Day: December 9, 2017

So Apple now has a $999 iPhone for sale. And Google has introduced the Pixelbook, which is essentially a premium Chromebook, for $999 ($1,199 for the higher end model, another $99 if you wan the pen). Google’s Pixel 2 phone maxes out at $949, and Samsung’s Note 8 starts at $960, while the S8+ comes in at $840. It’s a party for which I have an invite, but my RSVP will be “no, thank you.” The price is too damn high.

It seems to be a curious psychological phenomenon among human beings that they are never satisfied with “enough.” Humans are constantly encouraged to succeed, to be all you can be, to maximize your life, to get everything out of life you can possibly squeeze. No one ever says to a child, “Work until you have enough. Then relax. Leave some for others.”

I can’t say I’ve ever been a proponent of this kind of thinking. I’ve lived a life of modest goals, and I was never very ambitious to do more or be more than I needed to be to have enough. The new technology offerings from Google and Apple and many other tech companies are, in my view, overkill. No one needs a $999 phone. They may want one, but they do not need  one. No doubt what they already have is quite enough.

I wish I was enough of a psychologist to know where this drive to overachieve comes from. It’s hard to know if it’s cultural or instinctive. Certainly the culture at large feeds this anxiety continuously through the advertisement of material goods. We are constantly bombarded with messages about products and services that will improve upon our current lives. Resisting these messages appears to be very difficult for the vast majority of people.

I’ve noticed that many people defend the notion of items like the iPhone X, Pixelbook, or the Pixel2 as being desirable because of their “high quality” build. Sure, ok, but…really? Shouldn’t the question revolve more around the purpose and capability of the item rather than its “premium” build?

I can appreciate quality build. I am typing this on a Google Chromebook Pixel 2013 (4GB RAM, 64GB SSD, LTE), which sold for $1499 when it first came out. I ran across a great deal on it for $300 at TechRabbit. It’s EOL is April of 2018, which is very soon, and it will not update to Android apps. But for $300, it was worth it. The premium feel is indeed quite nice, the screen is lovely, the keyboard excellent for typing, trackpad great, and the 3:2 resolution very nice for reading and writing. But would I have paid $1400 for it? Not on your life. There is nothing about it I find so superior to my Toshiba Chromebook 2 2015 (my daily driver), for which I paid about $300 with some additional cash laid out for additional RAM and upgraded storage.

And that, to me, is the point. In the USA, people are driven to obtain “the best” regardless of whether or not it can do the job any better. My TCB2/2015 is an excellent machine: it is upgradeable; the 13.3″ screen is excellent; its keyboard is backlit; the plastic case is quite rugged, cool on my lap, and shows no signs of damage; battery life is acceptable; with Linux installed via crouton it’s a full-fledged computer. Since ChromeOS runs exactly the same on this machine as it does on a $1K Pixelbook, frankly I don’t see the need to upgrade. Even the latest offerings from Samsung and Asus, while tempting, don’t really do more than the machines I currently have.

The American corporate oligarchy obtains its power over the economy and also over us by consistently and relentlessly driving us to buy more and more. It also uses as its overriding strategy making us believe that somehow “higher quality” will get a particular job done faster. There is a balance to all this. I like to buy products of good quality that will last a long time and will not break, but I also like to find products that are also reasonably priced. I was subconsciously taught this by my father, who bought Volkswagens and Volvos when his neighbors were buying Chevys and Fords. I see no reason to buy a car with a “premium” build when every car available on today’s market is limited in speed by the particular highway’s limit.

In the same way, I see no reason to hop on this bandwagon of thousand-dollar tech gadgets when my needs are quite easily met by gadgets costing around $300. I just recently upgraded my phone from a Samsung Note 4 to a Moto G5+, which cost $225. Guess what? It’s unlocked, which means I can use any carrier I want worldwide. It makes phone calls to any number in the world. It can send a text, use Google Hangouts for chatting, access my email, use mapping software, and takes decent pictures. In short, it does everything I need a smartphone to do. It is, to coin a phrase, “quite enough.” Pixel 2? iPhone X? Note 8? No, thanks.

Charles Dickens had something to say about “enough” in his seasonal short novel A Christmas Carol. In this holiday season, when people will no doubt be buying more than enough for one another, it might be wise to reflect on the Cratchits of this world (emphasis mine):

There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows!

-twl

The world these days is a depressing place. I have found myself reading less and less news. I am not naive enough to think that this particular cultural and political stew is the worst we’ve ever brewed, but I do think it’s the worst we’ve ever been so cognizant and aware of. As a consequence, I think the best strategy one can employ in this world is to become a “nobody.” I’ve set that as a new retirement goal; to become “no one.”

One of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poems has the opening line “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” While I am not a tremendous fan of Emily’s work, I do like the ideas expressed in this short work. In particular, the last line – “To an admiring bog” – has such a modern ring to it. Social media has turned society into a festering bog of recrimination, faux outrage, self-promotion, and any number of sordid ills. It’s a festering digital bog out there, and none of it is of interest to me.

I have taken a part-time job as a driver for a large rental car company, and my duties consist of moving cars from one location to another, either because they were bought or are being sold. It’s a nice job; minimum wage, no thinking at all, no stress, and when I clock out, no work to bring home. As one of my new colleagues put it, “I get paid from the neck down.” It’s a “nobody” job, perfect for someone without ambition. Occasionally the company I keep is not of my personal liking, but overall I do spend a good deal of time alone behind the wheel of a car. There is scenery to see, which, although repetitious, is never the same. I work three days a week, which I think is perhaps a bit much. Two would be better. I think I will hold this job through the winter and as far into the spring as possible, but I do not see it being long-term. It’s something to fill the time as I wait for King Lear to begin. I’m pretty sure doing both Lear and holding down this job would be pretty impossible, and then there is always the travel I’d like to do. Having a job would just get in the way of that, so probably by August 2018 I will be jobless again.

I am also in the process of collecting my haiku into a self-published book. I do not know what is motivating this other than the desire to have a hard copy of some of my haiku, something I can hold in my hand and call my own. I know I would like to write more, and at some point in time I think the time will come when writing will become my primary occupation. I sense a long interior journey in the offing, but for now, the need to reduce my personal footprint in the world is my primary goal. Less social media, less interaction with events in the world; more writing. more introspection. If retirement has any benefits, it is the benefit of having the freedom to care much, much less.  -twl