I have written (possibly ad nauseum) about what people call “minimalism.” It’s not a simple belief, or design, or even a lifestyle. Minimalism is a framework that you structure your life around.
Today I’m going to address the problem of tools. How do we minimize them? What criteria do we use? What value do they hold?
Specific Use Tools
If you’ve done any sort of mechanical work or repairs, you’ve probably run into the problem of “not having the right tool.” Recently, I was tasked with repairing some of the window screens on my house. They’re basically a mesh that is squeezed into the grooves around the edge of a frame and held in place with some rubber cord. There is also a specific tool for this job- a little handle with rollers on each end. And I have one, somewhere, in the vast myriad of junk in my shed. I know what it looks like, I can picture it in my mind. I just couldn’t find it.
Alternately, I could have tried to install the mesh and cord with generic tools. A butter knife, my thumb, whatever I could find. Which is what I did, or at least tried to do. But after 30 minutes of struggling with the first one, my wife asked me (in that exasperated voice you get from dealing with numbskulls like me) “Why don’t you just drive to the store and get another tool?”
Gasp. Admit defeat? When I have a perfectly good tool (that I can’t find)? How dare she challenge my manhood!
Twenty minutes later, I had returned from the store with a shiny new $3 tool, and finished the remaining screens in the time it took me to get halfway through the first one.
Now, you’re probably thinking “Isn’t this contrary to the framework of minimalism? Isn’t this just getting more stuff?” But the point I want to make isn’t that I needed to buy a tool. It’s that saving a tool for when I needed it was of no use if I couldn’t find it. What good is a tool that you can’t find? How much time would it have cost me to try to finish the job without it? And if I could just run to the store and buy another for $3, did I really need to save it in the first place? I desperately wanted to justify the energy I had spent keeping the old one- but I couldn’t. To this day, I still can’t find it.
It’s the idea that things have permanence in our lives and minds. They’re concrete objects that we assume will always be where we left them, that time won’t affect when we look away, that somehow our thinking of them makes them continue to exist- but it’s actually the other way around.
Physical things take up space in our brain. It consumes mental energy to remember where they are, keep track of what it’s for, make sure it’s secured, and so on. They each have a mental cost. And when your life is filled with thousands of things, the cost begins to add up.
It frustrated me that a thing, which I remembered I had, and knew was somewhere I had left it, had just ceased to exist. I couldn’t put my hands on it. It vanished. The energy my brain used in remembering it was for nothing. The time I spent looking for it was also for nothing.
I didn’t properly assign the tool’s value- I only thought “I might need this again in the future, so I’ll throw it in a box for when I need it.” Multiply that times hundreds of things, and all of a sudden, it’s not sustainable. I should have looked at it from the standpoint of what it would cost me to just buy one when I needed it. How often do you need to redo screens on the house? Maybe what, every ten years? Do I need to hold on to a $3 tool for that long just in case?
I have a lot of tools I’ve acquired over the years. Buying (or borrowing) a tool when needed isn’t the problem- it’s that I don’t get rid of them when I no longer need them. I have a ball joint press I bought from a friend to fix his truck with. I will likely never need it again, and on the odd chance that I might, I can always get another one. So why is it taking up space in my shop? I have a brand new engine hoist, used to fix my son-in-law’s car. It cost $350, and I’ll probably never use it again. But I can’t quite bring myself to get rid of it, because “What if I need it?” It now resides in the corner of my shop, taking up space and mental energy for the scant hope of being used in the future.
As Chuck Palahniuk wrote, “The things you own, end up owning you.”
Quick note here: I’m not talking about general-use tools, like a wrench/socket set, or a shovel. Those are always useful.
Things Don’t Inherently Have Value Unless We Say So
Think about it. What’s actually important about having a tool? Is it the tool itself, or what the tool can do? We often keep things for what they are, or what we think they’re worth, and not for what they can do. “This comic book is worth $1000!” Well, it’s worth that to you, but unless you find someone who’s willing to pay that for it, it’s not “worth” anything. If someone gave me a very expensive tool that I have no use for, what is it worth for me to keep it? Absolutely nothing. It provides no value to me just sitting in storage if I can’t use it.
“But what about about keeping things like photographs? VHS tapes, DVDs, or whatever?” It is true that they have memories attached to them. They’re valuable to remember things by. But if they were to suddenly be gone, could you still have those memories? They have worth in bringing you enjoyment, but are they required for you to remember those things?
I once heard someone call getting rid of everything an “imaginary house fire.” When someone would ask them if they had kept such-and-such, they would reply with “Oh, we lost that in the house fire.” There’s some kind of finality to it- those things aren’t coming back, and you just accept it. Other people can’t understand getting rid of things intentionally, but everyone can grasp that something lost in a fire is gone.
If you were to have an “imaginary house fire” would it fundamentally change the way you operate on a day-to-day basis? It shouldn’t. Our lives, the daily routines, shouldn’t be cemented to physical belongings- because those can be taken away in a moment. Like, you know- in a house fire.
This year, both of my parents passed away. And I had the monumental, arduous task of figuring out what to do with all their stuff. At one point, someone in the family took all their photographs without permission- some of them dating back close to 100 years ago- and I had to come to the realization that I wasn’t ever going to see those pictures again. They were gone. All I had left was what was already at my house, just a small box of photos from my childhood.
At first, I was furious. But being mad wouldn’t bring the photographs back. And getting them back wouldn’t change my life, other than giving me a sense of vindication.
This person took the photographs because they are so attached to things that they felt they had to take them. This love of things will end up corrupting you. As the Apostle Paul says (emphasis mine),
“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money [and material things] is a root of all kinds of evil.”
– 1 Timothy 6:6-10
Afterthought:
Two months later, as I suspected would happen, I found my original screen tool.
Now I have two of them. *sigh*