My Grand Plan — 18 years from now in 2035 I will be 62 years old.
How do I imagine myself then?
Location, location, location.
I will be living in a place that is a maximum one hour away from the major National Forest boundary, preferably located in wild mountains. This place could be Bellevue or Redmond, WA, or Portland, Oregon. The importance of the location cannot be overstated. I have spent every moment of my youth in the mountains, often cutting school to go hiking or skiing. And, I hope, to spent the autumn of my life in nature as well. There is nothing that makes me feel better than a mountain-top vista after a strenuous hike in the chill of the subalpine meadow. I have lived almost all my adult life in (techno-bubble) Chicago. A city person cannot understand the highlander's longing for mountains.
I am not sure if I will be able to instill the same love of nature in all my daughters, I hope I will, Lili seems to love nature already. I hope that in the next 18 years, I will spend countless vacations with my girls hiking and camping in the wild.
Health
There can be a little joy of surroundings if one has no health. I am approaching my health holistically, in multiple ways.
Cancer, dementia and heart problems.
Short of major accidents, these big three, sooner or later, will claim most of the people. It is not "some probability" like being struck by lightning, rather, it is more like loading a 30 round magazine, lining 100 people in the row and pulling a trigger in one sweeping motion, no less. All of us stand in that row. All of us, no exception.
Thankfully, we know the cause and how to prevent them, these diseases are sometimes called "diabetes type 3" and it is caused, majorly, by sugar.
Our ancestors ate everything they could find. When they came across a bee hive, they would gorge on sweet, sugary honey. When they found a patch of sweet berries, they would not leave until they had their fill and then some.
We are designed to crave and eat all sugar we can and we are designed to store it as fat for later.
The problem is the sources of sugar in nature are extremely rare, next time on the vacation in a national park make a note of all the sugar sources. When you hear bees buzzing, try to find their hive in the tree tops. See if you can collect more than a bucket of wild berries in a day, except in the late summer when it is a good idea to gain few pounds before winter anyway. When people ate sugar it was called feasting, and it was a very rare occasion.
Humans were designed to go on for few days on minimal nourishment -- something you could carry in a small pouch while on the fast-paced hunt or on the move to a new campsite, these multi-day trips were a rule, not an exception. People would be eating mostly the leafy plants as they found them, nuts, roots and supplementing that with the equivalent of venison jerky and fat (smoked bacon).
Fasting
We know that fasting prolongs life.
Avoiding sugar and proteins has an enormous benefit that most people do not realize.
Note that I mentioned sugar and to some degree dietary proteins, not fat. When our diet is missing the sugars but has fats, your body reverts to the natural state of fat burning, whether the fat comes from tree nuts, bacon, or your own love handles.
Humans, for almost 100% of the last 250,000 years were in the state of a fat-burning ketonic state, the dietary changes have changed this only recently.
Cancer starts with a single cell mutation. Each one of us harbors many cancerous cells for years before they become so malignant that our health gets affected, then, it is often too late.
Cancer feeds on glucose (a simple sugar) which our bodies do not store. When no dietary sugar is present, we create only small amounts of glucose from proteins. Cancer has a very hard time surviving when we are in the fat-burning mode. In the ketonic state, you start purging your organism of the cancer cells that you did not know you had.
A lean person (10% body fat) carries about 15 pounds, or more, of fat on them, that is a lot of bacon meals! If you drink plenty of water, eat vitamins and minerals you could live on that for a couple of weeks. Use your brains before trying any extreme diet like that. I am not taking any responsibility for your personal choices. When you have sugar, your body burns the sugar, when you have no dietary sugar, your body burns fat.
However, when you do not eat and you are too skinny to have any fat reserves, your body burns your muscles and eventually you end up in the emergency room -- and if lucky, in psychiatric counseling.
I know muscle wasting is scary news for athletes, yet many athletes are adopting the keto diet. You can very simply prevent muscle wasting by balancing fat ingestions with your body energy needs.
Would eating fat make you fat? It is a math question really. If you burn 2,500 calories every day and eat a pound of bacon you will become leaner. Marines burn 4,000 calories, so adjust to your own needs. The idea is to be "a mean, lean cancer-fighting machine".
For the next 18 years, I will be eating (mostly) carbohydrate free diet. That is no refined sugars, no rice, potatoes, no flour products, and limited sweet fruits. In addition, I plan to make frequent fasts (restricted calorie diet) and, at the end of each of my fast I will feast and celebrate.
The way of hardcore
When I was a kid I "lived" in the trees with all the neighborhood kids, later we spent middle school years in the park on the monkey bars and similar. When I have run the Marine Corps obstacle course, I loved it and I almost beat the San Diego depot time record, in fact, the drill instructors had repeat it, hoping that I will. I did not, but I was close. I do not like gyms that much. I like obstacle courses, mountains, rocks, hardship and winter weather.
When I was young our karate sensei (then I thought a sadist) was running on our bellies, punched and kicked us to test our stance and had us run barefoot in the snow. Now, I see the wisdom of that and I am thankful. Running barefoot in a sweaty kimono in the snow will classify you as "abuser" in court if you try to do it to your kids, but it might be the healthies thing you can do yourself. I hope the "soft belly" culture we currently live in will pass. We need young Spartans with strong bodies and sharp minds.
Financials
It tool me first 15 years of my adult years to get out of poverty and debt, I know I am not the sharpest pencil in the drawer in this aspect, but it is what it is. Last few years I was laboring thru the middle class and for the next 18, I hope I will be able to make some smart investments. I am constantly reading and learning, but unfortunately, the financial freedom takes personality changes as well.
Since I have reached the salary level that exceeds what I consider sufficient, I will be focusing on minimalism, or rather on "essentialism". There is a good book, or two, on the subject, so not need to elaborate. By forgoing the need for "consumerism" and waste I hope to increase the surplus which then I hope to re-invest.
Personal Growth
This easy, I study constantly. I believe that the continous education that takes a significant part of every single day is the only way to survive in the fast changing world. This is especially important in the advent of the AI, when a lot of well defined jobs will be replaced with intelligent software. When studying, you have to constantly push your own boundries, way beyond your comfort level.
