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Repairing Stuff Is Good for the Environment, and Good for Your Mind
It fosters creativity, develops your skills, saves you money, and teaches the next generation. What more do you want?
I have a minimalist view of material things. I am happier if I have less stuff around me. My kids typically get into disputes about material things, but never do so when I take my time to play cards with them. I hate to receive a present which I don’t need and to take an effort to dispose of it properly.
Besides material things making people unhappy, I don’t think we’re doing the environment a favor by adding more and more material things.
How can we exit the trap?
By returning to a century-old skill: Fixing stuff. Here’s an example.
Recently, one of our six deck chairs broke. The fabric seat tore, no way to fix that at first sight. Another one of the deck chairs had a crack in the backrest for some time.
So I spent some time cannibalizing the two broken deck chairs into one. I ended up with five intact deck chairs after an investment of around one hour.
Why was I happy about it, and why do I think fixing a simple item such as a deck chair is not just good for the environment, but also good for the mind?
1. It Fosters Creativity
There is a Japanese philosophy called Wabi Sabi.
Wabi is about recognizing beauty in humble simplicity. It invites us to open our hearts and detach from the vanity of materialism so we can experience spiritual richness instead.
Sabi is concerned with the passage of time, the way all things grow, age, and decay, and how it manifests itself beautifully in objects. It suggests that beauty is hidden beneath the surface of what we see, even in what we initially perceive as broken.
Combine Wabi and Sabi, and you see that beautiful things are created that you couldn’t buy anew. The example I like most is a broken bowl that was glued together with liquid gold. It’s unique, it’s creative, it’s aesthetic, and it’s fixed.
