AE's Journal Round 5 - Finding Freedom To

[jacob]

The volatile Texas electricity situation impact definitely depends on one's housing situation and general "awareness". Event casualties tend to make people from other states that are adapted to outlier weather events shake their head---it's hard to wrap one's head around what others take for granted. Of course Texas will eventually get with it. Until then, don't rely on mechanical HVAC as the last resort even if it is how most live. For winter some "below freezing gear" is good insurance/for summer, it's a lot easier to deal with a heat waves in houses that are shaded and surrounded by green compared to an apartment building in direct sun which is surrounded by asphalt and where the windows don't open.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/16 ... eg-abbott/

[AnalyticalEngine]

It's been nearly six months since I posted here last, and a lot has happened.

I entered a spell where my mental health got pretty bad and it triggered a DPDR (depersonalization/derealization) episode. This was very miserable and took awhile to dig out of. I had to cut back on a lot of things that were stressing me out, do a lot of soul searching about past traumas, and get really serious about diet and exercise. I'm doing much better now, but it taught me that I have to watch the red flags on my depression and act before it gets that bad. If you've ever struggled with mental health, you know how bad it can get and how much it can creep up on you without you even noticing.

I had to do a lot of soulsearching during this time and realized I was basically using FI as dissociation/escapism/a way to run away from my problems. It's why I've struggled to find anything to retire to. So I had to dig into my past and think about where I learned these attitudes and how to unlearn them. It's taken a lot of time, and I'm not quite there yet, but I feel like I'm making genuine progress in actually feeling my emotions/living my life again.

I quit the job that was going to make me move to Austin and took an entirely remote position at another company. I'm actually making 50% more money than I was in the beginning of the year. I don't plan to quit work any more because I realized I never tried at work and wanting to quit was just me avoiding living my own life. I got so caught up in this black and white thinking of "work always sucks" that I never even tried to change the things I could change.

I'm still trying to determine my next move. I might rent out my condo, move to a city, and begin pursuing an art degree in the afternoons/evenings. Whatever it is, I've learned that I have to actually be engaged in my own life and take steps to pursue the things that matter to me.

I do think there's a large part of the online FIRE/stoicism/Buddhism communities that are made up of people trying to dissociate away from their own lives. I know I was one of them. I don't think this is the root of what those philosophies truly are, but they make it really easy to justify "solving" your problems simply by suppressing how you feel, retreating into yourself, and being extremely passive.

I intend to do much more planning of my time in 2022, including weekly and monthly setting of goals/reviewing progress. I will be sharing those with this journal as I go.

[Autotroph]

I experienced DPDR the first time while in an uncomfortable setting, and *way* too stoned. I had no idea what was going on; it wasn't until I went to therapy nearly 8 years later for different reasons that I learned what actually happened. I was absolutely terrified of cannabis for nearly a decade -- the *thought* of it was enough to induce panic. Probably the worst experience of my life -- I was underage too, and afraid of getting caught (it was also illegal then), so I didn't ask for help -- during or after. There were moments I thought I died -- in hindsight, I find it funny, but goddamn it was terrifying! phew.
Now, I am able to enjoy cannabis very much again.... lul.

I agree with your sentiment that a lot of behavior (e.g. avoidance) in such communities is driven by a weak sense of self (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-concept). A lot of people just really hate work and want to avoid it, which is rational but aren't sure what else to do. Answering that is at least as hard as retiring early in the first place. In that way, it's kind of like winning the lottery, which seems awesome, but actually isn't always all that great.

Kudos to you for focusing on your mental health and being true to yourself. Excited to follow your journey! Personally, I try to set goals at various timescales -- monthly, yearly, every 3 years, whatever. It helps me look at my life from various perspectives, reflect on progress and shortcomings, etc.

Also, what made you make this shift?

[AnalyticalEngine]

DPDR is scary if you've never experienced it before and you don't know what it is. There were times where "I" legit stopped existing or I felt like I was going to melt through the floor. I highly do not recommend.

One odd thing I discovered from it was that caffeine was massively contributing to it. I think I was trying to self-medicate the depression with caffeine, which was causing me a lot of anxiety, which was worsening the DPDR. I gave up caffeine entirely when I was crawling back out of that episode, and it helped a lot. I've noticed I've become extremely sensitive to caffeine now and can't drink it at all.

As for what inspired the shift, it was honestly that I hit rock bottom and knew I had to change a lot of things about my life. I think I had been on a downward slide with mental health since the pandemic started, and it became too easy to ignore the warning signs. But once I knew what the warning signs were, and what the symptoms of dissociation were, I could pinpoint times in my life where this had happened before. I then could backtrack my current beliefs to some past traumatic experiences and realized those were the source of some of my problems. And when I realized that I was staying in crappy jobs because I had the belief that all jobs were inherently sucky, and that this belief was actually rooted in trauma and not rational, it was easier to make changes to be in a better job. (Since I work in software, I've found it pretty easy to negotiate the working conditions I want because of the insane demand.)

Thus I realized that my low spending wasn't actually a healthy thing. It was driven by an attempt to flee from life (dissociate). For example, one could buy nice clothes and attempt to socialize and make many friends. But if one has social anxiety/past trauma, then one might always dress ugly to avoid having to interact with people. One could rationalize this as frugality, but it's actually escapism. I realized my low spending was driven by escapism and not anything healthy, so I do intend to actually spend a bit more now. Or at least, be very intentional where I spend.

My new philosophy is that I have to be engaged in whatever I'm doing. If I'm going to stay in software, then I need to be engaged at work or else it's just not worth it. Doing the bare minimum and zoning out through most of your workday is not a healthy way to live, and I've realized this.

Luckily, at this point, I've already reached my "leanFIRE" number, so I'm mostly working to achieve other goals. I realized that there are some things you can only do through work. Like if I want to ride around in an aircraft carrier, the only way to do that is to join the Navy. Thus I'm starting to view work more as a tool for other goals rather than a terrible burden I can't escape from and have to dissociate through.

[Western Red Cedar]

Prioritizing your mental health is really important. Good on you for reevaluating your priorities around financial independence and work. It is easy to think that 100% freedom is the best path toward happiness, but meaningful work is an essential ingredient as well.

This podcast might be worth a listen if you haven't heard it yet:

https://www.madfientist.com/tony-interview/

[chenda]

The above posts really spoke to me, thanks all for posting.

[oldbeyond]

I’ve been down the same path, if not as far down as you ended up. After a sabbatical I changed university and major, and around that time I discovered FIRE, in MMM and then ERE. I was a bit overwhelmed by new responsibilities and challenges (a serious relationship, building a new social life, learning new skills) and daydreams of financial freedom became my favorite escape. I spent a lot of my time, both in the lecture halls and in my living room, reading blogs and forums. Making projections and plans for my own situation was put off for a couple of years, as the point really was avoidance, not committed action. A lot of energy went into judging others and proclaiming what I didn’t want.

I’m quite sure that had I stumbled upon half a million, I would’ve expanded my bad habits (forums, blogs, Netflix) and neuroses. Liebig’s law of the minimum - it wasn’t money that I lacked. My career began in this mindset, and for a miserable while I acted out my loser part and collected my paycheck. In the end, my dissatisfaction was transformed into action by increased demands at work. Basically, I had to engage with my work or draw a lot of negative attention towards myself. At first this made me even more miserable, as I felt trapped playing catch up. Then I became a bit too concerned with proving myself and impressing others for a while, to the point of burnout. Ultimately though, it forced me to grapple with life, and in that tension I found whispers of who I really was. That voice has only gotten louder and my actions more integrated with it.

That is not to say that everyone needs to prove themselves in paid employment, that was simply my path. But I do think that if something that is inherently positive (be it FI or health or meditation) mainly functions as an avoidance behavior, it will not have healthy outcomes. There must be a strive towards a life that you want, whatever that is, and an acceptance of reality.

The best of luck to you! I’m certain you’ll thank yourself for making these changes in your life.

[mountainFrugal]

I think that you were working on some comics in the past. What happened to those? I hope that you will continue working on comics if you decide on art school classes. Freedom to... art is literally endless.

I have been working through a modified version of this the past 2 years instead of doing art school:
https://www.reddit.com/r/learnart/comme ... sive_list/

The focus is on draftsmenship and figure drawing for comics or concept art, but you could modify it easily if you wanted to focus on painting or something else.

There are free versions of lessons for each section available on youtube or blogs if you want to get started right away with just drawing with a pencil and some printer paper. I think that if you went all in, bought used books, got subscriptions, paid for critiques (the main cost later in DIY art education), etc. it would only be about 10K* (4200 for books/subscriptions/classes/drawing tablet, 2500-5000 for critiques/mentorships, 2400 for some advanced classes that include weekly critiques). I am personally still on the "working through free and used book resources phase", with the exception of the proko.com anatomy and figure drawing classes (these are handsdown the best on the internet) and an online comic art class. There is a ton to learn just from the free resources discussed, so I would suggest starting there, putting in the pencil mile time and build your art muscles. I was skeptical of art mentorships at first, but having taken my first comics art class this past year, getting feedback from a working pro on my work AND seeing the critiques of other students, it is one way to advance quickly if you are also putting in the pencil miles. I am currently refining a DIY comics curriculum where the DIY/draftsmen (linked above) is the subset focused on individual images and the new comics specific part has more emphasis on sequential images, page layouts, pacing between panels, storytelling etc. I will post it and let you know when I finish it.

* technically you could do it all for the cost of materials, but I think there is a *huge* benefit to interacting with online art communities, taking some classes, meeting other students and instructors, and not being siloed. You will level up way faster with community. There are free versions of all of this though. 10k all in is like 1/2 a semester at regular art school. It could be spread over 5 years because it would be more than a full time job to do all the work outlined in less than 2 years. If you want to do art in exchange for money, the only thing that really matters is your portfolio, not a degree.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@mountainFrugal - I still have been working on a lot of ideas for comics, it's just been more on the writing side than the art side. I wrote a few scripts about an alternative history Korean war scenario, as well as an urban fantasy political drama. I have a lot of ideas for stories, so I want to pick one that would be a good fit for the comic medium.

Thanks for the link to that art curriculum. Conveniently, I already have Proko's portrait and figure drawing classes that I bought awhile ago, and they are quite good. My biggest limitation with art right now is not setting aside enough time for dedicated practice. My schedule and routine completely fell apart with my mental health, so this is one thing I want to put back together.

One of the reasons I want to go to art school is in fact the mentorship and networking aspect, so it's good to hear you've had success with that online. I'll look into some of these programs. What I have decided is that I want to start taking art seriously, as if I was going to do it professional. I'm not really planning on shifting careers, but I think taking the hobby seriously, on a professional level, forces me to engage with it on a much higher level than if I just stuck with it as an amateur. And given that one of my biggest hurtles right now is just a lack of engagement, I thought this would be a good fit.

I'm definitely interested if you decide to post more about it.

@Western Red Cedar - Thanks for sharing that link. I listened to it and it was insightful. I do agree with the podcast in that you really need to find a social outlet in retirement. One of the reasons my mental health got so bad was due to the covid isolation and some falling out with relatives over the political climate (which I've since resolved, but the damage has been done). I ended up alone most days, and that was not good for my mental health at all. I do still struggle with social anxiety, so the thought of going to a meet up all by myself to meet new people is terrifying, but this is something I'm actively trying to fix. It's really hard when you live alone and work from home.

@oldbeyond - That's very similar to what happened to me. I discovered MMM when he started the blog in 2011, which was my last year of college, and while my exposure to it did help me set up my finances for success, I think it also became an escapist fantasy that I used to quit before I had even tried.

Reddit is particularly bad about becoming an echo chamber for this, and I spent way too much time on the r/financialindependence subs, which are filled largely with people who are depressed and using this as an escape. It really colored my attitude about a lot of life. You could certainly do worse than hitting FI at 31, but on the other hand, sometimes I feel like I wasted by 20s because I was so stuck in this attitude and with untreated mental health problems.

[mountainFrugal]

I'm not really planning on shifting careers, but I think taking the hobby seriously, on a professional level, forces me to engage with it on a much higher level than if I just stuck with it as an amateur. And given that one of my biggest hurtles right now is just a lack of engagement, I thought this would be a good fit.

I think this is a good way to approach it to get started as long as you are giving yourself the space to learn, make mistakes and not be a perfectionist about the things you are creating while you are also developing your skills. It was easy for me to fall into the perfectionist trap while trying to start drawing consistently a few years ago. All of the other things I work on need to be exact. I think the same may be true for your work. Not so with art. Taking a longer view about being a "pro" in 5+ years and pretending I was in middle school art class learning the basics helped to ease that burden for me. If you aim to keep it fun and loose while building skills, you will likely stick with it. As an example, my college roommate now teaches architecture. He has a challenge for his freshman students to loosen up where they have to fill an entire sketchbook in 24 hours. Fast and loose ideas/sketches to keep it from being too precious. I am sure there are equivalent things for different media. Keep it loose!

On the writing side of things: www.comicsexperience.com has some writing classes. My partner took a few of the writing classes in the past and really liked the community, fellow students and the instructor feedback on the scripts she wrote. Might be worth a look if you want to get feedback on one or more of your stories through multiple rounds of revisions. I think the intro writing course is based off of "The Comics Experience Guide to Writing Comics" book as an alternative to taking a course.

I look forward to hearing more about your art school/freedom-to updates.

[FBeyer]

And when I realized that I was staying in crappy jobs because I had the belief that all jobs were inherently sucky...
Since I work in software, I've found it pretty easy to negotiate the working conditions I want because of the insane demand...

Thus I realized that my low spending wasn't actually a healthy thing. It was driven by an attempt to flee from life (dissociate)...

Thus I'm starting to view work more as a tool for other goals rather than a terrible burden I can't escape from and have to dissociate through.

This is one of the best things I've read in YEARS. You're touching on SO many mindset issues and psychological quirks than this post gives away.

I am SO happy you found a way forward.

Good job. You've done something only very few people have ever done. And I'm not talking about FI.

[enfier]

Your journal is quite interesting. I've seen some of these threads in my personal life and worked through a few of them. Of course not all of them, that's going to be your own path.

Don't underestimate the simple and the obvious when it comes to solving these problems. There's a tendency to try to think your way out of every problem... but if it's your mind that's the problem that just feeds the fire. Buddhism isn't disassociating from your life, it's disassociating from the constant noise an untrained brain generates. Your brain is a tool - it's good at solving some sorts of problems but can be absolutely terrible at running the show.

Before you go down into the rabbit hole of some complicated solution to your problem, take a step back and ask yourself if there aren't simple, obvious improvements you can make today. Then take that *action* thereby eliminating your tendency to overthink it. You can still go ahead and think about the problem but at the end of the day it will have made at least some progress toward resolution.

Some people fail to make progress for really boring, simple reasons like a chaotic schedule. If you aren't spending time on artwork, socialization, fitness and dressing well then no amount of motivation, anxiety or thinking about it is going to move the needle. That seems obvious, but if you aren't spending time in the gym you aren't going to get fit so maybe it's best to just start with spending 4 hours a week there and figure out the perfect workout routine next week. A lot of your bad habits might just be solved by filling up your time with other, higher benefit activities and actually planning your day and week a bit. Are you time blocking your schedule? Do you have fixed times each day/week where you do the activities that are important to you? I imagine that you are quite careful with where your money goes - are you also being quite careful about where your time is going?

Another tip, make your default filler activity reading interesting books. Instead of pulling out your phone or going on the internet, read a good book with interesting ideas in it. That might recreate some of the environment you enjoyed in college.

As for the career path *So Good They Can't Ignore You* and *The 4-Hour Workweek* might be interesting reading. Those books contain advice that's diametrically opposed to the ideas in Early Retirement Extreme, but I find it's great to understand different approaches to the same problem of being an unfulfilled specialist ant in a complex system. It gives you something better than show up for X years to do at work anyways - I had a lot more fun once I was more actively engaged in making my work a better and more productive place for myself.

[Lemur]

Good stuff on this page...

That is not to say that everyone needs to prove themselves in paid employment, that was simply my path. But I do think that if something that is inherently positive (be it FI or health or meditation) mainly functions as an avoidance behavior, it will not have healthy outcomes. There must be a strive towards a life that you want, whatever that is, and an acceptance of reality.

@oldbeyond

This is interesting. I love studying philosophy - a favorite past time but I just have to recognize whenever I start going down into the philosophical texts, it is usually because I'm trying to cope with something in life (95% of the time its my occupation).

@AnalyticalEngine

Yeah delete Reddit . It helped me personally but at the same time Reddit does have some usefulness if you can recognize it as a tool of sorts. But it is easy to get caught up in the algorithms, dopamine feedback loops, the politics, etc. or what have you on that website - I guess that goes for most social media websites. They're that way by design actually.

[AnalyticalEngine]

@mountainFrugal - Thanks for the link to the comics class; I'll definitely check that out. It sounds really useful.

My goal here is to start taking it more seriously, which does include putting in those hours of deliberate practice a day. I fall into the trap a lot of wanting to pursue something more seriously but not really committing to the work taking it seriously requires, so I'm trying to avoid that this time. It's really easy for me to go "I'm just a hobbyist" and then use that as an excuse not to do the harder studies/etc, which isn't the attitude I want because it will hold me back. I'm finding that taking things seriously is really helpful in keeping you engaged with them, so that's my current goal.

I did look up some private art classes near me, as well as various possible art degrees. This is luckily one area I'm willing to spend money on since I hit my FI target already, so now I'm trying to optimize for opportunities.

@FBeyer - Thanks for the encouragement. I do agree that this mindset is really widespread, and it's taken quite a lot to unlearn. I think it became a vicious cycle where that mindset was leading to bad mental health, and bad mental health was creating that mindset. There were a lot of emotional/coping skills that I was lacking, which was just leading me to cope by being detached all the time, which is a massive problem if you're wanting to find meaningful engagement in your own life.

@enfier - I definitely agree. Thinking/researching but not acting is a trap I've fallen into before, and it does encourage your to be stuck inside of your own head. It's been a slow process to replace some of these bad habits because the evolved as coping mechanisms, so when you take them away, you're suddenly confronted with everything you were trying to avoid. Quitting caffeine was that way where I had to suddenly ensure I was eating right, exercising, and sleeping well or else I had just no energy.

@Lemur - Totally agree with reddit. I've been trying to spend a lot less time on screens lately, which has admittedly been very difficult because they've been my hobby since I was a kid, but I've noticed it helps a lot. Being mindful of what you consume and where you spend your time goes a long way.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Year of Engagement
Rather than a specific New Year's resolution, I have opted for a theme. The theme for this year is the Year of Engagement. My goal is to once again become an active participant in my own life and proactively seek activities and people that bring me meaning and joy. Thus I am going to strive for greater participation and engagement in all that I do and allow myself to feel emotions again.

Modern society makes it pretty easy to skate by doing the bare minimum, especially if you're smart, due to the incentive structures. All that's really asked of you is to show up on time and be nice to coworkers/classmates. This is not a bad baseline for most people because by definition, half of people are below the median. But it absolutely encourages complacency, and this dissociative habit is one that you have to break to achieve fulfillment/escape the 9-5 successfully. Therefore, this will be the Year of Engagement.

Art and Hobbies
I've registered for a weightlifting class, a 5K, and a painting class at the community center. This does cost money and there are free alternatives, but I'm going to be honest with myself that I do not presently have the skills to do these things for free. I have tried for years to pursue the free versions of these things, and all that happens is that I don't do them, get stir crazy from the lack of doing anything in my life, then end up binging on restaurants or Internet to fill the void. It's better to spend $50 on a race and $50 for a gym pass than $0 to lay on the couch.

Speaking of art, I've decided to eschew art school for now in favor of some local alternatives. There's not much point in me going to Real Art School because I already have a college degree and anything you can learn in art school you can teach yourself. Art is ultimately just spending hundreds of hours practicing techniques, and until I've done that, art school is a distraction.

But! There is a real value in mentorship and networking. This is why I signed up for art classes at the community center, and I may consider private art lessons in addition. There are also some local art galleries who periodically put out calls for displays, so I'm going to start creating pieces to enter those for the networking.

Socialization
My social life has basically completely fallen apart since the pandemic. I used to have friends, but they moved away, and then with the lockdowns, I never tried to meet anyone else. All of the friends I've ever made I met through school or work. That is the real benefit of work--free friends. But now that I'm working from home indefinitely, this strategy is absolutely not going to work. Thus this was another reason I signed up for community center classes. There's also a book club at a local indie bookstore I plan on joining.

I'm pretty shy and this has made me bad at making friends. I have decent social skills and people like me, but I often lack initiative and I'm afraid to put myself out there due to some previous bad experiences. With my decision to work from home, this is something I need to fix. My social anxiety is hell, but I need to overcome this now or the problem will only get worse.

Tracking and Organization
I'm using a mix of the GTD method and my own personal method to organize my life this year. I'm basically setting weekly/monthly/quarterly plans and following up with a review. Right now, these plans are mostly a giant list of tasks, which is not overly useful at the quarterly level, but this is a work in progress. I'm trying not to let perfect get in the way of good enough. I'll probably change this system as the year goes on, but it's helping for now.

I'm also recording my spending again after quitting that for 2021. I want to know where my money is going so I can determine if I am over or under spending in important categories.

Other things I am recording include screen time and diet/exercise.

Hyperreality
I had the realization that my job is no different than all the time I'm wasting on reddit/Discord. That is, it's easy to say my job is "real" and reddit is "fake," but both include me sitting in front of a computer and talking to strangers I'm never going to meed "in real life." Thus, instead of thinking my job is real and reddit is fake, I have to accept they are both hyperreal. That is, they are both this simulacra of interaction with other people that has become as "real" as anything else.

I'm going to keep this realization in mind as I try to cut back on screen time and use the Internet more strictly as a tool. I think it will also help me integrate my personal life, my work life, and my bad habits into a more coherent life framework.

[mountainFrugal]

I like your 2022 theme. The community center art scenes are usually really good because you have people there who are really excited about taking classes from all walks of life. I am glad you are engaging that side of your interests!

[mooretrees]

We moved to a new city and it's taken a few years to make friends. The best way for us to meet like minded people was becoming a volunteer at our local farmers market. I'm not suggesting you do that, but some extra engagement with different people is really helpful in potentially making friends. Work, school and roommates are the easiest routes I've had in the past to make friends. I can't remember if you're still at your condo? Could you rent a room out? That can be a crap shoot but also really fun if you get it right.

I love that you're hitting a bunch of different interests with the community center. Also, community centers are really affordable compared to art school and a gym membership. AxelHeyst has been doing some interesting experiments with analog/digital stuff and seems to be really dialed in with GTD, maybe check out his recents posts?

[AnalyticalEngine]

@mountainFrugal - Glad to hear that! I want to meet people with more diverse backgrounds that you might in a college classroom, so it should be a good starting point. Then if I decide I want to pursue art super professionally later, I can maybe consider art school then

@mooretrees - I feel you on it taking a long time to make friends. It's always harder as an adult than it was when you were in school. I'll look into the farmer's market though because that could be a good outlet.

I do still live in the condo, which is another issue in of itself. The condo is decent and I bought it cheap for how much its worth now, but its situated in the suburbs, which I'm not sure is where I want to keep living. I've considered renting the whole thing out then moving somewhere else, but due to how the market has exploded in Denver, living here is so much cheaper than living anywhere else because I got in on this condo when it was so cheap. I'm still probably going to move, but I need to go look at other areas, including potentially places outside of Colorado.

I'll check out AxelHeyst's GTD posts, thanks for the rec!

[AnalyticalEngine]

Been in the process of changing a bunch of bad habits then realizing there were a bunch of friends in my life where the only thing we had in common was said bad habit. Now as I continue to change, I'm slowly losing friends over not continuing to participate in the bad habit. It's for the best, the older parts of your life that were enabling bad habits will begin to chafe as you improve, but growing pains are still growing pains. I've noticed people really don't like you talking about self-improvement if they share that bad habit, even if you openly tell them that you're not talking about them and they're fine to do whatever they want in their life.

[Western Red Cedar]

Been in the process of changing a bunch of bad habits then realizing there were a bunch of friends in my life where the only thing we had in common was said bad habit. Now as I continue to change, I'm slowly losing friends over not continuing to participate in the bad habit.

I saw Tim Ferris interview Rich Roll this week and learned a new term to describe this group - "lower companions". It sounds like you already know you are better off without them if something that brings you down is all you have in common. Best of luck on behavior changes and self improvement in the new year.