- 2 months ago
Hector Vladimir
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Section 7. Peace and Freedom
00:05Among the greatest gifts of the off-grid lifestyle are the greater peace and freedoms attained by participants.
00:20As an off-gritter during my youth and a partial off-gritter now, I can attest to the increased peace and freedom experienced when you disconnect.
00:30Peace replaces worry for fair responsibility and allows a harmonious and joyful life even if it is fast-paced and busy.
00:40There, freedom is demanded and gained by the off-grid individual while understanding that others diligently work to take it away.
00:50I believe this occurs naturally because of the way the system is artificially arranged.
00:55The off-grid lifestyle empowers you with knowledge, skills, and resources so you can gain your freedom and keep it.
01:04Peace is the harmonious, natural, calm, focused, and synchronized lifestyle that minimizes stress, noise, and sickness in your life.
01:14Peace leads to greater health, and this is among the most important gifts you may have as a human being.
01:22To be reminded of the importance of health, just recall the last time you were unable to function normally due to a bad headache, a virus, or a disabling injury.
01:32I recently contracted COVID-19, luckily with mild symptoms, and suddenly I put health back on its pedestal.
01:41If you're healthy, I can assure you that you don't want to get sick.
01:46At times, severe headaches can suddenly stop you on your tracks if you suffer from them and rudely remind you of how precious health is.
01:54The stresses of the rat race, especially in large cities or industrialized environments, will likely cause reactions that can affect your health.
02:05Few of us counter back stress in our high-stress lifestyles, and we are even taught to increase stress levels to prove our worth as producers at work or in society at large.
02:16For example, I worked at a fuel station maintenance company in South Florida many years ago, and there was clearly a culture of wasted resources and a competition of bodily endurance among the workers.
02:29There, the longer days you worked and the more consecutive days without sleep working on call, it seemed you were valued more as an employee.
02:39And I have encountered similar cultures in many other employment places here in America.
02:44There are clear and established correlations between high stress, low health, and early death.
02:52And, as many underestimate, mental health is affected by stress too, perhaps more than bodily health.
03:00As a more armed and lethal public, especially here in the U.S., mental health is more critical than ever.
03:07With alarming and increasing rates of murder and suicide, mental health is at the center of the storm on these matters.
03:16With much reason, a peaceful and less stressful lifestyle is sorely needed.
03:22I believe the many benefits of off-grid living culminate in this more peaceful, health-promoting lifestyle.
03:28Although it may seem counterintuitive, how you may be more peaceful when you have to engage in seemingly more work.
03:37After all, in an off-grid lifestyle, you would be taking a lot of automated systems offline and handling them yourself, right?
03:47However, despite this and other facts, I still believe this lifestyle promotes peace in your life and the world around you, even under increased activity.
03:58This happens by getting out of debt, engaging in more meaningful work, doing more with less, and feeling less need to earn more income, allowing more time for yourself and loved ones, improving your diet, improving your learning, engaging in more meaningful and leisure experiences.
04:20So, let me develop some of these reasons.
04:23Peace, as defined here, is not doing less or remaining silent or calm.
04:30Although those may help, my peace is the lack of worry, or at least highly minimized worry.
04:38Less worries about debts, promises, commitments, and bets.
04:43The off-grid lifestyle reminds you to stay away from those that require you to get into unreasonable and harmful compacts.
04:51And the off-grid lifestyle allows you to begin undoing the knots of harmful decisions you may have tied over the years.
05:01In light of an off-grid lifestyle, I define freedom as the ability to do more of what you want to do and have less unreasonable and harmful restrictions imposed on you by your peers, government, and corporations.
05:14There are many types of freedom that may become a reality through living off the grid.
05:20You may become financially free, socially free, and even physically free.
05:26Your movements and time may become more available and democratic.
05:31By democratic, I mean having more power to choose, especially choices that you should be free to make or not make, and have more choices instead of singular or few similar ones.
05:45Having freedom to choose also involves having real choices.
05:50By real, I mean that choices are between two or more viable and different alternatives, not being given a good choice and another that no one would want.
06:02For example, work for money or suffer dearly.
06:07How does living off-grid promote personal peace?
06:11Broadly speaking, I find there are two types of peace, personal and interpersonal.
06:16And, the opposite of peace can be conflict, war, chaos, suffering, violence, etc.
06:24You may have peace within you, with yourself, in your life.
06:28This is personal peace.
06:30You may also have peace with others, your neighbor, your community, other communities, other nations, etc.
06:38This I call interpersonal peace.
06:40I believe that, to achieve both types of peace, you must start gaining peace within you first, then in your immediate space.
06:50I strongly believe, living off-grid allows you to begin claiming and securing your personal peace by turning stuff off.
07:00Turn off the noise, excessive lights, economic pressures, and toxic social pressure.
07:06Turn off the noise.
07:08Our modern societies are deafening with noise.
07:13I believe we evolved our hearing to help with our survival, to detect sounds, and look for threats in those sounds.
07:21There are noises everywhere in our cities, towns, and even our homes and bedrooms.
07:28Each sound affects our stress, even if just a little, accumulating to cause perhaps significant stress during each day.
07:36Jackhammers, vehicle sirens, and air conditioning equipment, for example, all emit noises that we hear and likely get affected by.
07:46Our hearing is powerful, and in a quiet environment, we may hear sounds miles away.
07:52We may even hear our own heart's beat during quiet hours of our days.
07:58Living off-grid may allow you to turn off some of these stressing sounds in your immediate living space.
08:05Your air conditioner is perhaps the most noticeable sound, coming on and off intermittently.
08:11These humming and thumping sounds may interrupt moments of serene silence, concentration, or meditation.
08:20And I believe they introduce an artificial, machine-like feeling to your existence.
08:26Additionally, cell phone calls and messages, alarm chimes from devices, equipment cooling fans, televisions, and more,
08:35all add distracting and stressing noises to your personal space.
08:39Especially when these items are on constantly, during your woke and sleeping hours, like your cell phone.
08:46Some people are known to turn on their television sets when they rise in the morning and keep it on throughout the day,
08:52then go to sleep watching it.
08:54The same may occur with cell phones.
08:58Many people leave their cell phone videos or TV on play mode, even during sleep.
09:04For example, on YouTube, there are many 8-hour-long videos to help you sleep.
09:10Amazingly stupid!
09:12Many of us have become extensions of our electronic devices, like smartphones, laptop computers, and television sets.
09:20I have witnessed folks that cannot walk a few steps without looking at their smartphone screen.
09:27I've even seen folks cross the road, walk around busy areas, and drive a vehicle,
09:32all while staring intently at their smartphone screen.
09:36Amazingly stupid!
09:37It seems that everywhere I go, I see people facing their cell phone, thumb raised, ready to tap.
09:45And that remains their default body posture for as long as I study them,
09:50and surely long after they leave my studious gaze.
09:53I was a victim of many of these abhorrent habits until just recently.
10:00Then, I wanted to fill every minute of my day with what I considered learning and entertainment with multiple devices.
10:08I call this screen hopping, where you switch from device screen to device screen throughout your entire day.
10:14It really is a phenomenon occurring at an alarming regularity.
10:20Try to notice it yourself.
10:22When you live off the grid, on a limited budget, as most people will,
10:27you must begin to look for opportunities to save resources, especially energy,
10:34as you will only power your electronics and appliances with the limited charge in your batteries
10:39or the costly gas you may have in your obnoxious generator.
10:43So, your time to have your television and devices on should be severely curtailed when you live off-grid.
10:51Plus, your time to have your air conditioner on for cooling or heating may be even more curtailed,
10:58as these generally take much more energy to run.
11:02Thus, all the noise these things generate are limited and sometimes eliminated.
11:07You may find alternatives to your air conditioner and even your smart devices or television.
11:14You may choose to open up windows and enjoy the fresh breeze instead of your air conditioner.
11:19Or, you may opt to read from paper or an electronic ink device.
11:25Choices based on efficiency will likely minimize the noises in your space or home
11:30and will surely minimize the time that any noise may be on.
11:35And, you may experience periods of serene silence that can help you begin to calm down
11:41and synchronize many aspects of your mind and body.
11:45Even when off-grid, you may still hear and experience noise from outside of your space or home,
12:09but those are often beyond your control depending on your location or place of living.
12:15But, you may learn to cope with those distant noises a lot better than those close to you.
12:21And, there are many methods to minimize outside noise, too.
12:26Insulation, barriers, and isolation are a few solutions for limiting or blocking outside noise.
12:33With more details coming in Part 3 of this text,
12:38insulation are sound-absorbing materials that can be installed in walls, ceilings, and floors to minimize outside noise.
12:46Additionally, barriers, physical structures erected between you and a source of noise,
12:52can be constructed of sound-absorbing or sound-deflecting shape and materials.
12:57And, they can be strategically placed between you and noise.
13:01Finally, isolation is just putting some distance between you and sources of noise.
13:08For example, if your neighbor has a noisy machine shop just a few meters from your space,
13:14as a last resort, you may consider moving away from there and into a less noisy place.
13:22But, isolation has many disadvantages you may want to consider, too.
13:27Turn off lights.
13:29Too much light causes discomfort, heat, and stress.
13:34I argue that we have evolved over the millennia to be healthier and happier under limited light conditions.
13:42Depending on our global position, a day's sunlight hours may last from 6 to 12 hours.
13:48This is the time period when our bodies are naturally more active,
13:52and when most of us do most of our daily tasks.
13:54With artificial lighting, we've extended our active hours during the day.
14:00And, we have pushed our bodies to go for much longer than in most of our past, as a species.
14:07This push has been increasingly going on, probably since the discovery of fire,
14:15but especially so since the invention of artificial light.
14:19Artificial light has enabled many comforts and safety around our homes,
14:24in places of work, in our hospitals, cities, and more.
14:27But, it too has robbed us of much-needed quality rest, darkness, and our natural visual cycles.
14:37Sleep is definitely and negatively impacted by artificial light.
14:42The quality of our sleep is especially affected,
14:45Thus, the reason why most health experts recommend people not watch a bright screen in the last hours of your day.
14:53This advice is routinely ignored by, perhaps, most people in the world.
14:58Many people's sleeping time is often shortened by sports games, movies,
15:03and other shows shown on television, during prime hours.
15:08By prime, meaning the time when most working people are at home,
15:12from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
15:14Additionally, screened devices are replacing and increasing the time we watch content.
15:22Many of us wake up early to work in the morning hours, often at 5 or 6 a.m.
15:27And, many of us watch television, or other screens, from daybreak to well past 9 p.m.
15:34In fact, on average, Americans watch about 2.5 hours of television per day,
15:40and this average increases with age of the viewer.
15:43In fact, Americans were found to watch TV the most between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m.,
15:49and nearly 37% stayed up late until 11 p.m. watching TV.
15:55At times, I have experience going to sleep without watching any television before bed,
16:01and the improvement to my sleep quality was stunning.
16:04The off-grid lifestyle necessitates the saving of energy and minimizing the use of artificial lights,
16:12televisions, or any energy-using devices during nighttime hours.
16:17Especially if you depend on solar energy, using energy frivolously during non-sunlight hours is wasteful.
16:24For example, I have my internet and TV equipment running on solar batteries at the moment.
16:31And, they can only run for a few hours per day, so I have to ration my internet and screen time.
16:38Even more energy rationing is needed on cloudy days, as my system depends on solar light to recharge.
16:45An efficient and health-oriented mentality mandates to keep artificial equipment off during hours of darkness.
16:53This not only maximizes peaceful and natural quality rest, but also allows for your body's natural cycles to return.
17:02You may have experienced the daily gloom sometime in your life.
17:08If you've been lucky to have spent extended time in remote or non-industrialized locations, you've likely experienced it often.
17:16The gloom is the evening hours of the day transitioning from daylight to darkness.
17:22I've experienced this period as one of peace and reflection, and where I visually transfer to a nighttime mode.
17:29A period of needed pause and tranquility that I believe comes naturally.
17:36I've also noticed that interrupting this period with artificial light, noise, or needless activity interrupts this natural transition and denies you certain health and spiritual benefits.
17:48You may recover from interrupting that transition, but you may feel, as I certainly have, that you need it.
17:57I believe the body's many natural cycles, that often get interrupted by the stressors of modern society, cause harm to us.
18:05And, however minute each one is, they likely accumulate.
18:10These visually driven transitions are also called circadian rhythms and are essential for health and well-being.
18:17I believe the body is evolved to detect this visual gradient during the day and prepare for different stages in your body functions depending on these visual cues.
18:28The flashing of our television or device screens and the sudden turning of a bright light in a room surely disrupts these cues, and your brain may throw your body into confused modes.
18:40Again, when living a highly efficient off-grid lifestyle, it is wise to allow the daylight to come and go naturally.
18:48And it is wise to limit artificial light to sparingly short periods only during the daylight hours.
18:56I believe you do not need any artificial light during most days if you plan your day accordingly.
19:02And if you live in an area with abundant sunlight, this is even more true.
19:07This practice would be optimal for both your body and the efficiency of your electricity supply.
19:13Living off the grid, in the way I prescribe here, saves you money.
19:22Some so-called off-gridders have only transferred all of their high consumption and inefficient lifestyle from fossil fuel sources to massive alternative energy sources.
19:33So to keep their lavish lifestyle using renewables.
19:37This is not my goal here.
19:39My goals are, generally, to save energy, cut waste, switch to greener and cheaper alternatives, and save money.
19:49And not only do I advocate saving money needlessly, I advocate needing less of your money.
19:57When you are more efficient, on multiple fronts, you become less dependent on the economy, thus less dependent on money.
20:06By extension, if you need less money, you don't need to chase after it as much.
20:13Also, by lessening your bills, and in many instances turning them off altogether, you lessen the economic pressure on you.
20:22Economic pressure is real and it causes considerable stress.
20:26I estimate that the inability to pay for goods and services is among the most stressful factors for most working independent people throughout the industrial world.
20:38Again, I believe we are taught to pay for just about everything by the time we become working adults.
20:45This, naturally, makes making money to pay for all a major priority for most of us.
20:53For many, economic concerns are so stressful that their health is severely affected.
21:00It has been found that higher average income seems to correlate with better health.
21:05So, it is reasonable to accept, and data shows, that poverty is a major cause of low health.
21:12But, I believe, the lack of money is not what causes less health, but is the lack of access to health care, healthy lifestyles, as well as the higher stress that these bring.
21:24So, when you need less money, you can work less and invest time more in yourself and your loved ones.
21:32More time to eat well, exercise, and engage in healthier activities.
21:39Also, these investments may pay out in the form of higher knowledge and specialty skills, all of which may bring you more income or further lessen your need for income.
21:50These possibly may result in a convergence of benefits, all of which improve your health.
21:57As I have alluded to before, when you can provide for your own water, food, communication, and energy needs freely, there is not so much else that you need to pay for.
22:10Ideally, perhaps, the only remaining major financial responsibilities that remain are shelter and transportation.
22:17And, for working off-grid adults, with a growing set of skills, these may be a fraction of what most other people have to worry about.
22:27Of course, I understand ideal situations, such as these, are not always attainable or practical.
22:35But even minimally lowering debt, bills, and other financial obligations can go a long way impacting your well-being.
22:42In summary, the lessened stress from economic pressures and the increased time for personal growth and leisure are two huge factors of benefit here.
22:54So, I believe, gradually or abruptly, turning off your economic pressures while living efficiently will surely help you live a more peaceful, healthier, and happier life.
23:05Turn off social pressures.
23:08Some peers may cherish you and help you achieve much in your life.
23:13But others may cause you ill with their unwanted pressure.
23:17I believe the more peers you come across, more of them are likely to pressure you into ill decisions.
23:24Ill decisions and actions with short- or long-term effects may carry disadvantageous or harmful consequences.
23:31For example, the adage, keeping up with the Joneses, reminds us of a popular tendency to want to emulate what others do, with little regard to its reasonableness.
23:43Many of our actions are driven by what peers will think of us, or what peers will see about us.
23:50I believe many of these peer-driven actions are done subconsciously, and many of us are so accustomed to operating under this peer-driven pressure that we hardly realize it.
24:03Although some of our peer-driven actions may be justifiable and even reasonable, I believe many of us become addicted to that peer approval and take increasingly less reasonable actions.
24:16These actions may saddle us with unnecessary debt, cause great strain in our family life, or cause us to believe we need to earn more money.
24:27I believe that greed and materialism are, in part, products of peer pressure.
24:32And wanting ever-increasing wealth, property, and luxury have become identifying traits in the lives of most city dwellers.
24:41These soul-rotting traits have become rampant and epidemic-like behaviors that are taught from old to young in a vicious cycle.
24:51And greed and materialism cause waste.
24:55It's just inevitable, and opposite from an off-grid lifestyle.
25:00The luxury life is one of unnecessary and selfish uses of space, resources, time, labor, and more.
25:07Again, the antithesis of efficient living.
25:12The modern phenomena of the explosive use of social media has supercharged toxic peer pressure.
25:19In fact, an increasing body of studies are finding that social media negatively affects many people's behavior, self-image, and mental health.
25:29Of course, these effects are dependent on amount of use, age, other underlying problems, and other factors.
25:35But, problems reported by the peer pressure coming from social media are undeniable and many, including bullying, hate-filled content, discrimination, and exposure to violent material.
25:49And, social media is not free.
25:52It is a propaganda and advertising machine, feeding on a near-constant stream of divisive and triggering content.
25:59Furthermore, social media has been known to constantly broadcast, amplify, and pump up the highly artificial and manicured celebrities.
26:10These popular idols often showcase the lifestyle of largesse and luxury, often accompanied by enviable looks and fitness.
26:19All while hiding all their negativity, creating a facade of near-perfection, which harms most of us with less perfect lives.
26:27In other words, the harm comes from the assured failure of us to reach the unattainable level of happiness of these idols.
26:37And, these constant streams of fantasy cumulatively fuel the many ill decisions and behaviors of our increasingly connected society.
26:49Living efficiently mandates making calculated and reasonable decisions.
26:54These are difficult to make if you live in a world of fluff.
26:59These sound and grounded decisions will likely improve our lives gradually.
27:04And, these can be enhanced by peers, but only if these peers are thinking clearly and efficiently as well.
27:12For example, you may not get a reasonable answer if you ask a fabulously wealthy person how to need less money by downsizing.
27:20This wealthy individual likely has no frame of reference on the concepts of needing less money or downsizing.
27:28They are likely to glitch out if asked such a question.
27:33Since they likely have spent most of their working lives spending massive amounts of excess energy, trying to make ever more money, and would likely want to make more money to upsize.
27:43So, to them, the question is just absurd, if it even registers.
27:49They are likely unaware that most of the world's population lives under some level of poverty.
27:56So, your decisions must be based on broad calculations, learned experience, and perhaps other reasonable people's experiences.
28:05I do understand that informed decisions are best, and a variety of information produces better decisions.
28:14So, minimizing toxic peer pressure may be advantageous in most instances where reasonable and quality decisions must be made.
28:23Peer pressure is not to be confused with peer input.
28:27Again, the unpressured and honest input from many peers may improve a decision if these inputs are honest and unbiased, limited in scope to your concern, and given by a large number of peers.
28:42For example, polls and surveys are a sort of peer input.
28:46The data collected by these polls are extremely valuable to find answers to certain questions.
28:53These are at times gathered from averages.
28:56There is a phenomenon that the average, in a large and randomly selected collection of inputs, may provide relatively accurate and useful predictions on countless questions or problems.
29:09The bell curve is a representation of this random collection of inputs.
29:15However, be aware that peers rarely provide random and or unbiased inputs.
29:21They may be swayed by the same corrupted information consumed in social media and other poor sources.
29:29Living off the grid includes living mostly off the grasp of toxic social media.
29:34I personally have, years ago, unraveled my dependence on social media and rarely use it.
29:42I must admit, I routinely use a popular video sharing platform, which is sort of a social media platform, but I keep interactions with viewers at a minimum.
29:53The same with Facebook and other social media sites.
29:56I keep a very limited use.
29:59The problem with social media is the personal disconnection of users and its ability to present a facade of each user.
30:07Even when you know them personally, the lack of compassion, care, and tolerance is very apparent.
30:13And, people feel emboldened, entitled, and incentivized to say, show, and share things that are exaggerated, untrue, offensive, divisive, or shocking.
30:27I wrote, incentivized, because social platforms have been found to amplify content that angers, enrages, shocks, saddens, disturbs, etc.
30:39That is their bread and butter.
30:41That is because hate-filled and anger-triggering content are the ones that are more readily shared, thus providing more views and clicks for the platform.
30:52In turn, those provide more advertising dollars to the social media companies.
30:58The user also feels that she or he benefits from posting outrageous content by getting more popular and increasing their likes or responses from others.
31:08Thus, more and more outrageous content is posted, for an increasingly desensitized audience.
31:17It is like a race to the bottom, with people posting things ranging from nonsensical conspiracies to blatantly dangerous lies.
31:25Social media disinformation was just recently in the public discourse, with widespread use of political manipulation in the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential campaigns.
31:39And the spread of disinformation and Cook conspiracies about the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Gaza, Ukraine, and others were rampant.
31:48It should be clearer how negative peer pressure can harm our decisions and our mental health.
31:56Disconnecting from the grid and living an efficiency-focused lifestyle may allow you to further minimize your reliance on peer approval and social media.
32:05And this lifestyle encourages you to avoid ill-peer interactions altogether.
32:12Those peers that are wasteful, greedy, materialistic, discriminating, untrustworthy, etc.
32:18will naturally become less relevant in your life.
32:22And unless these peers are extremely tolerant, they will eventually shed away on their own.
32:29Some of your peers may become accepting of your noble and efficient ideals, and perhaps join you in similar efforts.
32:37That's great if it happens, but be prepared to shed some, or many, of your friends as you fully engage in a highly efficient lifestyle.
32:46Spending less money, less resources, and saving energy by not using your air conditioning and minimizing the use of other comforts, for example, may put strain on close relationships.
32:59But increased time for leisure and the increased personal investments in activity may offset these strains.
33:07You may also gain other or additional friendships during your off-grid efforts.
33:13And those may be more aligned with your true personality, thus more pleasant company.
33:20Since I am convinced that your interest in this broad set of values surround living off the grid,
33:26justice, efficiency, freedom, creativity, and reasonableness are values I believe you likely grew up with.
33:34Meaning, your experiences taught you to value these.
33:39So, you'll naturally gravitate toward those that share those with you and value them.
33:44So, feel fortunate if you are accompanied by those that share your values.
33:50And, try to help to understand those that lack these experiences.
33:55But, again, don't expect a warm reception for most.
33:59And, accept that.
34:01That's okay, too.
34:04By, Hector Vladimir.
34:06Georgia, USA.
34:092024.
34:11Thank you for listening to this podcast.
34:13Please look for the next episode soon.
34:16And, please ensure to share this with your friends and family.
34:20And, please like this content and subscribe.
34:23That's a sign of support for me to continue to provide this type of content to more people like you.
34:29Lastly, if you wish to support this content further, please visit the links provided in this application.
34:42Go, go, grind me alive when you're caught in stare
34:46Crushed in the dive of your plotting prayer
34:49I want a taste of your freedom
34:52I want a taste of your freedom
34:55Crows inside when you're not there
34:58The weight of the well on me, I don't care
35:00I want a taste of your freedom
35:03I want a taste of your freedom
35:06Give me a taste of your freedom
35:11Oh, could you set me free?
35:18I want a taste of your freedom
35:23I just want a taste of your freedom
35:31I just want a taste of your freedom
35:37I just want a taste of your freedom
36:09We're right back.
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