Low Tech, Long Lasting

Our culture has created a high-tech, throw-away society. The high-tech part can be alluring and exciting to us all—to wit, the long lines outside a big box store when the latest electronic doodad goes on sale. Furthermore, due to rapid improvements that are made in these products, manufacturers are encouraged to make them shoddy and fragile. Who expects them to last? They quickly get trashed and replaced. We consumers are encouraged to do our part to participate in an ever-expanding economy; never to feel satisfied, to constantly be grasping for more.

Years ago my spouse and I migrated from the city out to the country, to explore living closer to the land—what is often referred to as “simple living.” It really is anything but simple, since it requires a lot of effort and a complex routine to make a go of it. Since it also bucks the trend of a high-tech, throw-away lifestyle, a more accurate term for our approach might be a “low-tech, long-lasting” lifestyle.

What are we seeking, as we attempt to live a low-tech, long-lasting existence? A major goal is that it requires a minimal income and hence allows us to achieve as much freedom as possible from a dependence on having a good income and acquiring stuff. It’s a non-consumerist path. It also requires more of a do-it-yourself lifestyle, that finds us seeking ways to indefinitely maintain or construct our own doodads. Its greatest reward is that it can lead you to have more time to value the more mundane things of this world—such as the satisfaction of using a fine hand tool, walks in the woods, pausing to gaze at a sunset, or sitting and watching a new kind of bug crawl up your arm.

Low tech, long lasting means that one seeks doodads that are durable, uncomplicated, and well suited to a purpose. A simple hand tool can be a lifetime companion. Low-tech items are also easier on the environment—they use fewer resources and create less trash.

Some of the ways we’ve tried to practice the low-tech, long-lasting lifestyle are to buy vehicles and appliances that last (good luck!), buy hand tools, carefully wash and wear clothes until they get thin and gauzy, repair broken items, and search for doodads that are tough. It’s a process that teaches you, the more you get into it.

The low-tech, long-lasting life is a struggle, when one lives in a high-tech, throw-away world. It’s going against the cultural grain. For example, it often requires a lengthy search trying to find the low-tech and durable items that hide like needles in commercial haystacks. It can be a path that’s strewn with false starts and mistakes; when you think you’ve selected an item that will last, only to find that it’s another flimsy doodad that quickly breaks down.

No, the low-tech, long-lasting lifestyle is not simple. How much effort do you put into seeking enduring items? When do you give up the struggle and take the easier, less sustainable route? When do you compromise, in order to live in this world and communicate with it? It’s a never-ending challenge. Even the answers are not simple.