Early Retirement Extreme Forums

@7Wannabe5: brute does not understand

A pampered life can often feel unfulfilling.
The past-BRUTE that saved money is now pampering current-BRUTE who doesn't HAVE to do a lot of things and is now feeling void of purpose.

Working with a purpose seems tremendously more fullfiling than idling without purpose.

My odd commentary was based on the fact that your description of your state of ennui reminds me of the state of ennui I found myself in around 5 or 6 years ago when I was focusing on extreme minimalism and then found myself in the position of being a "kept" woman.

I might not be able to explain very well, but to offer an extreme example, imagine waking up in the morning to the lifestyle of a pioneer woman living in a sod house with 5 children under the age of 8 vs. waking up in the morning to the lifestyle of a sugar-baby being kept by an affluent older man who is not around most of the day. Whatever your philosophy may be, it would be difficult to FEEL (achieve bio-chemical state) like you were useless or dispensable or light-weight or not-the-adult in the first circumstance, and it would become increasingly difficult to not FEEL that way in the second circumstance. I think I might have somewhat of a unique perspective on this sort of thing because I had a good deal of responsibility for the care of others relatively early in life, and then rather suddenly found myself in the opposite situation early in mid-life.

Okay, so if you are a sugar-baby, one of your few primary responsibilities is to maintain your Zone 00 (skin sack) reasonably attractive to your "keeper." The process by which you accomplish this is going to be at least 80% impossible to distinguish from the process by which any person with a good deal of free time would behave in order to maintain himself as healthy and reasonably presentable/groomed. So, maybe you spend most of most of your mornings at the hot yoga studio. Then you go get your nails done or buy a new dress or out to lunch with some girlfriends who are also underemployed. Then you have to figure out how to keep yourself entertained or occupied until your keeper comes home and takes you out for dinner. So, you might choose to do something with your time that would have virtually the same biochemical effect as playing a video game.

Money is a stock that has a different set of flows and regulating feedback loops than the biochemicals in your brain that determine the complexities of your mood or emotional outlook. So, what I am theorizing is that there is a limit to the extent to which work you did in the past and stored as a stock of money, can contribute to a biochemical state of feeling "useful", or as though your behavior is tied to something "meaningful" in the present or future.

However, I absolutely don't mean to convey that endlessly taking on responsibility or focusing far beyond self is highly functional, or likely to create ideal biochemical balance either. "Bleak House" by Dickens is on my list of 20 Best Novels Ever. I frequently reference his character of Mrs. Jellyby , who is obsessed with political/charitable action to benefit an African tribe to the extent that she completely neglects the care of her own body, family and home. A person with adequate funds (or financial support of other individual with adequate funds) could also choose to spend all time and energy on virtually nothing but care and maintenance of their own physical health and appearance, and could similarly be offered up as a humorous character. When any system is optimized in one dimension, what will result is a feeling associated with a visualization of lack of depth, domain or fully developed complex character.

Something like that...I currently find myself in a bit of a funk and/or tangle ( or situation like that created 2/3 of the way into "The Cat in the Hat") from which I am not at all sure how to best extricate myself, so take with huge grain of salt.

7Wannabe5 wrote:..take with huge grain of salt.

brute loves salts.

what 7Wannabe5 describes sounds pretty close to what brute has been doing. brute has recently returned to a job, and currently is looking into wasting his time in more fulfilling ways.

What are you quoting? Who are the hosts? You like the "flesh robots" ideas of Scott Adams?

I think there is a lot missing in the way I perceive the world.

Ford

You think and care too much.Let serendipity rule for a while. Channel less of that Ford and more Rob Ford.

1.77x years of expenses
savings rate: 0.45

brute got job?

affirmative

2.1 years of expenses
savings rate: 1.38 (much of it an accounting error though)

2.3 years of expenses
savings rate: 1.2

What is the nature of the new job?

lots of typing

Savings rate of 1.2%? Brute can do better.

That's not good if percent. I'm guessing the metric is something more complex.

BRUTE wrote:2.3 years of expenses
savings rate: 1.2

I'm curious on how are you calculating the 1.2 percent? 2.3 yrs/25 yrs = 0.092 (9.2%). 2.3yrs/191.6666666666667yrs = 0.012 (1.2%). I'm lost. Forgive me if I'm missing something obvious. I'm basing this formula from your explanation posted on the first page of this thread where you used 25 years of expenses as your target. So what does ~191 represent if it's not years?

technically it's not savings rate - it's accumulated assets increase over net income. simply saving 100% of post-tax money would result in a rate of 1. contributing to a 401k (with pre-tax money) allows brute to go over the 100%, hence 120% or 1.2

not to mention investment income, employer match, currency fluctuations.. it's really not a great metric, but brute's only been tracking it for a few months, and isn't even sure why he's tracking it to begin with.

BRUTE wrote:technically it's not savings rate - it's accumulated assets increase over net income. simply saving 100% of post-tax money would result in a rate of 1. contributing to a 401k (with pre-tax money) allows brute to go over the 100%, hence 120% or 1.2

not to mention investment income, employer match, currency fluctuations.. it's really not a great metric, but brute's only been tracking it for a few months, and isn't even sure why he's tracking it to begin with.

Thanks Brute! I was racking my skull trying to make sense of your number. I thought I was missing something obvious. My OCD can now go back to sleep.