The non-identifiable 'they' say, "garbage in, garbage out."Unfortunately much of what I entrusted to Bill Gates has gone I know not where and I've finally come to realise that in order to not lose more pearls, there are steps that I should take. It's best to keep things simple and, preferably, recyclable.
As my ailing computer has demonstrated, the more there is, the more can go wrong. And always assume that anything that can go wrong may go wrong, even when you won't actually know what has gone wrong.
I've written before about how ridiculous it is that you can't repair a tap here, or how asinine it is that essential tools now have essential gizmos and gadgets. A phone is no longer just a phone. Why, there are even ear muffs for its headphones. The internet fridge was universally, and quite rightly, scorned. Or there's the Italian cooker hood which incorporates internet and multimedia. But who dares watch TV whilst slaving over a hot stove, eh?
I like the simplicity of the humble pencil with its wood wrapping. It comes in different grades, such as HB for general scribblings, 2B for filling in computer forms, and various degrees of H and B for various forms of drawing, annotating, calculating, listing and writing. Simple and useful, but you do need a pencil sharpener handy. As you use it, the pencil gets shorter. The only disadvantage I've ever found is that if you drop a pencil, the lead inside may be dislocated, thus rendering the sharperner quite useless. The main advantage of old-fashioned pencils is that, being made from sustainable, quick growing trees, their manufacture isn't that harmful to the environment and they're bio-degradable.
They're also a lot cheaper than mechanical pencils, whose many parts are made of non-recyclable plastic and metal. The leads are boxed in plastic, and I cannot draw with them anywhere near as comfortably as with a wooden one. And Our Kid keeps losing his!
Now comes news of pencils which aren't wrapped in wood but in recycled paper! Wowee, you think, until you ask what paper is made of. Their blurb says No Trees, Protect wildlife, Save our oxigen (sic). No Trees? Really? Their site is, of course, all Flash and little substance.
Market forces with their drive for ' growth' have pushed us to create all these non-essentials. The collapse of these forces is, therefore, a grand opportunity to get back to basics.
Do we have to shop? Katherine Flett acknowledges that shopping can be an addiction, which is why she is "vowing to stop wanting shit I don't need and can't afford in order to make myself feel... what, precisely? Happier?"
That's the key question.
And that's a reason that it's taking a while for me to to get back on stream - I'm carefully considering my needs rather than my options. Darn it, I really don't want to start again anew and think (and hope) that I can make do and mend.
For that at least, you can give me credit.
