OutOfTheBlue's Journal - Round 2 - Wanderings

[OutOfTheBlue]

I feel compelled to start a new journal earlier than anticipated, for a few reasons:

• I'm missing a place that can hold things I'd like to share that do not necessarily fit in ongoing discussions or warrant a thread of their own.
• My participation in the new Plotkin MMG offers an occasion to experiment with ways of contributing to the public forum from that angle and of upholding the commitment to avoid darknetting ERE. I feel some more personal material could be shared here in addition and dialog to other related places such as the Plotkin MMG, Ecology MMG and Bill Plotkin Discusion threads.
• I can still stay silent for some period if I need the pause/disconnect
• I'm entering a prolonged period of wandering into the unknown, and while I don't want to anticipate the directions and forms this will take, I acknowledge it marks an ending and a beginning, which is cause for symbolic celebration. I still have no new "story" to share, but one may emerge organically as life unfolds and various threads are followed.

Hence, the new journal.

For the curious or those wishing a refresher, old one's here.

ERE

So far, ERE has helped radically simplify my life and unlock possibilities not envisioned before, discover great resources (books and otherwise), gravitate towards a more integrated (and eventually complex/rich) lifestyle, take on a more wholistic/systems-theory-informed perspective, and direct my energy towards what makes me feel alive and better aligns with my drive(s) and values. It's been also helping expose myself to different, thought-provoking perspectives and inspiring living examples, and I'm continuously grateful for that.

ALONE AGAIN

I'm alone again, having ended a beautiful long-term relationship, not for lack of mutual love and caring, but to respond to an inner "call", which didn't make matters more easy or less painful, although I've been doing my best to support this transition for everyone involved. It's been a good occasion of further cultivating the North facet of the Self (the Nurturing Generative Adult [Plotkin - Wild Mind]) we're currently exploring with the MMG, and acting from a place of mature broad(er) vision, compassion, loving-kindness and fierce support, both to myself and the other, while also remaining emotionally available.

And now for something else I'd like to share:

AN ODE TO AUDIO READING/LISTENING

For me, audiobooks (and audio content in general) have been a game changer. What surprised me a few years ago was how more vividly than expected I was able to recollect the content read that way. Initial doubts were soon dispelled. In my experience, audio reading holds quite well in comparison to visual reading, although it feels quite different (for instance, listening is often tied to a memory of place). I'd put it almost on par with visual reading, although the often suboptimal listening conditions somewhat impact the quality of the result. But this is also a strength: you simply have a lot more opportunities to read something when your eyes are not glued on a screen. And you can always rewind, adjust playback speed or simply choose something less demanding in a given circumstance. Or combine both worlds. If your goal is immersion in the wilderness, and being mindfully present, you'd better put these earphones away, but there are situations where you can be quite aware of surroundings or perform a non-demanding action while listening. Running is the prime example for me, where I can still check my breath, technique and aware vision while listening. You can also relax and enjoy listening without combining it with other activities. At any rate, the result is that I end up reading more without necessarily adding screen time.

NO AUDIOBOOK? NO PROBLEM (@VOICE ALOUD READER)

Well produced fiction audiobooks (or even theater plays, or podcasts) can be a joy to listen to. However, most of what I'm reading nowdays falls under the non-fiction label. And here, there's often no audio version readily available.

For those in a similar situation, I'd like to share a book listening solution that works well for me. Well enough.

The app I use is called @Voice Aloud Reader and it's free, with just some ad footer (which you can remove with something like Blokada or pay for the Premium version). To my knowledge, its for Android phones only. There are probably similar apps for iOS though.

Official page: https://www.hyperionics.com/atvoice/

This app is very feature-rich. For instance, you can:

• Read and listen to (playlists of) web pages (or articles from Pocket) and various local files, including text, PDF (with text extraction or OCR), DOC, DOCX, RTF, OpenOffice documents, HTML files, and of course eBooks in the EPUB/MOBI/FB2 formats.
• Record spoken articles as sound files in WAV (uncompressed) or OGG (compressed) formats.
• Access dictionaries, translations, Wikipedia, and web search with a long-press on any word or phrase.
• Adjust speech generator volume, pitch, and speech rate as well as other options to your preference.
• Use Android local Text-to-speech voices, or if you want - cloud voices from Google (WaveNet), Amazon (Polly TTS) or Microsoft (Azure TTS). Note that the cloud voices are paid services by Google, Amazon or Microsoft, respectively, although each of them offers some free usage monthly.

Sure, there are some books (such as those heavy with figures, tables, diagrams, double columns, etc.) that are not always the best choice. But I've found that on many occasions, this solution works just fine.

Here are some personal recs:

• I highly recommend you give Microsoft (Azure TTS) voices a go. There are many voices options, and some actually pretty good, the best of the lot in my view. In-app instructions are provided for obtaining an API key. So far, I've never hit the free monthly usage limit, so it is basically free even if you may need to enter billing details.
• Cloud voices require an Internet connection, and the local Google voices are not so good/tend to get on my nerves. There are ways to install locally older IVONA TTS Engine voices (such as Kendra [US], Amy [UK] or Celine [FR] that are now part of Amazon Polly TTS. I've found download links on a Reddit thread. With that, you can still have a decent audio voice quality when offline. Alternatively, you can buy and use offiline voices.
• For PDF Text Import, you can use HTML, with or without images instead of Plain text, and when needed, touch the PDF icon to follow along the "PDF" version instead of the onscreen text.
• The app is actually a pretty good scroll-down text reader, when you need to alternate voice with visual reading, or combine both.

KOREADER EBOOK READER

For visual reading, however, my favorite has to be KOReader. It's available for Kindle, Kobo, PocketBook, Android and desktop Linux.

I use it both on my phone and on the laptop, and I had it on my Kobo as well before it broke.

Be sure to check the user guide, as the interface can be a bit confusing at first. Many options and possibilities, including exporting highlights to markdown, etc.

This app is the best I know for rendering PDFs. By setting the orientation to landscape, and "manually" (like explicitly) selecting Page crop > Auto, you can read most PDFs even on a smartphone screen (which can be handy in at least some situations).

CALIBRE FOR EBOOK MANAGEMENT

Calibre is a great desktop app for managing/searching your ebook/PDF collection and editing book metadata, including tags. If you don't use it and have a sizeable document collection, maybe you should!

WHAT ABOUT DRM?

All these apps don't support DRM, though, so the elephant in the room question is: What about ebooks with DRM?

Well, you can use them for DRM-free content and also for "liberated" ebooks.

To my knowledge, removing DRM for personal use isn't illegal, although (it can be a hassle and) doing so in order to distribute copyrighted material usually or most certainly is.

Depending on the ebook vendor, there may be working solutions, including some external Calibre plugin(s).

[OutOfTheBlue]

I just came out of a Zoom meeting cicle, and there was this man who's been retired for five years now and he said something that struck a chord:

"I retired because there's so much work to do".

Such a beautiful reframing.

There's so much work that is not necessarily w*rk.

So much life, and only so much life.

So much not only to do, but to be.

To discover, witness, embody, co-create, share and participate in...

In this sense, work and retiring are a question of framing and mindset. And of making it all happen.

[OutOfTheBlue]

I think the style-capital and spiritual-capital are almost completely unexplored. What if someone wants to pursue an ERE life not because of low-resource or financial impact, but because it allows them to live in accordance with their own aesthetics? What about if they want to pursue an ERE life because they feel it enables them to more closely pursue spiritual enlightenment?

For the past several months, I've been following a golden thread and pursuing an all-pervasive spiritual/inner work path. It's been one of the richest periods so far. Transforming, challenging, exhilarating.

Predictably, I can report my implementation of a (Semi-Semi)-ERE lifestyle has been supporting me in this adventure without having to wait for FI-dom. Simple living while traveling enables me to dedicate a big part of my days to this search while working only a few hours a week (with various stretches of no work at all) and still saving around 50% (1x).

Not sure I'd like to share more specifics at this stage, but yeah, there is much room for exploration in this realm (the Cave is not the only cave in town, so to speak!), and the discoveries are redefining what freedom-to (and everything else for that matter) even means. I didn't expect how much "work" this represents, and I wouldn't want to leave it for later, or as an afterthought.

Opening to what is and stepping into the unknown does not always suffer much strategizing, but it does call for a certain preparation and "discipline": showing up, aligning, practicing, listening to the pull, nourishing the fire of longing.

May this be for the benefit of all beings!

[Bicycle7]

It's great to be able to simultaneously save half of your income and have ample present time to redefine your freedom-to!

I appreciate your characterization of preparation and discipline. They are strong reminders for me when I feel like I'm losing the thread of my inner-work. I've found in the past couple months just opening up and reading a few pages of Plotkin's Wild Mind is a powerful redirect to keep pushing my exploration. Along the lines of like, "oh yeah this whole world exists for me to map out and discover, let's go".

Thanks for being an inspiration OutOfTheBlue!

[mountainFrugal]

You really doubled down. I look forward to your updates on this quest.

[OutOfTheBlue]

Thank you @Bicycle7! It's a treat to be sharing this path with you also through the MMG and inspiring to see what a natural you are in this.

@mountainFrugal, your Plotkin and other contributions and recorded journey here have been such helpful pointers. I've been missing your presence in the MMG, but I "know" you really are on to something. I have an image of a horse rider that has let go of reins, spurs and saddles and roams free in intimacy with their mount. Keep riding that wave!

So far, it's been a combination of going deep and going wide. Both phases are needed in such an endeavor and casting a wide net/covering ground quickly, although at times a bit compulsive and unbalanced has been instrumental in what's been unfolding.

That's why for instance the skillathlon does not appeal at this stage, because what I need to be "working" on is being "revealed" to me and changes as I go. This has helped me remain open, let go of the impulse to control things and just trust the process. A trust that has been strengthened by the stream of discoveries that seem to naturally build on each other as I'm walking the path.

Still, there are pitfalls and swamps along the way, and navigating these/finding a balance is an everyday dynamic process.

I'm finding quite helpful the idea of "antidoting your tendencies", which somewhat also captures a bit of that discussion on using MBTI (and Plotkin Self-facets) for growth that's been going on.

The Plotkin MMG has been part of that golden thread I mentioned above, with Wild Mind chapters and meetings providing an orientation for my own search and practice.

Plotkin's work and framework bills itself as integrative and holistic, and one goal for me was to put that to the test and see how it can relate to my own life and quest.

For a long while, this has checked out and the framework has been proving surprisingly robust, well thought out and compatible with various modalities.

Until recently that is. At some point, following a series of "side-quests" (that started with South-facet body-oriented approaches, followed by spiritual East-facet stuff), I came upon something that resonates even more deeply and seems to differ in some important ways to Plotkin's model, that I may need to figure out how to best integrate all the rest into that instead.

It has to do with a rich nondual spiritual/philosophical tradition that is providing its own holistic process of awakening and embodied liberation, and although Plotkin's view of Spirit is also nondual, it seems to be challenging his concept of Soul and Soul Initiation, which constitutes much of the premise upon which he bases his life work.

I may talk more about this later on, because currently I haven't grasped/negotiated all the implications. Still in the midst of exploring that and seeing how to best integrate all the stuff I've been reading/learning with this the newly acquired expanded insight and direction.

[OutOfTheBlue]

Sharing a quote from something I've read recently.

It connects with "nourrishing the fire of longing" that I mentioned, Jacob's concept of requirements to change but in the spiritual path and with what @berrytwo, @AnalyticalEngine, me and and others have been discussing about our tendencies to self-sooth and numb out.

You don’t know to what extent suffering, sadness, or depression is present in your system until you run the experiment of removing self-soothing and mood-modifying behaviors, such as drinking alcohol, smoking cannabis, watching TV, scrolling Facebook or Instagram, eating sugary foods, and so on. These behaviors […] are usually covering up mental-emotional pain or loneliness or angst. Try being truly sober (in every sense of the word) for even just [a few] days, and you’ll soon get in touch with your real situation. If sadness, loneliness, or angst surface, this is a wonderful outcome, because it shows you how strong your longing to experience integration and connection to your deepest nature really is. And now the path can really begin in earnest.

[…] All longing is really longing to experience the truth, and by the same token, existential loneliness and emptiness is a feedback mechanism by which you see the real pain of your self-imposed state of separation from the whole.

So by not self-soothing, by not covering up the loneliness etc. with ‘buffering behaviors’, you are sharpening your sense of spiritual longing, which naturally results in a stronger dedication to the awakening process and therefore an acceleration of that process. Therefore discontent, sadness, loneliness and angst these are your allies and best friends on the spiritual path, because only they tell you the truth: that nothing will satisfy, nothing will ever truly satisfy, except the profound inner fulfillment, the ineffable joy, the peace that passeth all understanding, that can only come from knowing yourself as you really are, […]

Since nothing else will satisfy, isn't it better to find that out sooner rather than later? And when you know that, when you really know it, you are finally willing to go into the heart of darkness, face the loneliness, be with the sadness and emptiness, because at the very center of that seeming black hole is a singularity that connects to everything and contains everything. This is the most shocking and most beautiful revelation of the spiritual life. […]

[berrytwo]

Such a powerful quote. Thank you!!!

[OutOfTheBlue]

Quotes of the day:

Since there has arisen today, in my heart, a certain satisfaction. Since strenuous fixity of purpose has settled down into a contented constancy/calm resolve (dhṛti). And since even in solitude I feel as if I am in the presence of a protector, assuredly the worthwhile goal is turning towards me.

That which you seek is near, and already coming to meet you.

[OutOfTheBlue]

The below quote pretty much sums up reframing questions of the style "Who am I healing?" "Who am I endeavoring to heal?" "Who's healing whom?", "Who wants to heal?", "What needs healing?" that came up to me as we started tackling the Plotkin/Wild Mind subpersonalities chapters on Self-healing back in late 2023, when I first discovered the tradition of Nondual Shaiva Tantra and its revival, marking a profound shift in approach that I'm negotiating since: the subtle dance between effort and grace.

If we consider full awakeness as a far distant goal, to be attained after much striving, then that is what it will be. Instead, we are invited to gently hold the awareness, that it could be as close as our next breath—and then to take the next breath as an opening to that possibility.

But, we protest: it can’t be that close, because I have so much work to do, so many unresolved issues and unhealed wounds. In so protesting, we forget that our real nature, by definition, is always available to us in some measure. Accessing it does not depend on solving any problem or healing any wound. (Though it is also true that those wounds, or rather our beliefs about them, can impede the recognition that this divine core is our real being—and this recognition is necessary to end our habitual return to the limited story of the separate self.) This understanding is crucial, for when people hear about the possibility of liberation, they almost always imagine that such a thing could only be the result of solving their problems and healing their wounds. But your real nature was never wounded, so why should accessing it be dependent on completing your therapy? This misunderstanding leads to putting the cart before the horse, and devoting an inordinate amount of energy to figuring out and fixing a “self” that is not the real you.

In fact, what often happens is this: you wake up out of the false belief that the limited, conditioned self is you, and then that limited self— whose locus is the mind—slowly begins to reflect the new state of affairs. That is, the mind begins to align itself to the vibration of your real nature, now that the power of your awareness is focused there instead of on the mind.

Nuance: the above is not a case for spiritual bypassing. For a fuller picture, refer to that book.

[Bicycle7]

The quote is a good reminder for myself. I have to some degree questioned my inner resources (Plotkin's facets of wholeness) from the perspective that I have too many subpersonalities or wounded/fragmented parts to be whole. Though, I find when I do lean into what wholeness I have cultivated, I find it can help in difficult moments.

For me, the preparation phase of the descent (cultivating wholeness) could be a lifelong project within itself, but at some point one needs to just take the jump.

It reminds me too of the non-linear nature of spiritual work. To the best that I can tell, I've dipped my toes at several points into Plotkin's Cocoon stage, while soon going back to the safety of the Oasis.

The best of wishes for you holding these questions