I'm working on making my Skillathon plan more homeotelic and not just a heap of skills that seem fun. I'm aiming for a mix of good design/strategy while maintaining fluidity for serendipity. I intend to draft a plan for every week of 2024, but I 100% expect to modify the plan as I go. Plans are useless, planning is essential, etc.
I want to fold writing and making video content with the purpose of show-don't-telling the potential freedom-to's of post-consumer praxis. Skillathon24 is an opportunity to improve my storytelling skills while generating non-theoretical attractive content about post-consumer lifestyles. People love stunts.
I also have some pre-existing projects that I want to get done next year that I'm going to fold in to Skillathon, mostly having to do with getting my book published and various permaculture-adjacent projects. Having some random unrelated skill running at 2-8hrs/day on top of trying to finish my book is asking to fail at everything.
Documentation/content generation Plan:
Every week I'll write a newsletter and publish a video about my skillathon progress. I'll chop content from this content into chunks and push to instagram and mastodon. I'll do this on a ~1 month delay (e.g. the video about the first week of January will come out the first week of February). Alternate: Instead of every week its every chunk, which will vary from 1-4weeks.
At the end I'll write a long form essay/article about the experience, and make a longer video about the whole thing.
Some of my chunks will have to do with skills related to video, writing, posting on the internet, etc: How to Shoot Talking Head Video, How To Shoot 'How-to' videos; how to edit and colorgrade video: etc. I won't do these first, because I'd prefer to have several videos as 'before' to point at.
Rough categories of skills in order
A quick two week cooking skillchunk (because mathiverse is going to be eresiding with me then and doesn't want to cook, so I'm using it as an opportunity to level up my cooking skillz.)
Skills related to getting my book finished: graphic design (Tufte etc) for my figures, editing, proofreading, formatting for digital and print, recording audio for audiobook version, etc.
Skills related to video content: Talking Head, How To, composition, framing, basic editing theory, sound mixing, etc. (I think I'll save advanced editing skillchunks like colorgrading for the very end, and I'll use the longer video project as grist for that skillchunk).
From here on out I might begin a tempo of more interspersed skills: permieskill1, drawingskill1, artsncraftsskill1, permieskill2, drawingskill2, how to fix motorcycles, artsncraftsskill2, etc.
I also want to do at least a week on the skill of Idleness: sleeping in, partying till late, the art of long lunches that involve martinis, etc.
Idleness is very interesting to me. It seems one of the easiest skills to get wrong, or to lie to oneself about. I'd be interested in how you end up approaching it. I haven't done much on my skillathon beyond brainstorming an initial list, but I think I'll add this one to mine as well
Every week I'll write a newsletter and publish a video about my skillathon progress. I'll chop content from this content into chunks and push to instagram and mastodon.
Are you open to becoming a public figure? I know you maintain a personal brand, but this sort of thing could go viral.
@ertyu excellent. I'm currently studying Tom Hodgkinson's How To Be Idle and Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living. Essays such as Russel's In Praise of Idleness (and many others, most referenced in Hodgkinson's book) will also be thoroughly examined in the curriculum design phase.
Related: today I put up a hammock that @grundomatic gave me at EREfest (thanks again!). Yields and flows...
Re: idleness: Jenny Odell (Oddel?)'s two books, Saving Time and The Importance of Doing Nothing are also a good addition to this reading list. Also select parts of The Art of Frugal Hedonism by Rowland (e.g. part 2, Relish).
Last edited by ertyu on Sat Oct 21, 2023 2:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I've been considering how to focus more on depth, making meaningful progress on skills. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I get a pervasive sense that I'm holding myself back on goals I hope to reach.
For me, some of it comes down to tactics- how will I specifically practice and implement these skills into my lifestyle? I've drawn them out in a web of goals, maybe I've even clarified specific projects in my GTD. Next comes actually doing the thing!
This for me brings up the design of your overall lifestyle, how many times during your day are you distracted away from your goals? How can you reconcile where you are at now and where you want to be? Are there unconscious desires holding you back?
Also select parts of The Art of Frugal Hedonism by Rowland.
I can't believe I didn't know about this book!
I think idleness is the ultimate tool against the consumer-industrial complex. As a fellow workaholic, putting something in the category of "skill" allows me to make time for it and devote energy towards it.
And WoGs thinking let's me see how those skills relate. Which does mean I still see idleness as largely a rest period to prepare for non-idleness. My apologies to Jenny Odell.
"Savvy Chic: The Art of More for Less" by Anna Johnson would be another recommendation towards indoctrination of artist friends. The author is definitely more of an artist/fashionista who makes use of frugality rather than vice-versa. Contains some great bits such as the sort of dress to wear to meet lover vs. potential husband, and how the history of bras relates to shopping for vintage. Reading it would make anybody want to live in a tiny apartment with great architectural detail and a couple original works of art and a fold-down bed almost big enough for you and the one you wore the red dress to meet vs. a McMansion with suites of matchy-matchy.
NOTE to SELF: Put Reboot of my Beauty/Style/Charm/Aesthetics project/practice/polymathery category which has fallen into complete decay on my Skillathon 2024 list.
I've been considering how to focus more on depth, making meaningful progress on skills. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I get a pervasive sense that I'm holding myself back on goals I hope to reach.
For me, some of it comes down to tactics- how will I specifically practice and implement these skills into my lifestyle? I've drawn them out in a web of goals, maybe I've even clarified specific projects in my GTD. Next comes actually doing the thing!
This for me brings up the design of your overall lifestyle, how many times during your day are you distracted away from your goals? How can you reconcile where you are at now and where you want to be? Are there unconscious desires holding you back?
This MF podcast with Scott Young of Ultralearning provides some advice on how to think about this with a specific goal or project.
They talk about clarifying the project scope, setting up a structure prior to initiation, and refining that throughout the project when progress slows down. This is all particularly important when engaging on a project or goal with a limited timeframe.
Related: today I put up a hammock that @grundomatic gave me at EREfest (thanks again!). Yields and flows...
I think this is the only way I was going to end up in this thread...ah, who knows, maybe by 2024 I'll be done relaxing and I'll join in. We'll see. Anyhow, I was happy to find a home for that thing--a hammock does seem to fit the vibe of Ft. Dirtbag, for sure.
Re: idleness: Jenny Odell (Oddel?)'s two books, Saving Time and The Importance of Doing Nothing are also a good addition to this reading list. Also select parts of The Art of Frugal Hedonism by Rowland (e.g. part 2, Relish).
I just finished Saving Time, and the bottom line of my personal write-up was that I guess it was worth suffering through all the anti-western, anti-Taylorism, anti-modernism, and anti-white guy deconstruction to get to the end where the individual is seen as an agent within time. A little wibbley-wobbly, timey-wimey for my taste, but there was value there.
tsk, i loved the anti-western anti-taylorist anti-modernism anti-white guy deconstruction
the most important idea to ERE from there is that capitalism defines a certain relationship people have with time, a certain set of ideas they have about time and about being "productive," and that getting to your authetic self and stoke means questioning your own relationship to time and to productivity. if you let it be the unexamined cultural water you swim in, the only thing that's going to happen is you're going to switch out your on-the-job manager from the job you quit with an internalized, "Ego" manager that sets you tasks external to yourself and whips you for not going at them hard enough. important to de-jobbing, imo.
OK, I’m joining in as well. I’m starting in Nov and my initial focus is food. Specifically, starting and consistently using a sourdough starter for flatbread, pancakes and other stove top items. We don’t have an oven and while I could bake at other’s homes, I’m starting small.
First project: start a starter —— then get into the habit of making something twice a week with it. This involves feeding and learning the timing of getting the starter ready (planning ahead…), plus getting a few recipes down (not perfect, just good enough- I’ll eat anything so perfection is not my goal).
Recipes will be: naan, pancakes and tortillas using home ground flour.
Second project with sourdough: bread and friends. This is the next level. Bread making will be collaborative as I’ll need to borrow ovens, which means I’ll make two loaves so I can share. Hope is that I am consistent enough to stop purchasing any bread products from store, maybe not hamburger or hotdog buns (yet).
Third project (and might reverse the order) is pizza! This is more complex as I’m not sure if our grill/smoker is a good way to make it, but I’ll think about it. Could be another friend project too…
That’s all I feel up for committing to at this point. I’ll report back in my journal on my progress.
I just finished this and highly recommend it. Good nuggets and ideas for specific skill acquisition projects as well as a nicely articulated argument for polymathy generally.
There are various ways we can help each other with our skills. Single player learning projects is a worthwhile meta skill that I’m interested in leveling up at, but I’m also interested in seeing how well and rapidly I can learn certain skills with the aid of teachers, mentors, and/or peer co-learners.
Also, one way to deepen a skill/knowledge is to teach it. Someone who learns a skill early could then turn around and teach/mentor someone else in it. In this way, Skillathon might build be a thing that builds velocity/momentum as it gets going and the number of competent mentors/teachers grows (and our group competence/processes for doing so). The permaculture meme of each one teach one is relevant here.
## Skills I can help teach/mentor remotely
Blender 3d modeling, animation, rendering, texturing, up mapping, import/export, etc (suggest curriculum, suggest learning workflows, troubleshoot sticking points, crit projects, etc)
Revit MEP
Spreadhsheets, for basic personal finance or engineering systems analysis. I can help you keep track of and organize diy building projects information (keep track of bills of materials, project costs, loads analysis, lookup tables, etc)
Basic video editing using davinci resolve
Very basic audio editing (enough to eg clean up and edit a podcast project)
DIY project management
PV system design
## Skills I can help teach IRL (you come to QH most likely)
Framing / basic construction / basic woodworking with power tools mostly
Bikepacking, backpacking, climbing, overland desert travel
Low voltage wiring:power systems
## Skills that require >1 person that I’d be interested in
Dance (any/all kinds)
Improv?
? Help me out here
I might facilitate/co-explore a course on the topic of Third Wave Sex Positive Feminism and Polyamory. I would suggest that it will intersect with ERE mostly in terms of attempting to be a Level Yellow (mature adult post-post-modern) discussion. I've only read or watched around 1/3 of the books, articles, and films in the syllabus I am currently brain-storming so far myself, so I don't feel qualified to "teach" the topic. It will be on my Skillathon 2024 list whether or not anybody else cares to join in.
Some possibilities for the syllabus:
Books
"Herotica: A Collection of Women's Erotic Fiction" - Susie Bright
"Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex" - Sallie Tisdale
"Confessions of a Pickup Artist Chaser: Long Interviews with Hideous Men" - Clarisse Thorn
"Fear of Flying"- Erica Jong
"Polyamory in the 21st Century"- Deborah Anapol
"The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love" - bell hooks
"Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good" by adrienne maree brown
"Bad Behavior"- Mary Gaitskill
"Yes Means Yes!" - Friedman and Valenti
"The Ethical Slut"- Easton and Hardy
Films
"She's Gotta Have It" - Spike Lee
"Lust, Life, Love" - Sellars
"The Misandrists"- Bruce LaBruce
"Foxes" - Adrian Lyne
"Romance"- Catharine Breillat
"Gloria"- Sebatian Lelio
ETA:
"Water Makes Us Wet: An Ecosexual Adventure" - Annie Sprinkle
I feel like my film selection is much weaker than my book selection, so some other suggestions would be welcomed. Third Wave Feminism was roughly late 70s to early aughts give-take for region, but I'd also be particularly interested in any works exploring the possibility of its revival in Fifth Wave Feminism in terms of the practice of polyamory.
