Tools
Current location: Milwaukee, WI, USA
Reading: The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
Listening: Oak Tree by Tank and The Bangas
(if you have a moment, reply with your own 3-item status)
Tools
When I'm learning something new and looking to veteran practitioners of that field, study, or craft to see how they do things, I almost always find they're less fixated on gear than newbies and middling-range practitioners.
Instead, they tend to concern themselves with how they use the tools they've got, and how they might accomplish what they want to accomplish with what they have at hand.
This isn't universal, and there are many cases in which a next-step in one's development as a chef or photographer or mechanic or whatever else will be marked by the acquisition of some new piece of equipment. There's a ceiling on what we can accomplish with some tools, no matter how skillfully we use them.
That said, I seldom see professional painters obsessing over a particular brand of brush or folks who've been playing guitar for 60-years worrying that they won't sound good unless they can figure out how to afford a higher-end instrument.
They might appreciate well-made tools and the companies and craftspeople who make them, but they don't rely upon those tools to do what they do: the quality of their work is not tool-dependent, it's skill- and knowledge-dependent.
They use expired gym membership cards instead of fancy-pants paint scrapers, and they'll whip out brilliant, toe-tapping music on a cheap, second-hand Yamaha picked up at a local yard sale for $40.
Part of why so many of us fixate on the gear—the equipment—when we're looking into a new trade or pastime, I think, is that we're self-conscious about our capabilities and convince ourselves we'll be better, we will output superior stuff, if we use pro-grade equipment; the nifty, high-end tools that transmute dabblers into dazzlers.
This subconscious shorthanding of the meandering, arduous process of growing as a maker-of-things is appealing because it implies we can just pay a fee (the price of these tools) to bypass the learning and practice actually required to hone our skills and understandings.
The companies behind these products will sometimes lean into this assumption, marketing their wares as the solution to our "not skillful, yet" problem, implying with their marketing materials and relationships with actual pros that using the same tools will make us pros, as well—reversing cause and effect in a financially beneficial (if factually inaccurate) way.
As someone who loves learning about and experimenting with unfamiliar (or under-explored (by me)) topics and domains, I remind myself, regularly, that the stuff isn't the point, and ideally my growth determines the tools I buy, not the other way around.
Rather than investing in tools that're beyond my skill- and knowledge-level—things I'm not yet capable of using purposefully and appropriately—I try to learn until I've outgrown what I've got, and only then, when I'm knowledgable enough to know what the proper next-steps (and associated tools) look like, do I invest in my next round of kit.
This process continues throughout my educational journey: my progress determining if and when I buy new things, based on when I've outgrown my existing setup.
Often, in my experience at least, I can just keep using the stuff I've got in increasingly clever and sophisticated ways. And sometimes that means making my own tools rather than buying something new, because I've become capable and confident enough to do so (whereas previously I wouldn't have thought that possible or admissible).
I also find it both satisfying and practical to upcycle and repurpose whenever feasible.
This might mean using stuff I already own to fill the role of gear I don't have but might find valuable, but it can also mean looking for folks who've recently stepped up to the next level (or ceased their exploration) to see if I can buy their hand-me-downs.
This serves the double-purpose of avoiding over-consumption as I expand the size of my tool-arsenal, while also tempering any "I want fancy, shiny new stuff" impulses that might arise as I'm considering an upgrade.
Perusing used, well-loved options is often more interesting and aesthetically satisfying (in a wabi-sabi sense), I sometimes learn something from the folks whose stuff I'm buying, which is fun, and it also leads to less overall waste.
This approach allows me to infuse existing tools with more life, in many cases even beyond my use of them, as I can continue this cycle and hand them—and some of what I've learned—off to yet another person if and when I outgrow them.
Which is a dynamic I enjoy because of how it tempers consumption while also turning these products into artifacts, imbuing them with multiple lives and purposes; getting a lot out of them, while also making them more than they would otherwise be, if simply bought, used, and discarded.
Looking at things from a more macro-scale, this is also a good way to ensure good, cheap tools remain in circulation for each new generation of learner to acquire and appreciate.
If you found some value in this essay, consider supporting my work by buying me a coffee :)
——
——
Projects
Select, recent works from across my project portfolio.
Aspiring Generalist: Stopped Saving
Brain Lenses: Free
I Will Read To You: My Shadow
Let’s Know Things: 2022 Crypto Crash
Curiosity Weekly / Daily: May 24 / May 24
One Sentence News: May 25 (podcast version)
——
Interesting & Useful
Who We Spend Time with as We Get Older — flowingdata.com
In high school, we spend most of our days with friends and immediate family. Then we get older and get jobs, get married, and grow our own families to spend more time with co-workers, spouses, and kids.
A Very Detailed View Of A Crater On Planet Mars — www.youtube.com
HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) is the most powerful camera ever sent to another planet, one of six instruments onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Mapped: Immigration by Country, as a Percentage of the Population — www.visualcapitalist.com Immigrants account for 3.5% of the global population, but where are they more or less prevalent? This map shows immigration by country.
——
——
Outro
I received a lot of very thoughtful, open, gracious, vulnerable responses to last week's essay on grief.
Thanks to everyone who responded and shared something, and if you're grieving (anything or nothing in particular) right now, know that you're not alone, you're not bad or crazy or flawed, and you're doing great just muddling through (even if it sometimes doesn't seem like it).
Also please feel free to write and just say hello, vent, ramble, or whatever else you're feeling at the moment—I'm around, I respond to every message I get (usually within a week, depending on the heft of my inbox) and would love to hear from you.
Receiving messages from folks living around the world is one of my favorite things about the work I do, so if you just want to tell me a quick blip about yourself and/or what you're up to, that would be very welcome, as well. You can reach me by replying to this newsletter or by writing to colin@exilelifestyle.com.
You can also communicate via the usual methods: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Earth clock.
If you’re finding some value in what I’m doing here, consider supporting my work: Become an Understandary member / Buy me a coffee