Survey Arno’s life

Vision and mission

I created the vision and mission in 2018 using a dreaming circle.

Key words in my vision:

• elder (trustworthy, knowledgeable)
• community of people (family, friends and neighbors)
• content life (few wants to satisfy)
• simple life (few needs to satisfy)
• in harmony (the Middle Way)
• with nature (reality)

Additional key words in my mission:

• meditate and work (Ora et Labora)
• deepen connection
• inner world
• outer world

About me

I am a 50+ male of the species Homo sapiens sapiens.

Location

For the past 30+ years based in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Living in a 90 m² house with my partner, our cat and our dog. More details on our location can be found in the site information for the garden.

Short personal history

• mid 1970s
  • born in the Netherlands
• 1980s
  • grew up in Belgium (Flanders)
• 1990s
  • moved back to the Netherlands
  • started indoor climbing
  • got M.Sc. in electrical engineering
  • started working
• 2000s
  • started dancing
  • got married
  • stopped climbing
  • bought a house
  • switched from dancing ballroom and latin to Lindyhop
• 2010s
  • got Linky (Felis silvestris catus)
  • started a business
  • got divorced
  • discovered Early Retirement Extreme
  • met Ina
  • discovered Limits to Growth and understood its implications
  • discovered permaculture
  • started at Proeftuin Meerhoven
  • started an allotment garden
• 2020s
  • corona measures happened (multiple lockdowns, travel restrictions, social coercion to conform)
  • discovered spiritual and self development practices: various forms of meditation, somatic work and shadow work
  • Linky died
  • stopped allotment garden
  • got Wifi (another Felis silvestris catus)
  • got Toby (Canis lupus familiaris)

Psychological stats

In my experience, psychological tests seem to only confirm what I already instinctively know. Maybe with a bit of nuance in the relative strength of each characteristic. I can’t say they have provided me with a deeper insight into my being.

The only two classifications that have given me real aha-moments were the Dragon Dreaming mentalities and the Enneagram. And the latter only after an in depth look.

The order of my Dragon Dreaming mentalities is: evaluator > planner > doer > dreamer. My Enneagram type is Nine.

Miscellaneous observations

9 ways of observing

• I wonder…
  • what is to come?
  • how bad will it be?
  • is there anything I can do to soften the blow?
  • what part I will play?
• Observe communities
  • based on location
    • household: Ina, Wifi and Toby
    • family (mine and Ina’s)
    • neighbors and their families and connections
    • neighborhood community association
  • based on activity / mutual interest
    • friends
    • Lindyhop
    • Proeftuin Meerhoven
    • Voedselbos Eindhoven
    • Weverkeshof
    • sewing club Lievendaal
    • Repair Café Meerhoven
    • spiritual sangha (IVS and DLR)
    • work colleagues
  • other human communities
    • yacht association Beatrix ejvbeatrix.nl
    • allotment association Welschap volkstuinwelschap.nl
    • associations at Urban Sport Park: free-running, calisthenics, survival-run, disc golf
    • homeless shelter Bellefroidlaan
    • churches: debroneindhoven.nl, maranathakerk.nl
    • clubs at Community Center Lievendaal lievendaalvta.nl
    • local Whatsapp groups (buurtpreventie)
    • daily meetings of dog owners at the dog off-leash area in the park
    • volunteers at the petting zoo Eigen Wijs Boerderij
  • other communities
    • watershed de Dommel
    • ecosystem in the neighborhood
    • wild life: rats, mice, birds, moles, insects, spiders, etc.
    • family of birds nesting under our roof
• Observe edge
  • analytical mind
  • extensive, mostly technical knowledge
  • organized (mostly)
  • work with systems perspective
  • nerdy
  • no-nonsense approach
  • dependable
  • international experience
  • multilingual
  • tenacious
  • introverted
• Observe energy
  • life energy is low at times, never very high
  • aiming to align life energy with interests
  • good food provides good energy
  • regular sleep and schedule help
  • regular exercise outside help
  • working for 2h outside → need a nap
  • dancing gives me energy
  • money = promise of access to a future energy flow
  • global energy supply contracting, sharply since March 2026 with effective closure of Straight of Hormuz taking 20% of global oil supply off the market as well as 30% global supplies of urea, 20% of LNG, 50% of sulfuric acid and 40% of helium — this is a massive shock!
  • Ina, Wifi and Toby influence my energy as I influence theirs
  • household energy usage
  • temperatures below 15°C and above 25°C lead to wanting to reduce energy expenditure: either through hibernating or siesta
• Observe flow
  • comes about when
    • dancing Lindyhop
    • working on interesting (to me) problems
    • the thinking mind works in service of the whole
  • removing obstacles
  • without edge no flow
  • activities of Ina, Wifi and Toby
  • can be found in the sequence of activities during the day
  • natural cycles have a flow to them
• Observe from stillness
  • still somewhat restless, monkey mind
  • I am thankful for every day
  • I live a great life
  • I am in good health
  • I am grateful for having a loving partner and friend on my journey
  • I am — more than this body, more than these perceptions, more than these emotions, more than these thoughts
• Observe limits
  • difficult to change the big 5 personality traits (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism)
  • there are limiting beliefs (still)
  • I can only change my thoughts and my actions (cf. Stoicism and Buddhism)
  • ego / personality: we are the stories we tell about ourselves
  • How I found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne
  • Limits to Growth by Donella Meadows et al.
• Observe past & future
  • Past
    • see Short personal history
  • Future
    • see Vision
  • related: Life Weeks (see Tim Urban’s Your Life in Weeks) — a body of average life expectancy living to 77 years of age has about 4000 weeks of live available to them. This makes the finite nature of human life salient. As I am in my fifties, I may have already lived about 70% of my allotted weeks. What will I do with the remaining 30% or 1200 weeks?
• Observe patterns
  • see Thinking in Patterns

Thinking in Patterns

• Branching / fractal
  • using knowledge and experience already learned to branch out into related fields
  • can start a chain reaction using appropriate leverage points
• Burdock / hook
  • permaculture shows a way to live a good life with low impact
  • treat everything as an experiment to learn from
• Dome / lobe
  • my house is the base of operations
• Gradient
  • start with a small experiments and intensify appropriately
  • partial success is already good enough
• Net / web (influences)
  • web of influencers
    • parents
    • partner
    • J.D. Roth — Get Rich Slowly
    • Peter Adeney — Mr Money Mustache
    • Jacob Lund Fisker — Early Retirement Extreme
    • Esther Emory and Nick Fouch — Fouch Family Off Grid
    • Rakesh “Rootsman Rak” — Roots’n’Permaculture
    • Leo Bakx — Aardwerk Popup Academy (defunct)
    • Alice Friedemann — Energy Sceptic
    • Gail Tverberg — Our Finite World
    • Category5 — Dark Green Mountain Survival Research Centre (defunct)
    • Irv Mills — The Easiest Person to Fool
    • John Michael Greer - Ecosophia - Toward an Ecological Spirituality
    • to name but a few
  • Web of Goals
    • align secondary goals with primary goals to reinforce them and make them more resilient
    • filters actions based on goals
• Scatter
  • throw bits of information around to interest / entice people to find out more
  • put plants in different spots around the garden to increase likelihood of finding a suitable spot for this type of plant — some specimen will not survive, others will thrive
• Sheet
  • I do regular Morning Pages. A practice proposed by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. It is a longhand writing meditation. The assignment: every morning write three pages stream-of-consciousness, no interruptions, longhand writing.
  • It is impossible to think outside the box. Someone else has drawn a box on our papers. It shapes our thoughts. Culture is constantly (though invisibly) doodling on our blank pages. (From A Blank Sheet of Paper)
• Sphere / circle / ring / torus
  • keep friends close and reconnect with them regularly
  • form a close knit circle of friends to share the journey with
  • intersect circles of influence
  • create a strong inner circle with partner
• Spiral
  • aim for spirals of abundance
  • work in iterations, trying new variations from time to time to learn from
  • revisit earlier writings to observe how thoughts and thought patterns change
• Streamline
  • focus on the essentials
  • eliminate unnecessary work
  • eliminate waste
  • Do Nothing
• Succession
  • eldest sibling - feels most responsible
  • absorbing new knowledge and learning to apply it
  • growing as a person
  • passing on knowledge from master to apprentice
  • use sociocratic role elections when necessary
• Tetrahedron / triangle
  • break the iron triangle (coined by writer Dmitry Orlov)
    • The iron triangle of House-Car-Job: you need a car to go to work and make money so you can live in a house to drive to the job and to the shops in order to spend the money you made to keep yourself fed, to keep a roof over your head and to keep your car running.
• Tube / barrel
  • first-in first-out (FIFO) buffer: keep pantry full, stock from the back, take from the front
  • use simple 20 liter plastic buckets for storing wholemeal flour, brewing wine, making bokashi
• Wave
  • align to the rhythms of nature
    • spring - summer - autumn - winter
    • sun rise - sun set
    • dream - plan - do - celebrate
    • Kondratiev wave (period of 45-60 years)
  • Meander
    • using daily Morning Pages to let my mind wander and to tease out what is important to me.
    • going in a straight line costs more energy when going through rough terrain — this also applies to life in general.
    • “You must be shapeless, formless, like water. When you pour water in a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water in a bottle, it becomes the bottle. When you pour water in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can drip and it can crash. Become like water my friend.” — Bruce Lee
  • Seneca curve (Roman philosopher Seneca noted that when things start going bad, they go bad fast)
    • ‘“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”’ — From The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
    • my working model for the future
    • “Collapse now and avoid the rush” — John Michael Greer
    • Deep Adaptation from Jem Bendell (four ‘R’s)
      • Resilience is ‘how do we keep what we really want to keep?’,
      • Relinquishment is ‘what do we need to let go of?’ and
      • Restoration is ‘what can we bring back to help us through this?’
      • Reconciliation is ‘what could I make peace with to lessen suffering?’
  • Logistic curve
    • this is the basis for learning: slow as a beginner, fast in the intermediate, slow again to mastery. Aim for the 80% mark.

Three “Happy” Lives

From: The new era of positive psychology - Martin Seligman

• The Pleasant Life (Hedonist)
  • This type of life has never held much appeal with me
• The Good Life (Engagement)
  • I have attained flow in programming and dancing
• The Meaningful Life (Meaning)
  • I find a higher purpose in learning about and applying permaculture

Ikigai

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive — Howard Thurman

A while back I came across an article by Dave Pollard: Your Ikigai: A Self-Awareness Compass. The image above comes from his article. I use it below.

Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps

Simple Critical Infrastructure Maps (SCIM) is a Creative Commons licenced mapping and analysis tool for evaluating personal and social resilience. It is intended to be used for planning, and is simple enough to learn during a crisis to facilitate cooperation and effective response. SCIM was originally developed by Vinay Gupta and others.

Forms of capital

I have extended 8 forms of capital to also include energy capital. Energy, or more precise, an energy gradient is essential to all life. Every living organism needs an energy surplus to maintain itself. Animals similar in size to humans require 100W to live. In addition, humans use about 200W for cooking. This is energy for pre-digesting food. All power consumption above that is mostly for comfort and to sustain our economic organism.

• energy capital
  • thermal energy
    • stored in a hay box (initial heat provided by other energy)
    • hot-water bottle (initial heat provided by other energy)
    • stored in central heating (initial heat provided by other energy, improved by insulation)
    • heat from compost or other decomposition (unused other than to encourage growth of other micro-organisms)
    • body heat from humans and other warm-blooded animals
  • radiant energy
    • sunshine on 60 m² garden
      • mostly used in summer
      • mostly unused in winter
    • surface area of the house
      • mostly unused
    • radiated body heat
      • cuddling in winter
      • thermal insulation via multiple layers of clothing
  • mechanical energy
    • wind (unused)
    • sound waves from neighbors (sometimes leads to angry energy!)
    • bicycle pedal power
  • gravitational energy
    • collected rainwater in rain barrel
    • rainwater in gutter
  • chemical energy
    • edible food in pantry, refrigerator and backyard
    • wood from trees and shrubs / from pallets
    • natural gas from mains
    • petrol in car / lubricating oil / cooking oil
    • alcohol in pantry
    • battery in car
    • small number of AA, AAA and D batteries in storage
  • electromagnetic energy
    • electricity via mains
    • few batteries
    • bicycle dynamo
    • alternator and battery in car
    • incandescent and LED lights
    • compass (via earth magnetic field)
    • flow of sunlight on gardens, house etc.
  • ionization energy (binds electrons to atom)
    • microwave
    • fluorescent lighting
  • nuclear energy (binds nuclei together)
    • no direct applications
  • chromodynamic energy (binds nuclei components)
    • no direct applications
• living capital
  • living soil in the front yard and backyard teeming with bacteria and fungi
  • insects, bugs, worms, etc.
  • animals: myself, Ina, Linky†, Wifi, Toby, birds, mice, etc.
  • plants and trees
• material capital
  • house and shed
  • tools for gardening and carpentry
  • car, bicycles and related repair tools
  • home furnishings
  • computers (in various stages of disrepair)
  • clothes and related mending tools
• financial capital
  • bank accounts
  • stocks
  • cash
• cultural capital
  • Lindy hop (practicing and teaching)
  • Balfolk (practicing)
  • singing (badly)
  • technical drawings and sketches
  • permaculture designs
  • software programs written
• intellectual capital
  • creative problem solving
  • identify plants
  • teach
    • Lindy hop
    • permaculture
  • computers
    • programming
    • build systems
    • Linux server administration
    • create websites
    • plumbing functionality with Open Source software
    • create and query databases
  • design, create, teach
    • design control systems (electrical engineering) — bit rusty
    • designing permaculture systems
    • designing urban permaculture systems
    • designing food forests
  • working in teams
    • organize and facilitate meetings
    • keep logbooks
    • manage projects
    • write articles / status updates
• experiential capital
  • prepare food / cook
  • preserve food
  • do bookkeeping and accounting
  • do Dutch taxes
  • manage pantry stock levels
  • make electrical installations
  • make water harvesting systems / do plumbing
  • repair bicycles
  • repair and adjust clothes / make clothes
  • do simple carpentry
  • plant trees / garden
  • forage for food
  • do composting
  • create maps
• social capital
  • help a neighbor
  • volunteer in community garden
  • volunteer at city farm
  • volunteer at allotment society
  • volunteer at food forest
  • help with dance class
  • invite friends for food, drinks or an activity
  • share in a sangha
• spiritual / emotional capital
  • familiar with Christian teachings
  • familiar with stoicism
  • familiar with Advaita Vedanta
  • familiar with Buddhism
  • somewhat familiar with druidry
  • regular meditator

Personal expenses over time

Here’s a birds eye view of my personal expenses. These include all expenses for both my personal life as well as my sole-proprietor business. And all taxes are included: income, healthcare, municipal, road tax, etc.

My expenses over time. Personal expenses have leveled off at about 20k/year.

Note the big drop in outflow from 2017 onward. This is due to several factors: I could stop alimony payments to my ex partner and I worked less hours. Less billable hours leads to less income with corresponding lower income taxes.

What I find interesting in this graph is that my expenses have leveled off in the last few years. The dip in 2021 was mainly due to the government’s corona measures as trips were not made and money was not spent. The bump in 2024 is due to replacing our roof, a job that cost ~10k. Without it, 2024 would have been the cheapest year of the last decade.

Energy usage of our household over time

Our yearly average power usage from 2012 to 2025 in watt.

I try to count every use of energy. Each energy source/usage gets converted into joules and summed over weeks, months, years. Energy usage includes —

• Electricity for lights, electronics, microwave and electric kettle. Every kWh of electricity is equal to 3.6 MJ
• Car fuel for transportation. Each liter of petrol fuel contains approximately 32.76 MJ of energy.
• Natural gas for central heating and hot water. One cubic meter of low caloric natural gas contains 35.1684 MJ of energy.
• Public transportation. I use estimates for the amount of energy a bus (0.32 kWh/km) or train/metro (0.15 kWh/km) typically uses per kilometer.
• Airplane for transportation. Airplanes use between 37 and 80 kWh per 100 passenger kilometer. I use the distance between airports and multiply by 0.6 to get kWh/km.

From this we derive the amount of average continuous power (in watt or kWh/day) my household uses. In physics, power is the energy flow in joules per second (J/s) or watt (W) for short. In 2025 this household drew 860W the whole year. This means that, on average, every second 860 joules of energy gets converted into (waste) heat. For comparison, a regular human requires/produces about 100W of power. Thus, still using 2025 as an example, that year my household employed about 8.5 extra (human-equivalent) workers.

Note again a significant drop in energy usage from 2017 onward — from over 3500 watt each year to less than 900 watt. That same year Ina came to live with me. This caused the drop in car and public transport since I no longer traveled to The Hague from Eindhoven (~140km one way) to visit her every two weeks. We also reduced heating the house as much around that time. So even though the number of occupants in the household doubled, total energy usage went down.

I will note one caveat: I don’t track Ina’s usage of public transport. Since Ina came to live with me, her usage of public transport also reduced to almost zero.

To show a zoomed in view of power usage, I have included the graph below showing power draw per month in 2025.

Our power usage in 2025 for each month in watt.

Power draw in winter is much higher than in summer due to heating the house. The cold season runs mainly from October to March. Some years April and even May can be a little cold.

Driving (refueling) the car draws more power monthly than heating draws in some of the coldest months of the year. It’s quite mind-blowing how much energy is contained in the fuel tank of a car!