Longing for a simpler experience

Hot sauce at a truck stop in Texas

Choice is great. But if there are too many choices, getting to our destination takes longer.

Variety is the spice of life. But too much variety can force a fight with indecision.

I am very decisive and always have been. But sometimes, the sheer volume of choices is overwhelming.

And the mood I’m in makes a vast difference – if I am tired, I don’t want a lot of choices. Since I’m a morning person, facing a lot of choices in the morning is a much better experience than staring down a wall of choices at the end of a long day of work.

I’d love to start a chain of small stores that only have a few high-quality reasonably-priced items in each category. (Investors, give me a shout!)

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Writing vs Typing

picture of handwriting compared to typesetting

Beautiful expensive pens.

The Wall Street Journal often features luxury items that are out of the range of all but the upper .001%. The New Status Symbol? Think Ink featured Marc Newson Pens by Hermès for a mere $1,670 and the $400 El Casco Stapler.

Since I love pens, I read the article with gusto. I am not attracted to hand-made solid gold fountain pens, but I do appreciate fine art.

Besides digging into the hardware, the writers also delved a bit into why writing a message by hand is more meaningful than typing off an email.

I agree.

The article includes an interview with Tom Dixon, whose London-based furniture, lighting and interior design firm also sells fine pens and pencils. I disagreed with part of his thought in reference to those who handwrite, “Maybe superior communication is a more thoughtfully, artfully and carefully constructed message.”

When I write a personal email, I spend time going back and editing the content, such that my final thought truly says what I mean.

I do love writing letters by hand. My brother, who lives in Texas, is the recipient of the bulk of my handwriting.

As he could attest, few of those letters contain anything of great significance. But I enjoy the experience of dragging a smooth ballpoint across the back of a scrap letter-sized piece of paper. The resulting letters are more me than Helvetica or Myriad.

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One small change

article about the evils of sugar with a cup of water

Sugar has been linked to diabetes and obesity, over and over. And yet we love it. I say, “we,” because I love a good chocolate bar or delicious cookie as much as anyone.

The Christmas holiday season (or Kwanzaa, if that’s your holiday) is filled with opportunities to enjoy all manner of sugary delights. At my office, a visit to the communal break room table provides many joy-filled moments throughout the month of December. Vendors gift us with a constant flow of fun treats.

It’s very hard to stop indulging.

But there is one thing I’ve found that cuts at least a little bit of sugar from my diet… no more juice at breakfast.

Instead, I drink ice water.

At first, I really missed my glass of orange juice. But after only a week, the pain was completely gone. Now water provides a refreshing contrast to my bowl of cereal with milk.

Give it a try! Before you say, “Forget this, I’m going back to juice,” do it for a week or two to see if you can break the juice habit.


A final benefit to this change is that it will save your budget a bit of change.

 

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Not porpoises but cows

Bentley Continental convertible

“Gray accent leather on the doors and the top of the instrument panel is called Porpoise, but, like other hides, it comes from land animals and not sea creatures” – from a Car and Driver article about the Bentley Continental GT V-8 S.

Why is it that the thought of someone killing porpoises for our use is more repellant than the thought of someone killing cows for our use?

Flipper.

When I was a kid, Flipper was a TV show about a friendly sea creature that came to the rescue of different people every week. Think Lassie in the sea.

I don’t know of any TV shows about friendly cows.

The quote about Bentley’s choice of an upholstery name made me think of the whole veganism culture and philosophies – one end of the animal rights spectrum. Porpoise killers might be the other end of the spectrum.

And then I thought of my friend who is a cattle rancher in Oklahoma. She loves her cows more than just about anybody I know. And yet she sells them to be slaughtered.

I don’t know how to reconcile all these things.


  • The photo is courtesy of the Bentley website and is used without permission.
  • If there are any modern TV shows starring animals, I wouldn’t know them, since I watch very little mainstream TV.
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