What We Can't Live Without

This month's Letter from the Editor in Fast Company is titled Things We Can't Live Without. Robert Safian's editorial begins with a memory of his dad buying the first television in the neighborhood and people coming over just to watch the transmission signal. From here he transitions to iPods and automobiles, and steps up to Facebook and Twitter as the new "must have" apps.

It's a strange world when you start looking at what various people define as a must. For example, I tweet, but to call it a Must Have part of my life is a bit of a stretch.

The other night when the electricity went out, I recognized that electrical power was a "must have" for me. Either that, or leave Minnesota, because any duration of time without electricity when it is nineteen below is going to freeze your pipes, and be generally intolerable.

Maybe we're just a little glib about what we think we absolutely need. I did a Google search for the phrase what we can't live without and came up with quite a few things to look at. The first list I looked at was at the NewsCred Blog, Michael Arrington's favorite technologies that he uses every day. GoogleDocs, Skype, Dropbox, WordPress, Gmail, Twitter, Amazon Web Services, Songza, Google Analytics and Mechanical Turk. My guess is that if these are the things Arrington needs to be happy, then when the electricity is out he's screwed, too. And to see Twitter listed again just makes me scratch my head. (Though I have already tweeted that I am writing about this here...)

Now I am looking at a Computerworld web article on 25 things we can't live without, and Skype is here, too, as well as iPods along with things like the Siber Systems RoboForm for storing usernames, passwords, and other contact data for websites.

The real question, especially for Americans, is how to differentiate between what is a luxury and what is a necessity. Are two cars a luxury? Is air conditioning a necessity? Think of all our appliances which we consider an absolute basic part of owning a home. For some folks, having "land, lots of land and sunny skies above" is a necessity. They simply don't want to be fenced in.

Here's another site with a study called What Americans Need: 1996-2006. The report compares trends over a ten year period. It's more realistic and runs this way. Car, clothes washer, clothes dryer, home air conditioning, microwave, TV set, car air conditioning, home computer, cell phone, dishwasher, cable or satellite TV, high-speed Internet, flat screen TV, and iPod. Interesting. Nearly everything here is dependent on electricity, including that car some day possibly.

I'm curious where music and art and friends would fall on some of these lists. It's also interesting how we take our clean drinking water for granted as well.

My cell phone probably falls close to the necessity realm for me, but a television does not. I still haven't figured out how to hook up the new box for HDTV. I ought to add it to my TO DO list, but my motivation just isn't strong enough. Hopefully I'll get around to it, but it took us five years to purchase the first B&W television we got in 1984... Evidently TV is something we can live without.

Some of these lists, and there are quite a few, are simply a way to talk about new things. The catchy title is an apparent exaggeration, but it does catch your eyeballs, and your imagination. What are the things you can't live without?

The Luxury of Clutter

Alas, spring is in the air, and with the season comes the awakening desire to tackle all that clutter we've stowed in the garage and in drawers and under desks and in closets. It's a never ending battle. Clutter seems to gather like dust and you just have to deal with it.

There must be more clutter in America than in any country in history. As I drove to the re-cycle center this morning I began thinking how clutter is really a luxury, it's a symbol of our wealth and success. Think of the efficiencies required for impoverished people to raise a family in a two room house. There is simply no room for all this baggage we store.

Our refrigerators and freezers are so large that as much food often goes bad as gets eaten. This simply doesn't happen in rural Mexico, Haiti or Pakistan.

As a writer I have developed the bad habit of believing "someday I will use that article" or that folder of notes, doodles, ketchup labels, or whatever. As an artist, too, it gets difficult to let go of the rest of this debris, because it does glisten and glitter so. And these rocks, wires, pens, notebooks.... eeek.

Worse still, my mother is a clutterbug and my brothers share the trait, so the battle appears to have potentially deep genetic origins. At least the case could be made that I should be excused for this propensity.

Let it be known I am not excusing myself. The battle cry has been raised, and I've taken my stand. To the wonder of many eyes my desktop at work made an appearance this past month and has remained partially cleared for several weeks. There are no mags on the floor and amazingly this cleaner office has not hindered my productivity.

On the home front, well.... I don't have any old eight track tapes tucked away. Little by little I will chip away, and occasionally get my gumption up to fling a few things into the trash. If it feels good, I'll do it again. Like shedding pounds, it's not the binge diet that wins but the lifestyle change that makes a difference.

Sometimes you find things you hadn't seen in a while. For example, I just came across this self-portrait I painted about 26 years ago. (click to enlarge)

In the end, if we don't deal with it, someone else will have to. As we all know too well, you can't take it with you.

Recommended readings: Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett, Organizing from the Inside Out byJulie Morgenstern. Or just do a Gogle search and fire up your motivation with whatever stokes you.