Living Ultralight

As it is the beginning of a new year, we recently renewed our Navigo passes for the whole year. Although it is a bit painful to pay for the whole year up front, I prefer that to giving out bank account information for monthly payments. The choice to use the public transportation system exclusively puts us in the minority for middle class families well outside of Paris. In fact, we are the only family in our neighborhood without a car. Rather than go over why we don’t have a car, a topic which I’ve covered previously, I think it would be more interesting to explain the philosophy behind these types of decisions.

It’s a philosophy very similar to ultralight hiking, in which the hiker attempts to reduce the weight of the backpack and its contents by as much as possible. Just like a hiker has the capacity to carry weight, our family has the capacity to pay for things and to manage things. Also similarly to the hiker’s backpack, payments and the time needed to manage our affairs are a burden. When hiking ultralight, a person has to identify the things they absolutely must have, such as a sleeping bag, food, etc. and come up with a strategy to carry all the necessities while minimizing the weight. Nothing is an objective decision, as one could always argue about the necessity of some of the stuff a person carries, and if a lighter version of the gear is available, but with fewer features, etc. In life, we face the same type of decisions.

We can handle buying a car, and paying for insurance, and paying for gas, and paying for a driver’s license for my wife. We could pay for occasional repairs. A hiker could say the same type of thing, and many do. It always bothers me immensely when a hiker claims that there is more convenience or comfort to carrying a lot of luxury items. I remember when I met the first hiker who said that, in Southern Florida. He and his partner were taking a break to smoke because their 70 pound packs had tired them out after less than a mile into Big Cypress National Preserve. He saw my small pack and explained that they brought more stuff in order to be comfortable. The problem that ultralight hikers have identified with this is that the logic doesn’t add up. Distance hikers are obligated to spend more time hiking than camping, and it is decidedly inconvenient to carry a lot of stuff that does not get used much.

The payments aren’t the only issue. Time spent managing things is a real drag. For example, I always cringe when I open up an application and see that it has included a hundred or so modules of all different types. Even if there are some strategies to minimize the burden of loading or build times, developers won’t even know when modules are no longer used, as there are simply too many to track. The bottom line is that we need to stop thinking if we can do the job by adding something.

We need to figure out if it is possible to do the job without adding anything. If not, perhaps we can exchange something we currently use for something else which can do multiple things. For a hiker, that could be my stealth quilt, which served as a sleeping bag as well as a wearable down layer on the few occasions when the cold merited it. For my family, that could be a trailer for my bicycle, which I can use to get groceries, Christmas trees, or packages. It’s not a lot of fun getting groceries with the bicycle, but it is immensely satisfying not to pay for a car. I always go with the light solution that can still work without being too inconvenient, and I have a higher tolerance than most for inconveniences. It’s a strategy that has been working well so far, and that we hope will work again this year.