We Have Arrived
Date Posted: April 17th, 2010
Most products are solutions in search of problems. Examples:
“Convenience Food” –> assumes that people wouldn’t want to cook for themselves if they didn’t have to. Isn’t it just as likely that people don’t want to cook because they don’t know how or that they think it’s too hard or whatever?
Shampoo –> See No ‘Poo. (I’ve been doing this for a little over a week now. We’ll so how it goes.
Computerized Sewing Machines –> The vast, vast majority of sewers can do amazing stuff with a Singer from the 50’s that goes forward and backward. If it can do a zigzag stitch, that’s nice too. The rest…. unnecessary.
New Clothes –> The thrift store is your friend. It takes a really really long time to wear out clothes and most of the stuff in the thrift store isn’t all that used.
Fancy Athletic Shoes –> We all should be walking barefoot (or close to it). The simpler the shoe the better.
Cameras –> A fancy camera in the hands of an amateur will still turn out amateurish pictures.
Computers –> Most of us don’t really need a computer every 4 years, but we’re forced out of them by new software that won’t work on the old ones.
If I wanted to I could think of more examples. Very few things in life are actually necessary. Some things will enhance our happiness. Too many things will weigh us down.
This has huge implications. For ourselves, it means that we can get more freedom by paring down the stuff that doesn’t matter. For the world, it means we probably have the means to enable everyone to have their basic needs met.
If we have the capability to create such a world, why aren’t we? I think it’s a matter of structure. We’re a capitalist society. We’re told to spend spend spend all the time. Many of us have thousands of dollars of debt. We have a mistaken belief that more stuff = more happiness. Until enough of us shun this belief system, we won’t as a society get to that place where none of us have to worry about how to get food, shelter, and safety.
Luckily, we don’t need society to be on our side in order to reap the benefits of getting rid of the unessential. Each thing you don’t need that you can get rid of is more money in your pocket. More money means you you have more you can save. More savings means less worrying about how to feed and shelter yourself. Not having to worry about that stuff is the whole goal.
The more of us that change our lives in a certain way, the more society changes in that direction. Businesses will start catering to our new values. Then it’ll be us running the businesses. Then there may not even be businesses as such. All volunteer organizations… If you wanted to sit on your butt all day you could! Without guilt even!
I think we have arrived at the age where this is possible. To go from possible to actuality we need to focus on what’s important and get rid of the unnecessary.
