The Downgrade Path
A Modern Luddite's Awakening
The Luddites were a social movement of English textile workers
in the early 1800s who protested — often by destroying textile machines — against the changes produced by the Industrial
Revolution that they felt threatened their jobs. The movement,
which began in 1811, was named after a probably mythical
leader, Ned Ludd. For a short time the movement was so
strong that it clashed in battles with the British Army.
Measures taken by the government included a mass trial
at York in 1813 that resulted in many death penalties and transportations (deportation to a penal colony)..... Wikipedia
Civilization is the unnecessary multiplication of
unnecessary necessities...Mark Twain
Downgrade sounds like retrograde doesn't it? Everything is an upgrade these days, more features, more value, more ease of use – more, more, more rendering what you have obsolete.
Something happened in my life recently..... I am a big man with big feet. I wear out shoes quickly as I walk a lot. Every three months, I started the search for a reasonably priced, tough and comfortable pair of walkers that fit me. A very frustrating exercise as stocks fluctuate and replacements are a hard find. As an experiment I tried a pair of Converse All-Stars – You know the gym shoes from the 60's or what skateboarders use now. Strange shoes – they have no support, fit funnily and definitely have a different look. When I first wore them at first my feet got tired. Felt like chunks of carpet wrapped around my feet. The first realisation was that my feet were weak even though I walk regularly. So I set about walking from short to increasingly long distances in the All-Stars. After 3 months of use the shoes were still going strong and so were my feet. Once I learned to lace them to fit my foot these shoes feel like soft comfortable socks. Others tell me that their foot problems have gone away when using these shoes and I am noticing my hammer toe beginning to self-correct. A deformity the “featured” shoes created.
The lesson was that all these multitudes of features that sell the modern shoe are for selling shoes, massaging common beliefs and myths, and not necessarily for better feet. The 1917 Converse design far out-performs the modern multi-featured foot-supporting yada yada yada designs.
My favourite tooth brush is no more. They have been dropped in favour of a multi featured monster brush with a triple times price tag. Trouble is the pointy bristled watch-am-a-call-it feature ripped my gums apart. But this upgrade is sexier and obviously sells better.
Our popup toaster died – sent springs everywhere. Fifth one in eight years to go to the landfill. Somewhere there is a landfill simply full of popup toasters. We located an old fashioned hand operated winged toaster that was built like a tank. One wire wrapped heater element and no moving parts other than the side flaps is a far cry from the moon lander complexity of a modern day toaster. Yet our new-to-us old fashioned toaster handles all manner of toastable foods well without resorting to using a manual.
Our kids complained vociferously that this antique toaster was more work, the toast burned and it was a nuisance – a step down. A friend pointed out that it was a Zen toaster as one had to be mindful to use it. That is when I twigged.
- The most luxurious is intrinsically the most wasteful of resources.
- Luxury is to pay someone else to do something you could enjoy doing yourself - in other words, pay someone else to have your fun.
- Features abdicate one's need to being mindful and attentive – the feature does it for you.
- All the above allow, actually demand, a lack of mindfulness for you to buy into the proffered expectation.
We are being cued as a society to follow a path towards less mindfulness, to less attentiveness. We are be exhorted [extorted?] to work harder and longer so that we can spend more for time saving, luxurious devices and services so that our life will be easier and less arduous. Why do I feel like a hamster inside my spinning wheel running to who knows where? driven to distraction. If a hamster was mindful it would be sooo out of there abandoning the wheel for picking the lock to his cage.
So I now have a glimmer of what it means to be constantly on an upgrade path. Looks like I am to do some downgrading – less is more - voluntary simplicity. I am off to pick the lock on my cage. |
