crunchysteve

This week, for a few days, at least, I'm at "Splodge's" place as she begins yet another health journey. Her sister has just taken her to the first treatment and I'm here with my thoughts and Helboi, the black, medium-hair cat. I'm also 3D printing drumming robot parts while I wait for Splodge's return, and I'm marvelling at this brave new world that hath such things in it. I too often go, "Oh yeah, cool tech," without considering the human journey that led to the devices we take for granted.

I also have pangs of guilt about the plastic waste I generate. Is this really a low impact life? Power tools, CNC machines, a toybox shaped like a garbage skip, as my wastes bin, three-quarters full of sprues and fails. A 10 litre bucket at Splodge's doing similar duty. It's taken me more than 6 years to generate this much waste, less than 10kg of PLA (a "biodegradeable" plastic) and PETG (recyclable) and we never see how much waste commercial manufacturers issue. My prints tend to the functional that can't be bought. Like brackets for robotic drum kits...

This is such a juxataposition to my commitment to the environment and living simply, at least at first glance. However, even if everybody had the ability to use this tech, I have this hunch, we might value our things more and make them last longer. For example, I have prototypes on display as decoration around my workshop/music studio that were never fit for purpose and were replaced by my robot army the next day. Yet, I can't bring myself to discard them to the "Bin of Shame." They're my "children!" Almost as beloved as my actual daughters! They were born of my creativity just as my songs were. They failed on a practicality, or were done as CAD learning exercise and all have an elegance that pleases me.

How does this fit with simplicity? How does being an electric and electronic musician and designer fit with my environmentalism? I truly don't know, but I keep my discards in a bin, rather than putting them in the wheelie bin for collection by the "magic truck" that makes waste "disappear." I conduct experiments in ways to reuse my PLA. For example, the CNC mill I'm building, to machine parts from project panel made by melting wastes in non-stick baking trays in a toaster oven. I haven't finished the CNC yet. There are parts to print and the printer at home is playing up again...

So, while there is great complexity in workshop tools, EDM musical instruments, electric guitars and amplification and recording equipment, these things communicate my ideas and emotions in ways that people can see and hear. In ways I cannot with my voice or writing. I speak english but not in ways most people around me understand. So, these complex tools allow me, and my autistic tendencies, to live and communicate, even commune with my world, more simply than I could without them.

Besides, technology has made human life less of a subsistance struggle and has given us incredible safety from the elements and from violence. Even if some have created machines of violence, the vast majority of machines have made life easier. It's not the tool that's the problem, it's whether you're a "tool" in your application of the tools around us. Living simply is complex. See if you can figure out if you use your tech wisely and efficiently, minimising your wastes, material, financial or energy. That, I believe is the essence of living simply.