path: root/the-fuji-you-dont-need.txt

Will I someday change my mind and buy the X-Pro2? Probably. I'm no different than you, not better than you. 

I dislike upgrading things. This is why I have, at the age of, ahem, forty plus let's say, owned only 4 cars (two of which I still own), have more than a few t-shirts that are over a decade old and am typing this on an eight year old laptop. 

This is less a testament to my frugality than my deep-seated belief that if it ain't broke, not only is there no need to change anything, doing so risks upsetting the not-broke equilibrium the object in question is currently enjoying.

I'm a vagabond of sorts though so some of my dislike for new things does lie in a necessary, and I would argue natural, frugality. To upgrade takes time, which a yardstick of life energy, to earn money to obtain things and I prefer to have more time and less things. A lot of my don't upgrade stance grows out of my worry that all these things we buy are implicated in a web of destruction that shatters lives and destroys the planet so I can [have a nice rug](/jrnl/2015/04/the-poison-youve-been-dreaming-of).

There's another part of my dislike for stuff that's nicely summarized by Moxie Marlinspike, who wrote a great ode to a concept he calls "[The Worst](http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/the-worst/)." Instead of the current culturally idealized notion that you can simplify your life by spending tons of money to get the best of everything, which then purportedly frees you from needing to think about it again, Marlinspike argues that in fact, "we don't simplify by getting the very best of everything, **we simplify by arranging our lives so that those things don't matter one way or the other**" (emphasis mine). 

Marlinspike's whole post is wonderful and you should go read it not just because it in turn links to a P.O.S. video, though it does, as you do, but because it gets so little air time in this culture. Even if, like me, you think you're reasonably good at recognizing those moments when you're acting in a pattern of cultural conditioning, this one can be hard to see when you're acting it out. Even the biggest minimalists often end up in a situation where they may have very few things, but they the things they have are "the best". 



I've been thinking about this a lot lately for two reasons: rebuilding the bus and testing the brand new Fujifilm X-Pro2 for Wired. 

Rebuilding the bus has required some deep research and thinking about what stuff we actually need. A lot of the things we use for convenience are just that, conveniences, not requirements. There's nothing wrong with convenience exactly, but it has costs. 

To use the example that leaves everyone scratching their head, let's talk about the refrigerator I tore out. Unlike the air conditioner, which I did tear out because I hate it, I didn't tear the 2-way propane/12v fridge because I hate refrigeration. I did tear it out in part because I wanted to learn to live without refrigeration, but also because I backed up and looked at the problem refrigeration is trying to solve.

No one needs refrigerator. What we need is a way to keep food from becoming in edible. In our case in the bus that means a way to keep a few things cold for two weeks, or, ideally, for convenience sake, indefinitely. But wait, what food? And how cold does it need to be? Which foods actually need to be refrigerated? 

At it turns out almost nothing in your refrigerator needs to be there. A lot of it is even better if you take it out. Fruit is better when not refrigerated, ditto most vegetables. Some veggies will keep long when cool though. Leftovers need to either say hot or cool. Meat needs to stay cool. So then, after starting way back at the beginning -- what needs to be refrigerated -- I realized we didn't need a fridge at all. An icebox and a 12V freezer that only needs to run when making ice or freezing food uses far less energy and can be powered entirely by the sun. Freeze the foods when you buy them, make ice when you need it and put everything in the icebox. Eat the food as it thaws, store the rest in cool dry container, mesh baskets and so on. The problem gets solved without the excess energy draw and without the noise of a fridge running all the time.

Like so many experiments I've done through this site, I will keep you posted on how well my theory hold up in real world experience. I'm not worried though.





> Partisans of the worst won't give a shit if someone drops a dish while people are hanging out in the kitchen. They can push their crappy bicycle to the limit without worrying if it gets scratched — without even being too concerned about it getting stolen. They can play a spontaneous game of tag in the park without worrying about their clothes getting messed up, or go for an impromptu hike without worrying about their shoes getting scuffed or dirty.




Similarly I don't think most people are greedy, it's just that our culture only offers one real collectively accepted measure of "success", which is earning more money. Do well in your job and your principle reward will be an increase in salary; do well with your business and you will earn more money. Not that there's anything wrong with that, just that it's not, ultimately, a very personally satifying metric by which to measure success. What does one do with more money except buy more stuff? Or horde it and live off the interest? Neither of these things is particularly appealing to me.





When I do decided to finally upgrade it's either because something is broken beyond repair or something new is so amazingly better than what I have that the trade of life energy for that object seems worth it. 

In the case of Fuji XPro2 it's the latter. 



I prefer to restore. more than 


There is no such thing as just a tool. There is always and forever everything, all the choices external and personal that led you to that tool.

The best way to sharpen knives with a ceramic stone. It will take some practice. Even if you once knew what you were doing you might end up struggling, with bloody thumbs the first time through. But keep doing it until you get it right. Try it. Just for a while. Forget the knives; there is value in learning for its own sake. There is value in practice. It teaches you about yourself. You practice, you learn, you grow a little. You practice more. 

We no longer value these types of skills very much though. It's easier to hire someone to do manual things for us. We don't mow the lawn; we don't rake the leaves; we don't press the clothes; we don't change the oil; we don't even clean the house. We definitely don't sharpen knives.


We no longer value these types of skills very much though. It's easier to hire someone to do manual things for us. We don't mow the lawn; we don't rake the leaves; we don't press the clothes; we don't change the oil; we don't even clean the house. We definitely don't sharpen knives.

Just fifty years ago we did these things. Now we do not. 

Worlds change, the skills we value change. Our current world does not value the skills of manual labor or craftsmanship very much. We are no longer impressed by people that do these things. In some cases it's increasingly hard to find anyone that can do these things at all let alone do them well. Tried have your shoes repaired lately? How about fixing a broken appliance? Skills that are no longer valued are no longer honed. They disappear. Even those of us who used to be chefs forget how to sharpen knives when we don't practice.


[^1]:  That's not to say that higher quality items aren't sometimes the better option, nor is it to imply that cheap, disposable items are the answer (Marlinspike's examples are all about buying used items), but simply that if you want to stop spending your time and effort on stuff, the best way to do that is to arrange your life in such a way that stuff is unimportant.