul Chek's Holistic Health courses, and in my mind this was included under the Martial Arts category. Other areas are much more defined. For example my contemplative practice is currently focused on studying with a specific teacher and really mastering and helping to preserve the core components of his lineage.

Problem is that creating practical decisions at the week-to-week level is really fucking hard and kind of painful for me. I experience my interests and long-term goals as a sort of amorphous blob. This is good! Reality is nebulous. Trying to negate reality's nebulosity creates subtle existential suffering. However I do need to bring it back to earth sometimes and have an idea of what I'm doing for the week.

I am part of a men's group that offers weekly accountability check-ins over Signal. This is an excellent resource however I am experimenting in how I can use it optimally. I would like to find a way to set goals that works for me. Currently iterating, experimenting, and using trial-and-error to hone in on something that works.

Impulsive Decision Making

I have made some impulsive decisions in my life. Some of these have been the best decisions I have ever made! Hitchhiking across the US, for example, was a decision I made on a whim (there was some build-up but I really pulled the trigger at the last second). I'm coming to admit that I have, in fact, made impulse purchases. For example I spent $200 on a lifetime subscription to a Korean language learning platform. I also impulsively bought a bunch of Dharma books, including, ironically, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism.

I don't know to what extent my impulsive decisions have been good or bad for me. I think that, as a meditator and ERE practitioner, I was in denial of the impulsive decisions I have made and am starting to come to terms with the fact that, yes, I have in fact made some impulsive decisions. I understand the importance of waiting for the marshmellow. I also want to grab life by the fucking horns and live every moment as deeply as I possibly fucking can. I'm reminded of Hunter S. Thompson:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"

I don't know what the balance is here. I think that Apollo and Dionysus both have their place, and that trying to deny one or the other leads to problems. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and also yeah I need to make sure I have a basic foundation of being able to consistently meet my survival needs before I can do crazy fucking adventure shit. So many of the ADHDers I know are held back because their neurodivergence creates problems with them interacting with the dominant society.

Neurodivergent Food Systems

I'm not looking at cost of food right now. I need to figure out how to consistently feed myself and keep myself healthy. My food system consists of a couple different inputs: SunBasket, grocery store, 7/11, and soon I will have a garden as well. I have a garden on my friend's property but it's a little far so I'm planning to make one that's a little closer.

SunBasket helps me eliminate most of the issues that get in the way of ADHD cooking. I get a fancy, healthy meal prep kit that makes me want to cook because I get to make kimchi or biryani or cool fucking okonomiyaki savory pancakes from Japan. And it's really fucking easy and makes me actually want to cook because it's triggering the intrinsic interest that is so important for ADHD folks.

Going to grocery stores is a challenge because of transportation and because it's so easy for me to get overwhelmed in a grocery store, hyperfocus on researching every single food label on a given item to find out if it's really as organic as they say it is and not a corporate ploy, and then walk out without having gotten anything that I planned to. This has caused issues for me my whole life and I'm starting to be conscious of it now. I would like to use the grocery store more consistently but I need help to figure out how it works with my neurodiversity. I have strongly held values around food sovereignty that have made it hard for me to use these structures too, but I need to remember not to let the perfect be the enemy of my basic survival needs around food.

I am pretty good at avoiding junk food. I am very in touch with my body, which has been a process I have been intentionally cultivating for some time. Most of the time my body knows what it needs and I just have to listen. Sometimes I have to ask if I'm not sure about something. I'm not perfect about junk food, but most of the time my body wants healthy food because it knows how both kinds make it feel. A couple months ago I vomited an entire bag of potato chips onto the ground right in front of the girl I was on a date with. And I was sufficiently nonchalant about it that we're still dating.

Miscellaneous

I'm getting an itch to travel, adventure, explore, but I'm afraid of disrupting these systems and routines that have been so hard for me to establish.

There are a couple areas where I think I diverge from the forum culture. I have (left-wing) anarchist political leanings. I'm a spiritual person. Individualism isn't that important to me. I value the creative individualism that is often found in artists, but I think that most forms of individualism I encounter cut people of from interbeing and connection.

[AxelHeyst]

It sounds like you're doing some great work on yourself and tackling the challenge of operating in the world with the same courage you've applied to Renaissance hobo'ing and adventuring. Inspiring stuff RF, and I'm glad to see you posting more!

[grundomatic]

I'm cyclical in my interests, too. I like Barbara Sher's book Refuse to Choose for some ideas, tools, and models on how to deal with having many interests. I hesitated to recommend it, because it may be a bit basic for the average forumite, but it is still a favorite of mine. It has a tone of "it's okay to be different" that soothes me.

The great thing about this forum is you don't have to conform to anything but the etiquette rules. I joined the forum and started a journal as an example to/voice for the lurkers that aren't like the average forumite. We need as many different stories as we can collect here.

[RoamingFrancis]

I liked that book. Simplicity can be more powerful than complexity.

[Scott 2]

I like the take Devon Price has on honoring one's neurodivergence. The latest book deals with building a life where you don't constantly mask:

https://books.google.com/books/about/Un ... &q&f=false

The author does choose to narrate the audio book. It's very consistent with the message. But also an unusual listening experience. While well spoken, the author's voice has the flat affect characteristic of autism. It makes receiving the message a little harder.

Devon's earlier book discusses at length why choosing something like meal service over grocery shopping is extremely reasonable:

https://books.google.com/books/about/La ... &q&f=false

I think both might resonate with your current perspective on the ADHD.

For me, one of the best parts of FiRE has been unwinding concessions I'd made to nuerotypical expectations. I wish I'd had Devon's perspective 20 years ago.

[fiby41]

I am cyclical and non-linear. I will need to take forum breaks sometimes

I like to take relationship breaks. Apparently girls don't like that and take it up as an abandonment issue.

Relationship Resources.

My Relationship Resources contains:
Rational Male series for general principles. Roosh Valizade for the story-telling. Nicholas Krauser, Tom Torerro for strategies. Mystery Method, The Game for tactics.

What does your Relationship Resources contain?

I started an ERE Master Spreadsheet.

I would like to request help with this project because I'm so new to spreadsheets.

I could share my spreadsheet although it has some personal details within it.
New sheet for every month. A column for digits and another for particular details. The total spending cell gets reflected in Savings Rate sheet where each month gets a row. There another sheet to keep track of where all the earned money is invested, asset allocation and rate of return. Here it is, make a copy if you want: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Impulsive Decision Making

I like C40's idea of law of limited wills. It says you have a limited amount of will every day and if you spend it on one thing another part of your life goes haywire.

[RoamingFrancis]

@Scott 2 Thank you so much! This looks like exactly what I need to read. Thank you so much.

I like to take relationship breaks too. My Relationship Resources contains Brad Blanton's Radical Honesty series and an interesting book I found on the intersection of neurodiversity and polyamory. I've recently become interested in the writings of Deborah Taj Anapol on the polyamory vein.

Thanks for the spreadsheet. Immediately it activates my ADHD "wall of yuck" response. But I think that I can use this as a template.

I agree with the idea of limited willpower, but I think that it also functions as a muscle that can grow stronger over time if exercised properly.