Hello, my friends,
Some weeks I read a lot of pages and some weeks are like this week where I read very nearly zero pages and spend my evening hours watching You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment on Netflix and playing Island Empire on my phone. Part of me feels bad at this lack of “productivity” but, on the other hand, I’m not running the streets committing crimes, so there’s that.
Last year (#9), I wrote about how nice it was to add inexpensive wooden tiles from Ikea to our boring and ugly balcony. Such a small change added a lot to my quality of life. A few weeks ago, I bought some spray at a hardware store and refinished the tiles, which were starting to look faded. I’m happy to say that the tiles look rejuvenated for spring, though next year I think I’ll use a brush to do the job instead of a spray. Check it out:
The Friction
I’ve been using the Linux operating system on my personal computers for over a decade. Using Windows or MacOS might be easier in some ways, but I accept the occasional difficulty that comes with figuring things out because I believe in the philosophy of free and open source software. Most of us accept the small amount of extra time it takes to sort our garbage because we believe that recycling helps the environment. People who love vintage automobiles take on the repair costs (in time and money) and the lack of modern amenities because they appreciate the feeling of driving a classic. Vanlifers, or people who choose to live in a vehicle, accept the cognitive overhead (parking, safety, showering, lack of storage space, etc.) that comes with the mobile lifestyle. There are many examples of people trading something important to them for some friction.
Indeed, many sound social, financial, political, and health choices add friction to life. Conversely, like trading ads for free email service, we accept comfort and convenience in exchange for control over some aspect of our life, sometimes small and sometimes large.
Everyone has a different threshold for friction and, I suspect, that threshold is uneven across various aspects of life. Some vegans, for instance, are willing to drastically narrow their culinary choices due to their health and/or beliefs, but may be completely unconcerned about privacy on the web. I wonder what is our internal mechanism for accepting friction? In what areas of your life do you accept or reject friction? Why?
Landfill Tablets
I made a post on Facebook the other day:
And would just like to express again what a dang shame it is that these perfectly acceptable devices will likely be getting recycled (not trashed, but still) instead of serving as very satisfactory e-readers for me. People have occasionally given me old laptops which I have been able to bring to life by swapping parts and installing a low-resource linux distributions on them. I love being able to do that because it satisfies my belief that repair is better than replace. Realistically, too, most of our computer use doesn’t require very powerful hardware. It’s the same with phones and tablets.
Unfortunately, mobile devices don’t have the same interoperability as laptops so replacing both hardware and software is enough of a pain that most non-experts won’t attempt it (I wrote about a related topic in #54). It doesn’t have to be this way, but tech companies are making deliberate choices to limit what we can do with the very expensive devices we buy from them and I don’t think I’m out of line in saying that their actions are unethical.
Me, An American
I was reading an obituary in our local paper, as I do with some regularity, and came upon one of a veteran who spent the majority of his life in our area. I don’t remember what he did for a living or many details about his life but I noted that the obit ended by saying that he was a proud American. That gave me pause.
Pride in the accomplishments of the United States and gratitude at being here is an unpopular sentiment to express in many circles these days. What with all the bad we’re doing internally and around the world, is it couth to be positive about US? Does it reek of ego to express pride in country?
Maybe. But it didn’t seem to trouble whoever wrote their family member’s obituary and I applaud that. As an immigrant from a totalitarian country (the Soviet Union) where the vacillating attitude towards Jews would have had some impact on my prospects, I feel pretty lucky to be in a country where I’m not hungry or unsafe, where I could choose a career and be fairly confident that my religion won’t be the thing that bars my advancement, and where, despite all the issues with healthcare, if I spray myself in the face with Australian Timber Oil in the color Jarrah Brown and go to the hospital, someone will take care of me. That last one is hypothetical, but gosh darn it, I’m thankful to be a citizen of the United States.
Sure we might have bad roads, but we have roads! And we might be in a consumerist hell, but consider that going from a country with bread lines to one with supermarkets packed to the gills seems like a freaking miracle, doesn’t it? Not to mention that I can insult the President in plain English in a public forum and have no fear that the secret police will disappear me. Plus, the weather in Los Angeles…It’s nice.
Time Machine
Here’s what I wrote in HMF a year ago (in issue #8):
Did He Say Insurance?: Reflecting on risk in our lives through the lens of Mihir Desai’s book The Wisdom of Finance.
Crouton People: Can we tell someone’s disposition from whether they prefer croutons on their salad?
How I Lost a Mentor: A reflection on mentors that I’ve had (and one that I lost).
wonderful post - much as I wouldn't trade rl interactions with people for anything, I love how the net allows those of us who think a lot to feel not so alone. I used to envy peeps who blithely go about their business, who've criticized me for overthinking things.
those of us sensitive folk have areas of thought that we lean more toward. I'm animal lover, so there's all that's attached with that. I also have a low threshold for pain, so there's wanting to keep healthy & loving how we're in the age of stuff that tracks blood sugar & such, in ways that give me quick important info that can help teach & motivate me. Comfort, though, when it comes to technology, is indeed capitalism's trick to recruits even the most virtuous of us...
Oooh, how the mind can go wild on these things. another of kryptonite is hating when friends make me feel bad for speaking up, & say I'm too fussy for wanting to educate myself when it comes to poor customer &/or patient service.
also, likely because I was raised in a religion that isn't persecuted and my dearest was raised where freedom to not be religious was forbidden, I'm especially creeped out by bible thumpers who I help from judging as zombie-like non-examiners of life. or maybe I'm just in a bad mood because a 'friend' yesterday took me out for my b-dy & 'sneakily' attempted to convert me yet again...
anywhoo, good post again, Oleg - you said it a lot more concisely than I have here
brilliant! & thank you :-)