Complicate or Simplify

WARNING: Rambling blog - starts nowhere, finishes nowhere, means nothing.
Read at your peril - or just skip to the next blog!

Sometimes I long for a more simple life. But then is simplicity just another thing that I want to add to all the other things I have already and thereby really making things just a bit more complicated?

When you have so much stuff that you can't find anything, does it stop you from buying more stuff? Or does it mean that you just have to go and buy something you know you already have somewhere but you can't find it. Time is money, why waste 2 hours looking for something that would only take 15 minutes to earn enough to buy another one?

The 24 minute rule will get you! 24 minutes is the average time that it takes for something to turn up after you just purchased its replacement. The trouble with the 24 minute rule is that the 24 minutes only starts after you complete the purchase of a non-refundable, non-transferable, non-returnable item. Any attempts to cheat the 24 minute rule are futile, causing the original item to remain unfound. The 24 minute rule also works in reverse. Ask anyone who has had a Garage Sale and they will confirm that 24 minutes is also the average time that it takes to find an undeniably critical need for something that you have just got rid of.

Whether losing or selling, the 24 minute rule, like advertising and social pressure is forcing us all to get more stuff. The more stuff we have, the more complicated our lives. The more stuff we have, the more we have to spend time fixing it, cleaning it, or looking for it.

My family are all in favour of mass production, planned obsolescence and regularly changing fashions. Buy it, use it, get rid of it. If you have the time to fix, clean and find the stuff you have then you are probably missing out on doing something really important. This approach is not good for the greenies - leads to mass consumption, lots of carbon emissions and apparently, water will soon be lapping at my doorstep if global warming takes hold and moves the ocean to my house.

The answer may be to abstain from adding stuff in any way. Do without it. If what you are going to do requires you to buy or get something else, find something else to do. Use what you have in different ways or just do nothing. Think of the carbon emissions you will save and the time. Trouble is that this ultimately leads to doing nothing all the time which is a waste of time.

In the end it's probably better to just stay as you are. Get used to living with too much stuff and spending too much time looking after it or replacing it. The alternative is that you'll have nothing to do and get bored. QED.