Masculinity Mondays: 22

 

Image shows a man in the shadows of a building

What is causing the rise of toxic masculinity? 

That's been the question on every "correct-thinking, right-side-of-history" person's lips since things began to settle after the pandemic - almost as though, with one crisis seeming to be "over", people collectively decided they needed a new crisis.  That they couldn't simply return to calm; things had been stirred up, and restless agitation was somehow more rewarding, and therefore that needed to become the "new normal."

When you actually look at the numbers, toxic masculinity is, consistently, objectively shown to be a minority position.  But women and "feminist men" can't possibly accept that - the numbers might be the numbers, but hey! They don't reflect the men who'd laugh at a sexist joke! They don't reflect the men who would ask questions about the circumstances around a rape or sexual assault! They don't reflect the men who'd resent women for not having sex with them!   And women, particularly, have just locked down a baseless assumption that "all men" laugh at sexist jokes, "all men" question people who've been raped about why they were there, and what they were wearing, "all men" resent women for not having sex with them.

But asking questions about the background to something bad that happened isn't automatically "blaming the victim" - it can be that, but often it's simply seeking clarity - how did this happen, not why did this happen.  

"Why" is victim blaming.
"How" is preparedness.

"Why" says "this person had this happen to them because they're not me. This would never happen to me, because I'm not like that."
"How" says "What do I need to do to control the situations I am in so that this doesn't happen to me?"

Should anyone have to be thinking about how to manage situations for their personal safety? In an ideal world, of course not.  But in the real world, everyone has to think about that - yes; including men.

I've been the victim of an attempted gang rape.  Women were actively participating in that.

I've been sexually assaulted on three occasions - twice by women, once by a man.

I've had more women than men try to coerce me into sex.

I've definitely heard plenty of cis women both laughing at, and making, very sexist jokes - including jokes where women are the punchline.

I have a natural wariness to cisgender women I don't already know, but I'm not out here insisting that "all cis women are predators!" - I haven't encountered "all" cis women, or even "most" cis women. Of the cis women I have met? The fall is roughly 50/50 between "untrustworthy arseholes" and "pretty decent people."   I suspect that's the reality with men, too - but it's more morally correct to insist that it's all men, all the time.

A natural wariness is a you thing.  It's not an objective reality.
Ordinary people are not responsible for systemic harms - those harms absolutely exist, but the majority of ordinary people are not in a position to influence them.

There are cisgender men working with Good Law Project to undo existing systemic harms, and prevent future systemic harms.  Those men are actively fighting for a world that is better and safer for women.

And there are cisgender women like JK Rowling who are very committed to enabling and funding policies which harm women - including cisgender women.  Because of the agitation and extensive funding of women like Rowling, cisgender women with conditions as relatively common as PCOS can no longer compete in women's categories in professional sports - while men like me, who are taking testosterone, who have had complete hysterectomies, who lay down muscle in exactly the same way as cisgender men do, are free to compete across three separate categories - trans men can compete in women's sports, men's sports, and the newly-launched open category.

Intersex conditions - which people may not actually know they have until well into adulthood, if they ever find out at all (I found out I'm technically intersex when I started transition; my body naturally produces testosterone at cis male levels - because, for me, that's happening in the adrenal glands, since I don't have testes, that means I need to be conscious of adrenal fatigue, and follow a nutrition and energy-expenditure lifestyle that mitigates the risks of adrenal fatigue; many people only find out they're intersex when they try to have children through natural conception) - occur at roughly the same incidence as people who experience dysphoria to such an extent that they pursue medical transition.  Roughly 1% of a genetically diverse culture. (Intersex conditions are more common - around 3% - in populations with very narrow, and relatively closed, gene pools.)

There are going to be more cis female athletes who have some kind of intersex condition than there are transgender athletes.  The women who are using their extensive personal wealth and considerable political influence to systemically harm trans women are primarily adding to the systemic harms already experienced by cis women.

But Magician! If toxic men really are the minority, why would people be so insistent that it's "all men"? Wouldn't people prefer to accept a safer reality?!

If people ever preferred a safer reality to a compelling story, pyramid schemes wouldn't exist. Con men (and con women) wouldn't be able to run their scams effectively.  Inequity wouldn't be justified.  We'd probably have less immigration to Western countries (it would never be zero, because people will always need to flee to somewhere objectively safer than where they currently are, but economic migration would likely fall.)  Birth rates would fall off a cliff, because taking nine months out of reliable health, career progression, and full social engagement to basically host a parasite for nine months, then eject that parasite in a way which can literally kill you, with a whole host of ways you can die because of the parasite even before you come to eject it, and even if you safely eject the parasite, commit at least 18 years to having less of a life, to putting the parasite first all day, every day, is objectively nowhere near as safe as just living your unbothered, childfree life.  People would spend less, because the safer reality is you're not going to "make more money in the future."   People would reject high-risk, high-wage jobs, because the risk would matter more than the danger pay.  People wouldn't accept long commutes, because traffic is dangerous, being tired is dangerous, the stress that long hours inflicts on the body is dangerous.

It's a compelling narrative to believe that "all" men hate and wish to harm women, even if that only ever remains subconscious for many men; it means if you are not a man, you have no obligation to take reasonable precautions, because nothing you do or do not do will protect you from the thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes of all the men out there.   It means you don't have to engage respectfully with people you dislike on a personal level who happen to be men, because hey, they just want to see you humiliated or dead anyway, so why the fuck should you try and manage yourself in disagreements with them? Why the fuck should you greet them professionally? Why the hell should you go a single step out of your way for them? 

And it's a very effective story, with a very handsome payoff, for hypercapitalism to spin: if "all men" actually hate and want to harm women, then those women need to buy more, subscribe to more, spend more, in order to be "safe."  They need to pay more to live in "safer" neighbourhoods. They can't save costs by sharing accommodation, because even if it's an all-female house, what if one of those women has her boyfriend over regularly? Or her brother? What if one of them turns out to be trans? (Because, of course, anyone could actually be trans, because vaginoplasty exists. Hormones can make people look really naturally feminine - which means every woman you encounter might have been born a man!) Women can't form close, supportive friendships with other women - those women could be trans, you know! They'll get married eventually, and then a man has access to you and your life, through this friend. They have brothers, fathers... girl, you have to live alone, and you can only do that in one of this small number of high cost of living areas, but even there you need this security system, these types of windows, these floodlights, these three personal security subscriptions.  You have to own a very new car - because you can't risk taking an Uber, or public transport, and older cars break down, which means you have more likelihood of encountering men, which just isn't safe!  You're limited in the careers you can consider, because you can't be in a situation where men hold the balance of power. You can't be in a job where you have to meet one on one with male clients - or female clients who might be trans! (Because the "we can always tell" brigade regularly insist entirely cisgender women are "actually" trans...the French First Lady, anyone?..) Even if you give in to your heterosexuality, and marry a man, you have to earn enough to be able to have the same standard of living you have together on your own, because you can't trust him.  That means you have no free time, because you're always going to be working to ensure that you can walk out and keep your lifestyle anytime you want!

Yes, there are systemic harms being done to women (including trans women) by men, but the reality is most men do not have access to those systems.

JK Rowling and Baroness Falkner are highly engaged in systemic harms which are significantly impacting cisgender women who don't meet some arbitrary "ideal" of "natural" femininity (which is heavily biased towards white, Western, able-bodied femininity.)  Many cisgender women are proactive in systemic harms they claim are directed at trans women, but which impact less wealthy cis women.

The problem isn't "all men."  

The problem is "a significant number of people, of all genders, who acquire access to genuine wealth."

Genuine wealth is not someone earning £250k a year from a job that takes up most of their time, where that money would disappear if they stopped showing up for work.  If you have to show up somewhere to feel certain of having money, you are not wealthy.

Wealth is that you simply live in the assumption that the money to have the lifestyle you want will just always be there, and, indeed, will actually increase year on year.

Wealth is that "the cost of living" is a vague concept which doesn't really happen to you - it happens to other people. Lesser people. People it is simply "the natural order" that you exploit, abuse, and commit systemic harms against.

The majority of men are actually very clearly sighted on these systemic harms - but, especially when they're not in a position to challenge the system, they very quickly check out when all they hear is how they're toxic, they actually just want to be able to rape women and get away with it, they're all planning on "becoming transgender, so they can get into women's spaces."  Who wouldn't stop listening when all they hear is how awful they are simply for existing as the human beings they happen to be?

The barrier to access to being part of "the system" is having something to offer politicians. Most men don't have anything politicians want. Some women do.  All genuinely wealthy people, and many people who are rich, but not wealthy (they have a very comfortable income, but it relies on them turning up somewhere and doing something) do.

The actual toxicity lies with the wealthy - which includes plenty of women. Not an equal number of women, but a decent number which is rising year on year.
And the wealthy benefit considerably from all women believing that all men - and a significant chunk of women, who might actually be trans! - are an existential threat to them.  Not only does this paranoia result in more money being spent in the businesses owned by the wealthy, but it also results in the systemically vulnerable entering into a trauma bond with abusive systems, because they believe the people within those systems when they say "There's so much danger out there; we're the only ones who can protect you! See how strongly we speak out against these transgenders? You can trust that none of the women who have participatory control in this toxic system could ever be trans, because look how much we hate them! But remember - every other woman you meet could be trans, because the medical community spend so much money helping men look like real women, so remember, don't trust the people around you - you can only trust us!"

It feels like "all men" have power because men don't listen when wealthy people who are determined to take total control over everyone else's lives tell us we can't collaborate with or trust other people we encounter in our day to day lives.

SMOULDER Sundays: 3: Life Direction

 

A reminder (and an insight for those new to this blog) of what SMOULDER is about as a concept, and how it came to be; SMOULDER is the financial thought process I recommend in place of FIRE, and one which works far better for those on low incomes, or for whom disability and other life circumstances have fractured career progression beyond any point of financial recovery.  Simple Mindset, Ongoing Usefulness: Life Direction: Employed Restfulness.

SMOULDER is a journey, rather than a destination.  It's a Sunday morning stroll, not an Olympic sprint.

The core focus of this  blog is about my own life transition, from Warrior Archetype mindset to Magician Archetype mindset, which is part of the transition process of turning 40 as a man in the UK (something which, for me, will be happening in just under a month), and particularly as a trans man, an aspect of my identity which I am newly trying to reconnect with, and fully integrate into my identity, having completed my transition, as far as I am able to given financial and other challenges, 16 years ago, having started 18 years ago this December. (As part of that, I'll be celebrating my "true" 18th birthday later this year, as well as my chronological 40th birthday next month...watch this space!)

Discussing financial mindsets is a natural part of that process, because financial management is central to all male archetypes (the traditional archetypes for men, which I personally connect strongly with as a concept, are King, Warrior, Magician, Lover), because whoever we are, whoever we become, we live in a society which is powered by money - whether you support capitalism or not, commerce and trade underpins every society, and that's very unlikely to change.

This week, we'll take a look at the Life Direction aspect of SMOULDER.

Life Direction is less about the literal progression of your life in observable milestones, and more about the mental map you have of the journey you want your life to be on. Life Direction, as part of SMOULDER, says "there isn't a destination; life is just a continuous journey. Life Direction is about what you want the landscape around you to look like."

For a long time (most of the past 10yrs) I've felt resentful, believing that I've had to change the focus of my Life Direction because my twenties got wiped out first by the onset of a serious psychiatric illness, which was largely triggered by the unexamined gender dysphoria I'd been dealing with since I was five years old

(and threw a tantrum at school at the idea I would have to wear a police woman's uniform in a school play - for the Gen Z's and younger out there, in the early 90s, when I was in primary school, police women wore very different uniforms to their male colleagues - impractical skirts, boater-style hats, handbags...I remember the absolute drama that ensued, without the existence of social media, when the (very sensible) decision was made that police officers of all genders would wear the same practical uniform that had always been worn by male officers...that's made me immune to a lot of the frothing and pearl-clutching about trans people and trans rights now; people just don't like encountering change, or new concepts, but they eventually learn to cope),

and the process of medical transition. (Which, contrary to JK Rowling and her government pals, isn't a case of "go to the GP on Friday, get scheduled for surgery Monday, having left with hormones" - it took me fifteen months to even get referred to a specialist gender clinic, because of the psychiatric illness I was already being treated for, during which I had to have monthly sessions with a psychiatrist who was specialised in gender identity disorders, as well as the shrink I was already seeing for the psychiatric condition I'd been diagnosed with.  After that, it took three months for me to be prescribed hormones. Six months to be referred for my first surgery. Nine months to be referred for my second.  At every point in this process I was having to travel monthly to London for interrogative appointments.  Something I wouldn't be able to afford to do now, and which stopped me being able to afford to do anything else at the time, because I was having to travel by coach, which meant I often had to include overnight accommodation, as well as travel.)

The impact of serious mental illness and transition on my twenties obviously impacted my ability to begin building a career, something which was already challenging because I was medically banned from driving and living in a very rural area, without family support.

Things began to stabilise towards the end of my twenties - mostly, and heartbreakingly, because my father died, and I was able to buy a property in a less rural area outright with my share of his life insurance.  I tried launching a bricks and mortar business, and, while it didn't succeed, it didn't derail things either. (I did the worst thing possible in business - arrived too early with a concept; in my case, the now very well-accepted idea of individual creatives renting shelf space in a shop).  I tried to establish my first consultancy business (and learnt that I needed to work on being a lot more aggressive when large organisations decided they could just...not pay their invoices, after benefitting from the service...I had to drop that consultancy because of these non-payers, but, in retrospect, I wasn't experienced enough in life to be running a consultancy business; I knew about being trans and experiencing rural isolation, but I didn't have the life experience yet to connect either of those things to wider business challenges.)  I got married - something I'm still, 10yrs later, processing feelings about. My wife is the best thing that's ever happened to me, I wouldn't want to not have her in my life, but marriage, even with someone who is perfectly suited to you, and whom you love, is hard. And something I'm coming to realise I may not be best suited to, temperamentally.

At 31, I got a job which I thought would become my lifelong career.  It was a marketing communications role with a national retailer who was in the process of becoming an international presence.  I spent over 3hrs a day, across two buses and 25mins each way of walking, to get to that job.  I loved it. I made friends within my all-male team.  I felt like I belonged somewhere, for the first time in my life.

Then the second of the two buses each way I needed to get to the job got scrapped.  Walking from the city centre out to the job site, having got into the city on the earliest bus I could get, would have seen me be almost an hour late to work. Walking back wouldn't have been possible at all in winter - I'm night blind, and the first four of the six mile walk had neither pavements or streetlights.  On one occassion, walking back to the bus stop, I fell into an unguarded roadwork trench (and still turned up, relying on a walking stick, cut and bruised, the next day - we were going into Black Friday, and I'd only started three weeks before...)  Taking taxis in wasn't possible - they were all committed to school runs, and the £18 a trip fare wasn't affordable five days a week, twice a day.

Had that bus been scrapped six months later, I'd probably still have that job, because the company would have been compelled by the Covid-19 pandemic to allow working from home. At the time, in 2019? I asked. They refused.  The role, they insisted, could not be worked remotely.  I couldn't afford to live nearer to work (houses within walking distance were going for over £300k in 2019...at the time I'd've been lucky to get £80k for the house I'd brought in 2014 for £69,500...  I didn't earn enough to meet the income requirements for rentals that were more than a room in someone else's house in that area, and, having a wife and pets, living in one room whilst still maintaining another house wasn't an option - my wife's disabilities mean she's never been able to work, so it's always just been my income.) My only option was to resign.

I resigned, and went into my third business, using the degree I'd completed online whilst working this job, a Bsc in Nutrition and Natural Medicine.  I created lifestyle regime templates, and made skincare, both of which I sold at fairs as a lead-in to promoting my one-to-one consultancy services...
...things were just starting to go well, with the first consultations coming in from the fairs...

...and then the pandemic hit.  Fairs stopped.
I pivoted to online, offering wellbeing support for free to those affected by the pandemic, promoting my consultations (which could be done remotely) - unfortunately, naturopathy wasn't as well known in the UK as it has come to be, and my business didn't have the brand recognition, to sustain the online pivot.  If the pandemic hadn't happened, and I'd been able to continue working the fairs? I think it would have only taken 6 months to a year for me build that level of brand recognition.

During the pandemic, my wife's health issues meant we had to be a shielding household. That made things very difficult; I did manage to get a 1yr fixed term contract with a local non-profit, which could be worked remotely; however, the contract was only ever going to be that one year, as it was about bringing together two services within the organisation; once they were joined up, I wasn't needed.

Two subsequent jobs, one of which I very much saw as potentially being a career, ended because of the attitudes of employers towards both my sight loss and my mental illness.

Currently, after 18months of unsuccessful job applications, I have one freelance contract. Which will end in December.

And that brings us (finally!) back to SMOULDER.  I know I want to work freelance going forward. That way of working supports my physical and mental wellbeing best, and also allows me to be present for the supportive care needs my wife has.  It makes working whilst not being able to drive a lot easier.

My Life Direction is one of long walks through woods and meadows, and along riverbanks. I'm happy to work in my natural way, in a freelance capacity, for the rest of my life.  I can see the next 40yrs being entirely manageable with 2-3 days per week working in consultation with senior leaders, writing articles, maybe running a course once a quarter.  My Life Direction is towards new connections, within familiar settings, at a moderate pace.

Knowing my Life Direction is what is making it possible for me to let go of the resentment, anger, shame, and frustration of having "wasted" the "prime earning years" of my 20s, and "lost" those of my 30s to circumstances that were entirely beyond my control.

That Life Direction is what I refer to whenever I have a new opportunity to consider, or a new decision to make.

Your Life Direction will be yours. It is likely to be very different to mine - but you need to know what it is, because your Life Direction is what allows you to effectively assess and choose between opportunities.

For one-to-one guidance around identifying your Life Direction, and SMOULDER, drop me an email - theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com

Masculinity Mondays: 21

 

Image shows a person with short, bleached hair, wearing a brown blazer, holding a burning playing card between their fingers

Magic, masculinity, and life in general all share a common requirement; you need to have a single, clear, specific focus that you direct your attention, energy, and efforts at.  Not "towards", but at.  Directly at, with fixed attention.

In magic, the purpose of a wand, staff, or athame is not to create energy for a spell or working, but to serve as a physical reminder for the magician to remain in mental contact with their point of focus.

Warriors follow orders - the direction of their focus is chosen for them.
Magicians have to identify their own focus.
While a warrior has the whole field of battle to consider, a magician has to reduce everything they could do, and want, to a single focus.

That reducing down of desire and ambition can be the work of a lifetime.

You may not believe, or have any interest in, magic - but you still need to do the work of applying the principle of singularity of focus to the process of becoming a man. You have to decide what kind of man you want to be, what kind of life you want to have, in a way that can be expressed in a single sentence, and focus all your effort on that intent.

Once you've made the decision of what the focus of your life and your masculinity will be, everything and everyone you engage with should contribute towards enhancing that focus - from the people you surround yourself with to the media you consume, through the opportunities you pursue, everything you bring into your circle should serve the role of a crystal in an occult working; to amplify and add to the energies that are flowing towards your focus.

The kind of masculinity I want to inhabit is encapsulated by the expression - the concept, the focus - scholar sage; a man who lives with intelligent wisdom, but doesn't rest on the laurels of either intelligence or wisdom, but is rather committed to lifelong learning.

The kind of life I want to create is encapsulated as legacy - I want to leave a path that others can follow, to a place worth the journey.

In order to achieve those intentions, the things I bring into my circle are time, space, and quiet to recharge, so that I'm able to think creatively, people who can offer genuine challenge without aggression, who can exchange ideas without any of us feeling intimidated by each other's inspiration, and who can help with things my disabilities make difficult for me.

SMOULDER Sundays: 2: Ongoing Usefulness

 

SMOULDER is the sustainable, accessible alternative to FIRE.   SMOULDERing is particularly relevant for folks in the UK at the moment, where the House of Lords (the "unelected" chamber of "basically privileged old white men!" as all persuasions of media, social and otherwise, never stop harping on about) try, for the second time, to block a plan from the House of Commons (the people whose privilege mostly gets ignored, because "WE decide who gets to be there!" - discussions on shortlists, access to politics as a career, are for another time) that would allow the government to basically grab peoples' private pensions if the government felt that "the economy needed an emergency bailout, and other funds were insufficient or not available."  (Basically "if we need to bribe our already rich mates, we're going to use your money to do it, okay?)

A reminder on what SMOULDER is:

SIMPLE MINDSET, ONGOING USEFULNESS, LIFE DIRECTION: EMPLOYED RESTFULNESS.

Last week, we looked at the Simple Mindset aspect of SMOULDER.

Today, we'll explore what Ongoing Usefulness could look like.

Ongoing Usefulness

SMOULDER is about a lifelong, genuine, intuitive balance between paid work and restfulness, with restfulness coming equally from restorative activity and replenishing non-activity. (We'll look at those concepts in a future blog.)

Within that context, Ongoing Usefulness is about identifying the skills you would be happy to employ for a paycheque for the rest of your life, and from which you could earn enough to have a lifestyle that satisfied you, and was genuinely stable, whilst deliberately not working full time.  That typically means you're looking to identify either skills that you can charge a strong day rate for (and that people will pay a strong day rate for) or skills that are seen as an equivalent exchange for the higher-cost necessities of life, such as housing and food, so that you are able to afford to work part-time in a wider range of jobs.

What might some of those skills be?

Strong Day Rate Ongoing Usefulness Skills:
. Consultancy in an area of professional specialty

. Heritage construction skills (you won't be getting last minute "can you do it tomorrow for £20?" calls, you'll be working with dedicated, experienced teams, and the work is planned.)
. Project management 

. Professional mentorship
. Style consultancy, both for individuals and brands
. Location scouting - both for film locations and off-market purchase possibilities.

Equivalent Exchange Skills
. DIY, especially trades (plumbing, electrics, bricklaying, etc)
. Organisation
. Cooking 
. Gardening

. Business development
. Nursing/care

These are not intended to be exhaustive lists, but the spark to get you looking and thinking in the right direction in your own life.

A key aspect of Ongoing Usefulness in SMOULDER is that it has to be a mutual position; yes, you will be being useful to people who are paying you, but the way you work has to have Ongoing Usefulness for you and your rich life, too.

For example, I have been a carer, initially as a child; my rich life does not include providing even supportive/companionship care for someone other than my spouse, even if that work came with the ability to live in a very comfortable and well-placed house, and regularly meet influential people; therefore, I would not be looking to build my experience of being a carer into the Ongoing Usefulness skill of highly experienced professional caring expertise, because it doesn't add to the kind of life I want to enjoy.

Someone else may be fully done with interacting with senior executives and "hopping on" Teams calls, and therefore consultancy or business development are not skills which serve their rich life.

In my case, consultancy is the Ongoing Usefulness skill I plan to develop, because I like meeting purpose-driven people, I enjoy solving problems, and business as a concept is continually interesting to me. I can also charge a strong-but-commonly-accepted day rate, and live the life I want working 2-3 days per week at that rate; my ideal would be 2 days per week, as that is most manageable with my disabilities and health challenges, but I've never felt work to be an intrusion into my life, so occassionally increasing to 3 days per week is acceptable to me.

If you are not currently working in a role which develops at least one Ongoing Usefulness skill, I'd recommend beginning a focused job search for a role which does offer that development;  I am happy to offer a free two-hour session identifying your most relevent Ongoing Usefulness skills, and outlining how to pursue a focused job search, with the option of following on with a paid tailored support plan (which is entirely optional - you're more than welcome to just take the free support session). To sign up, drop me an email at theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com

If you know your current job is building your Ongoing Usefulness skillset - fantastic! Keep doing what you're doing, and keep an eye out for opportunities, both paid and unpaid, which can add to that skillset.  Again, I can offer a free two-hour session to identify what you should be looking for, and build both a progression and tail-off plan centred around your rich life SMOULDER concept - just email theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com

SMOULDER Sundays: 1: Simple Mindset

 

Image shows a smouldering volcano

Recently, I posted about why FIRE isn't necessarily the best financial focus.  In that piece, I introduced a sustainable, lower-paced replacement for FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early), SMOULDER (Simple Mindset, Ongoing Usefulness, Life Direction: Employed Restfulness.)

Following on from that, I decided to do a series alongside the main Masculinity Mondays focus of this blog, going into a bit more detail about SMOULDER, what it could look like, how to make it work, rather than risk it being a glorified form of un- or underemployment, how to respond to the finance bros (of all genders - hi, Chelsea Fagan) when they go on about FIRE from your SMOULDER position.   As the title of this piece suggests, those will be weekly, landing on Sundays, under the title SMOULDER Sundays.

The most obvious start is to explore the core concepts of SMOULDER the way the attitude itself demands; slowly, over time, never knowingly overloading.

So, let's start with the first concept: SIMPLE MINDEST

Simple doesn't have to mean basic.  That's part of why FIRE isn't sustainable for many people - FIRE demands that life be reduced to its absolute bare, essential-for-survival basic minimum, so you can "maximise your investment potential", sock away as much as possible in a high yield savings account, store up 98% of what you have now for some very vague and entirely unguaranteed future.

FIRE demands basic.

SMOULDER embraces simplicity.

A simple mindset is one which is focused on a small but relevant number of things, and a small but relevant number of ways to achieve those things.

Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich asks his guests what their "rich life" looks like; what do you genuinely imagine yourself doing, if money were no object, that would consistently make you feel happy, satisfied, and as though your life was complete, and rewarding for you?  That's actually a pretty good place to start for SMOULDER, too.

I'll start with myself, because I'm here, and I know my answers - please do feel free to reach out by email to theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com with your answers, as I'd love to have a wider field of exploration for SMOULDER. 

My "rich life" would be one in which I worked 2-3 days a week, and had a chauffeur (I'm legally blind, and being banned from driving because of that is one of the few things that frustrates me).

I would have physical space around me, and the ability to commit my free time to both active rest - which for me is walking, hiking, bodyboarding, shopping for antiques, and creative endeavours - and to true rest; both genuinely "doing nothing", and doing very low-level activities, in my case, reading (or, increasingly, thanks to my sight loss, listening to audio books).
My home would be a bungalow,  with a reasonable size garden, which itself would be split between a hardscaped rock-and-alpine designed space, and grass for chickens.

Once you have your rich life - which should be no more than one paragraph; remember, we're keeping it simple! A good focus is to ask what you would be doing, how you would be living, and where you would be living, with "where" covering location and/or type of property - look at ways you can achieve elements of that now.

Taking my own case again: 
I want to be working 2-3 days per week, but to feel comfortable at that level: my current freelance contract is 3 days per week, but at a very low rate of pay. It's also due to end in December of this year, which is causing me significant anxiety - and anxiety is not part of my rich life.  So, I need to work now on bringing in more contracts; ideally two full day commitments that will be a more or less ongoing concern, and maybe 2-4 lower commitment gigs which between them could fill a third day, and which, while short-term in nature, can be consistently replaced with similar gigs.  Initially, that's going to mean working more than the 2-3 days I want to be working in my rich life, in order to make the connections and create the awareness that will bring those kinds of contracts in. That's okay, as long as I recognise that those 4-6 commitments are enough.  

To maintain SMOULDER principles even while I can't necessarily fully live my rich life, I need to refine my focus, and target my approach - less is more. Who do I really want to work with? Where are my skills the strongest match? What single new skill would it be both most relevant, and most aligned to my personal values and my rich life, for me to learn?

I want to have a chauffeur. I definitely am not in a position to afford that, but I can be open to considering whether a taxi might be the best way to get where I need or want to be, rather than my options being walking, or travelling by bus or train.

I can also focus on building genuine local friendships with people who have both a car, and the availability to offer lifts in the evenings, or at weekends. I don't mind covering fuel and parking, and friendships are a valuable asset in and of themselves.  I'm an introvert, and also have social anxiety (the two don't automatically go together, and social anxiety is something that should be worked on, and which I am working on in my case), so building friendships is very challenging for me - especially as I also have a bad habit of taking instant and intense dislikes to people (of a wide range of types), often for no actual reason - I suspect that's my brain trying to validate and justify my social anxiety, so is something else to work on not doing.

I want to have space around me. Right now, in terms of my housing, that's not possible - I own my house outright (which only occurred because my father died, and left me a share of his life insurance - I'd honestly rather he was still here), and, although it's literally identified on property sites as "the smallest of the range of property types" on my street, and the street is not the best for space or quiet, I am not going to be able to afford to move. Selling the house wouldn't help - I wouldn't be able to qualify for rent, I'm not a priority for council housing, so I'd end up both in a single room in a shared house - ie, with even less space - and having to rehome my pets, and sell most of my books to make that work, both of which would detract from my rich life.

However, I can spend time in outdoor space throughout the week - we have both a park and a beach in a relatively short walk from my house - and in the "space" of hotels once every other month or so.

I already spend my free time the way I would in my rich life, so that's not something I need to address, other than continuing the work I've already started on accepting that full rest is essential to building the work I want to be doing to a level where I do not have anxiety about it going away. If I don't engage in both active rest and full, genuine rest, I can neither think creatively and proactively, nor summon the required energy to translate thoughts to positive actions. That's not going to get me a rich life, so I need to become okay with "doing nothing" as part of rest.

I cannot afford a bungalow right now, and, while I have had chickens here in the past, who were healthy, happy, and laying regularly, the last of them passed away shortly before I got my youngest dog - who absolutely hates birds, meaning having chickens in his life time is a no-go - the chickens would not survive, the dog would be stressed, it wouldn't be the right thing to do.  However, the element of my rich life I can bring in now is to create hardscaped impact - maybe not as fully and intricately as I'd like, but I can make a start.  My back yard literally is a yard - a 12ft x 10ft stretch of concrete. Keeping the chickens healthy and happy required a lot of work, with hay, straw, forage, and grasses brought out every day to them, a lot of mulch and straw for underfoot, which meant a lot of regular cleaning.  Keeping plants alive is also a significant challenge - but I can look for quality artificial plants. I could entirely hardscape a small area of interest (because I also have to accept that the dogs will charge through the yard at full pelt, and that we need to have space for a clothes line to dry laundry.)

Simple is focusing down on your rich life, and identifying the echoes and elements you can live now, whatever your financial circumstances.

Mindset is the ability to remain focused on the ways you can both live elements of your rich life now, and build towards the rich life you want - in my case, for example, the discipline to commit more time than I'd want to be working in my rich life to finding the level and types of consultancy work and freelance contracts in the immediate future that will make my rich life future possible.

If you're interested in one-to-one coaching and mentoring for SMOULDER, please reach out - email theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com with the subject line SMOULDER.

One-to-one coaching and mentorship costs £50 for six, one-hour sessions, or just £20 for a one-off session.  I'm also looking to set up group sessions, which would be £10 per person on a monthly pay as you go basis, so if you'd like to join the waiting list for those, again, just drop me an email, theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com   

Next week, we'll be looking at ONGOING USEFULNESS - so, be sure to check in, and consider emailing your own situation across - it might get covered on the blog, and you'll always receive a full, free, tailored response for how you can SMOULDER (so for being brave enough to send an email, you're essentially getting a free one-to-one coaching session...what's not to like about that?)

Why You Might Want to Fire FIRE

 

Image shows wood burning intensly in a backgarden firepit

FIRE: Financial Independence, Retire Early.

For a long time, FIRE was seen as a "finance bro" thing. Part, initially, of masculine ambition, and, more recently, of toxic masculinity.   However, within the past month, Chelsea Fagan of The Financial Diet has put out a blog talking about her path to FIRE, which will almost certainly result in something that's been damned as "toxic masculinity" being claimed by women as "necessary feminine preparedness", or something of that ilk.

Much of my mid-late twenties, and almost all of my thirties, was lost first to a frantic "how the heck can I get into a job that will pay me enough to achieve FIRE?", and then to resentment, frustration, anger, and despair that I was never going to make it.

I turned 30 when the UK yanked up the last drawbridge for the majority of its citizens who didn't already have a path to financial success to acquire it, with Brexit making it harder to access opportunities in Europe from the UK, mutual benefit schemes disappearing, and EU businesses, which tend to be better at being productive than the UK, whilst simultaneously being better at giving their employees a decent life than America.  At the same time, America saw the first round of Donald Trump, in his "warming up to wreck the United States as a concept" phase.  That felt like 90% of doors to FIRE slamming before I'd even been able to get within sight of the corridors those doors were located on.  I angrily raged at the uselessness of the UK, the gatekeeping and "we don't care what you are capable, no one here went to school with you" attitudes, the way the entire country basically acts like the worst kind of village when it comes to enabling people to succeed, the bullshit of an education system that, every five to ten years, completely tears everything up, meaning that, just because of when you happened to be born, and thus when you were compelled to go to school, you can face a reality where you're just as capable and competent as you've ever been, but you no longer have a widely-accepted way to prove that, because, wow, look, we don't give a shit about those qualifications any more, your generation benefitted from grade-inflation, actually, education itself is a pointless waste of time, and who the hell do you think you are talking about this academic shit? You're a waste of space, because academic people can't fucking do anything in the real world! You're gonna end up dying homeless in the streets, because that's what academic snobs like you fucking deserve!  And if you're already in the workplace when those attitude changes happen, you won't even know about it until you try to level up.

I turned 34 two months and change after the first lockdown. As a shielding household, my 35th birthday was also a lockdown birthday.

I came out of lockdown fixated on building a career - I was aware that the "early" part of FIRE, for me, would no longer be between 45-50, but maybe I could get there by 55?

Yeah...if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, as the saying goes.  35-38 basically got destroyed by finding out I was going blind. (I have 4 separate, formally diagnosed sight loss conditions. All of them degenerative. None of them able to be addressed by the NHS. The sight I currently have left is 40% of the centre field of my left visual field. Nothing else. And I'll likely use that in the next 10-15yrs.)

If I'm honest, I don't remember much of the past decade. Genuinely. I remember the big, international things. I remember sitting in that hospital room, hearing that I was going blind, and there was basically nothing they could do about any of the reasons I was going blind.

It's only been in the past year, eighteen months that I've really come back to myself.  

I couldn't tell you where I'd been in that time, but I brought back a changed mindset.

At first, it was just a quiet acceptance that, not only would FIRE probably never happen for me, retirement was very unlikely. I wouldn't be able to work long enough to meet the qualifying threshold for the State pension, alongside my history of jobs being ended by schizophrenia, public transport logistics, and company take overs that saw mine and others' jobs no longer exist.  I couldn't see a future where I'd earn enough to contribute sufficiently for a private pension to be a reliable source of income. Not being able to drive, and with the UK government increasingly insisting that the only ID they'd ever accept was a driving licence (which I'm not legally allowed to hold) or a passport 

(which I genuinely can't find anyone I can feel confident I won't lose the best part of £100 when the application gets rejected to countersign for me - I did a low stakes "trial run" with someone who would be eligible to countersign a passport application doing so for a CitizenCard - I lost £17 because "your referee was unable to be contacted on their workplace landline number" - yeah, that's because they work in social fucking services; they're probably never anywhere near a landline phone, especially when you fuckwits are just like "yeah, we won't give a time that we'll call, because you're probably some lying scumbag immigrant who doesn't deserve recognised ID for this wonderful nation!"  I can't afford to lose almost £100 on a passport application. So I don't have a passport, either), as the only ID they'll "accept as evidence of British citizenship and Right to Work", getting any job was becoming an increasingly tenuous proposition.

(Seriously...I don't believe any of the shit the tabloid and socials scumbags post about "immigrants" - because I know how fucking ridiculous the UK government is about preventing people from, essentially, giving up the majority of their short time on earth so they can afford to pay taxes.)

In the past couple of months, literally, I've come to realise I'm done with FIRE. I no longer resent the fact that it won't happen. I'm not angry or depressed about the barriers that are going to keep me from FIRE - and I actually no longer have any interest in FIRE as a concept.  

I'm firing FIRE.

FIRE forces a focus on "do it shit, just do it fast."   I prefer doing it with excellence, and I'm increasingly comfortable with that excellence being the work of a lifetime.  I have never turned in work that was "85% done, but shipped" - I finish at 100%, usually ahead of deadline, rarely even slightly over budget. To me, that should be deserving of a place at any table. 

FIRE reduces life beyond a point that holds meaning to me.  I already live very simply, not "because it's what I gotta do to have the life I want", but because this is the life I want, for the most part. I've never had expensive tastes - and I don't say that as some kind of moral superiority thing; that would require that I had once had expensive tastes, but "taught myself better" - those tastes just never showed up for me.   

I find a lot to interest me in affordable UK holidays - the internet allows me to learn more about countries and cultures further away; I don't need to travel.
I'm not particularly interested in food and drink, and I'm not really a fan of restaurants.
While I would love to be living in a bungalow with a bit of a garden, or at least be able to afford to fix my roof, which insurance refuses to pay out for, and reliably be able to afford to hire tradespeople to fix smaller irks around the house properly, rather than me sticking the DIY equivalent of a cheap sticking plaster over it, wrapping it in duct tape, and hoping for the best, I'm mostly at peace with the fact that these things won't happen until tradespeople can cope with the idea that they absolutely know how to price 80% of jobs off the top of their heads, so could just put that up on a basic website/blog/Facebook page, so those of us whose insurers find a way to nope out can figure out how long we're going to need to save for, I'm okay where I am.  My fixes work, they're just short-term, and they do not look pretty.  We're walking distance to the town centre, a train station that connects to the main line, and buses to pretty much anywhere you might want to go within 10-20miles.  

There's five corner shops within a maximum five minute walk in any direction, and a good variety of food delivery options. 

The hospital is a 20minute bus ride away. 

The vets is just 10mins down the road. 

It's 20minutes walk one way to a sprawling, restful park, which goes down to a promenade along the part of the coastline which has been lost to coastal erosion, so there's no beach any more, and 20minutes walk the other way to a sand-and-pebble beach.  

There's a cool pet shop whose birds and reptiles I visit regularly just four streets away.

I don't care about designer clothing or flash jewellery.  

Probably the only things I actually spend money on are my pets - which I don't have any interest in buying more of for the next few years - and my Lowestoft porcelain collection, which I'm not exactly obsessive about.

I spend reasonably on food - I don't consider £250 a month for two people to be "expensive", by any means, and that gets me the type of food my body works best on (high protein), accommodates my wife's needs (high carb), and allows us to enjoy a range of food, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

I don't want to reduce my lifestyle further for a future I may not have. My Dad died at 62. My grandmother died at 63. I have a second cousin who died by suicide in her late 30s, and another second cousin who died at 59.   And that's the problem with FIRE; it tells you that if you "live hard" for 25-30 years, you'll be able to have everything you want for the rest of your life, without any guarantee that there will be a "rest of your life" past those 25-30 years; I've had two friends die before they turned 20, both in accidents. I've had two other friends die in their mid-twenties, in active combat.  The future is never promised.

You've seen one half of my genetics - relatively early death.
The other half has people making it to 90+, in one case almost 107.

I don't know if I'm planning for another 20yrs, or another 40-50yrs.  That logistical anomaly makes FIRE literally impossible, because of the wide variable of just how many years you need to ensure you have a cushy life for.

So, what comes after FIRE?

SMOULDER.
Simple Mindset, Ongoing Usefulness, Life Direction: Employed Restfulness.

Simple Mindset: What's the "rich life" you can live now?
For example, in my case, since I'll never be able to drive, my rich life would be having a chauffeur. The element of that rich life I can live now is being okay with spending money on a taxi if it will reduce my stress or anxiety.  While I'm happy to walk during the daytime (I'm completely night blind, so night strolls aren't accessible or safe for me), or hop on a bus (I'll travel 2hrs+ by bus if I need to), I know I don't cope well with quick transitions, rushing, or unfamiliar places - so, sometimes, taking a taxi resolves those issues.  And, since we only have independent cab firms operating in our area, it helps someone else make their living, too.

Ongoing Usefulness: What work can you reasonably see yourself able to do until the very end of your natural life, or the point of severe mental impairment?
For me, that's writing and consultancy.  I have a natural ability to touch type, and I'm learning to be okay with speech-to-text (which, in turn, is learning to be okay with understanding my vocal quality!), I'm comfortable using text-to-speech for editing (I hear errors easier than I can see them, these days), and there will always be someone who, whether for kinship or pay, I can ask to proofread things for me, so even when I lose my sight entirely, if that does happen, I can still produce written work.   Consultancy on a freelance basis allows me to structure the work in a way that works for me; for me, that's "facilitative consultancy", or "supporting people to discover the answers for themselves."

Life Direction: Employed Restfulness

Essentially, true work/life balance. Where relaxation is a genuine rest from work, and work is a genuine rest from relaxation.  It's working at a pace and in a way that means you're neither bored nor burned out.  (This is something I'm still working on - I need to get better at appreciating that relaxation is work, and is essential in order to work effectively.)


If you want someone to coach you into a SMOULDER that works for you, reach out - theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com 

Masculinity Mondays: 20

 

I woke up earlier this morning, around 4am, in a full on panic attack. Not "frightened by a bad dream" (I hadn't been dreaming, or at least I didn't have any memory of dreaming).  Not "spooked awake by a noise" (I have previously slept through the tent I was in being ripped up by a storm, and being carried to a friend's caravan... I don't wake to sudden noises...meaning anyone who breaks in is going to have to deal with my suddenly-woken-wife... which will make them regret every one of their life choices).

I had been deeply asleep, and then I wasn't. I was awake, and physically shaking, feeling nauseous, heart racing, on the verge of tears.

The whole experience lasted almost an hour, and I still, three hours after I was finally calm enough to go back to sleep, couldn't tell you what it was about.

And I think that's the key to why social media believes "men don't have emotions!" or, when people are trying to pretend they're not femme-centric arseholes, that "men have much less complex emotions than women, because testosterone." (Which is a huge motivating factor behind cis women demanding testosterone injections as part of menopause treatment...and getting them, at a time when governments around the world are doing everything possible to prevent trans men accessing testosterone, because "it's completely unproven for female biology! It's dangerous! YOU CAN'T CHANGE YOUR BIOLOGICAL REALITY!!!" - women have swallowed whole the idea that "testosterone stops the overwhelm of female emotions", and, because menopause, as a biological upheaval, is very emotional, they want to feel calm and in control again - because who doesn't?)

The reality is that men have the same range of emotions as women - we just don't fixate on things we can't immediately explain.  Women are very comfortable with posting videos to TikTok and Instagram micro-analysing the vaguest of experiences and feelings, and assigning them unprovable meaning.  If a woman doesn't know why she had a particular experience? That's often a reason to take to social media, or gather a friendship group - to bring it to the group, to find out if other people have had similar experience, and use consensus-seeking to ascribe meaning.  

Men, in contrast, will talk about something we understand (which, unfortunately, means we talk confidently, and, especially in the hellscape of social media, get accused of arrogance, of "believing you know everything about everything, just because you're a man!" of "invalidating the experiences and interpretations of non-men"... no...I just happen to understand this thing. I'm open to you bringing a different understanding - as long as you're able to do that without claiming that, because your understanding or interpretation is different, mine is wrong.)

Rather than the current fixation of "men need to talk about their feelings more", I feel the truth is "women need to talk about things less" - there's already far more content than anyone could ever pay attention to. The majority of online traffic is now bots. The more videos you post, the more likely some overpaid techbro will create an AI alter with your image and voice, without your consent.  The more people know about your inner world, the more comprehensively they can poison every well you might ever want to go to.

You can just say "had a weird experience. Not sure what that was about. Isn't being human a trip?" and move on. You can - and probably should - do your personal processing, around feelings, identity, beliefs - in private.  If you're whining about AI, but you're feeding the machine by refusing to let go of the belief that the only possible way you, personally, can make literally the money I need to pay my bills! is to constantly post videos of every experience or thought you ever have, because "the attention economy, tho! No ethical existence under capitalism!" - you need to prepare for the future you claim to want.

I want a future where people talk about ideas.  A future where people do discuss feelings and experiences, but only when those have the depth of at least the possibility of interpretation.

I want a future where people can cope with their own company. Where they can handle being bored. Where they do not need to shop every second of their lives. Where they are able to say "You know, I have enough clothes/books/knickknack tat."  Where they can conceive of occupying themselves for the whole of their lives without "well, I'll have kids, so I won't have to worry about me for literally years!"

That's why I'm not even interested in doing videos as a "hobby", much less a focused income pursuit - constant talking, AI having more inputs, isn't part of the future I want, so it's not part of the present I create.

Inhabiting a Magician archetype is about wonder - but wonder about things that have enough shape to them to be explored.  Rather than fixate on "why did I wake up in a panic attack at 4am?", I'd rather explore the cognitive dissonance of femme-supremacy that smugly yawps about "women and women's skills are going to be what gets you through the apocalypse, not your bullshit alpha male survivalism, because the people who'll survive the apocalypse will be the people who know how to sew and knit, because there won't just be clothes!" - okay, so, there won't be clothes, but there absolutely will be fabric.  There will be ready-prepared yarn, cotton, etc...  Honestly, if I survive the apocalypse long enough for the clothes I can carry in a lightly packed rucksack to disintegrate, and beyond the point where there are abandoned warehouses to loot? Being naked is probably not going to be a concern I, or others around me, have any more.  Yes, that will trigger my dysphoria, but my brain will be fully occupied with actual, real challenges, which means if it registers the dysphoria at all, it will be in the same way I registered this morning's panic attack - "Huh. Dunno what that was about. Anyway, moving on."

Absolutely, knowing how to replace a button, or make small repairs, is a very good skill. But believing that there won't be clothes, but there will be ready-to-use fabric, yarn, and cotton, is absolutely toxic femininity, just as believing that you'll totally be able to bring down a wildebeest on your own, with just a hand-crafted spear, is toxic masculinity.

I can fish. I can safely forage. I can gut and skin rabbits and deer. I know how to kill and pluck birds like chickens and pheasants, which are relatively easy to catch.  I can cook food which was alive half an hour ago safely.  

I can also re-stitch a hem, sew on a button, and mend small tears in clothes.

The future is neither feminine nor masculine; the future is flexibly competent. The future belongs to those who don't gender core life skills.