I am writing this from an extremely privileged position, I know this. But... I have fairly recently found myself in a sort of mid-life crisis (well ahead of its time, mind you, I'm only in my mid-30s), and the origin is the fact that I've so far for the most part constructed my life to fit nicely into the societal mold, at least when it comes to participating in the modern workforce. I was initially very well-adjusted to this world - I easily got good grades in school and was readily admitted to the top engineering university in my country, and have since both worked as a management consultant for some time (as many graduates from this university tend to do) and have later taken a PhD in a STEM-field. Now I'm completely disillusioned, because I am not spending my time in a way that feels useful. I am not employing my acquired skills in a way that actually benefits the world or even my local community. My current job is within renewable energy, so in theory my efforts could go towards something good eventually, but I am but a small cog in a big machine that might not even succeed at what we are trying to do, and as with any other big corporation (and I saw quite a few examples of this when I worked as a consultant), there is so... much.... waste. I could be spending my time on much smaller, but more directly impactful (and local) endeavors.

So despite hating lock-in in other areas of my life (I have for example spent the last three years ridding myself of all big tech dependencies), I let myself get fooled into one of the bigger lock-ins the modern world has to offer: being a salaried person in the hyper-consumption economy. This realization, that I have in the short term few options to escape the need to have a steady income, is what has dawned on me in the last six months or so. This need keeps me from spending my time in the way I actually want to, because what I actually want to do are things I cannot make much money of (or would not want to make money of, as it would difficult to do so without employing the same exploitative lock-in tactics we see all around us). So getting out of this lock-in is my top priority now. It is well-aligned with solarpunk ideals, because it first and foremost means getting my consumption under control at a well-below average level. While my spending habits are already somewhat under control, in the sense that I have few recurring expenses, I've been haphazardly spending money on items I have convinced myself that I needed, and often bought new instead of used. Looking back at the list of purchases, I am at least glad that there are no stupid trend-purchases, and nothing I've not actually used. We're talking proper cookware, high-quality hiking equipment (backpacks and a good tent), stuff that should last me a while - I can't stand things that easily breaks and needs replacement well before it should. And I am also glad I don't have an insatiable desire for more - I now bought almost all I wanted that I deferred to later as a PhD student, and I feel content - so stopping now should not be much of an issue. I'm now very focused on paying off debt - car loan first (yeah, I know...) and then my student loan. I think I'll be done in about six months. I luckily have no insane mortgage going on - paying rent for the time being, but that also leaves me very flexible for the future changes I am planning.

I've been doing some reading on this whole FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early) movement lately as a part of this. I used to scoff at this, partly because I misunderstood what it is about. I thought this was people who would live under self-imposed austerity for ten years to be able to play golf for the rest of their lives, and for some of them it is. The subreddit I stumbled into a long time ago when I first learned of it (and before I got my epiphany) was full of people obsessing over "their number" and trying to optimize strategies to win at the lottery (i.e. stock market). But it's not austerity that (at least the OG FIRE-people) advocate for - it is simply cutting out a bunch of needless excess from your life that allows you to accumulate enough wealth over a much shorter period of time than it would usually take to be able to "retire". I put that in quotation marks, because as I mentioned above, I thought retiring early was all about playing golf and taking cruise ship vacations much earlier than you usually would. But retiring to these people really mean being free from the shackles of the salaried man. I too want that... So while I doubt I can achieve full flexibility in life early (and I don't think I have the fortitude to keep going as now for ten years to achieve this), I instead aim to be in a good position to start something for myself or with only a couple of friends/co-workers I enjoy working with that gives sufficient income to get by and enough time for other activities. I have nothing concrete planned for this yet, except a few untried ideas (that I have some potential partners for), and I anticipate I need to keep going in my current (or similar) work for another two years or so until I have the flexibility to have a go at this.

I mentioned that I have been moving towards solarpunk ideals for some time (albeit slowly), and from the above it doesn't really sound like that. What I meant by this, is that I've done things in other areas of my life that I believe to be well-aligned. One major way is through becoming engaged in the privacy community several years back, and through that the free and open source movement (this is what lead me to Lemmy, and then eventually to this instance where I've been lurking for some time). Something that attracts me to solarpunk is that it is not simply a "back to the stone ages"-approach to sustainable living, but incorporates technology in a sustainable and fair way. As a trained technologist/scientist and recovering Technology Optimist™ I yearn not for the "good old days", but as Corey Doctorow would say, the "good new days", where we can take advantage of the ingenuity of scientific discovery and technological advancement in a way that is a net benefit for everyone, and that is not detrimental to the health of the ecosystem we rely on. I think FOSS is central in a solarpunk future, as it enables us to use technology on our own terms instead of some corporation's whose ideals are far from aligned with yourself, the community or the world at large. In this area I have made big strides the last years (having last year gotten rid of my Facebook, Apple, Google and Microsoft accounts, I only recently got rid of LinkedIn - I hung onto it due to some corporate FOMO of not being able to get my next salaried position... upon retrospection, I realized I had never gotten ANYTHING useful out of being on LinkedIn, and it has turned into one of the most unhinged places on the internet). I have at the same time begun to recover from the learned helplessness I've picked up from previously using Apple-products. I feel much more confident that I can solve things myself (not just in computing), and I've to a larger degree shifted from being a pure consumer to being able to create something as well.

One of the many things I bought (ref above) was a 3D-printer, and there are few times I have felt as solarpunk as when I am working on my balcony garden (another area I've made good progress the last 4 or so years) while my 3D-printer is printing (self-designed in FreeCAD) parts for some gardening equipment, followed by a quick harvest session of arugula and tomatoes that goes on my freshly baked homemade bread.