one plate, one fork, one spoon

12 Jul 1999 1 Comment

by Jeff Covey in ramblings, simplicity

time to explain the title of this section.

last winter, i checked living the simple life, another of elaine st. james’s books, out of the library. it had a bibliography in the back which i photocopied before i returned the book, and i’ve read a couple of the recommended books. one of them was clutter control by jeff campbell. i followed his excellent advice, and have moved my house to a more livable state (though i still have more i want to do).

one phrase which i believe i picked up from living the simple life is “one plate, one fork, one spoon”, meaning simply that you don’t need more than one of each. the dining room was a real disaster before i started; dan had collected coffee mugs, and they were all over. the only one that meant anything to me was the one which he gave me on valentine’s day, so it was kept out while the others went into boxes and into the spare bedroom. ^[1] there were many glasses of all sizes sitting on the shelf gathering dust, even though i only used a couple of them. in the drawers of the cabinets, there were huge stacks of plates, dozens of knives and forks, and more mugs and glasses. there were things i never used, like glass butter holders and egg toppers. the drawers were so heavy that i only opened them reluctantly.

into boxes it all went, and up to the storage room. now i just keep three (in case of guests) of each frequently-used item in the drawers. if i decide to throw a banquet (highly unlikely), i can just get what i need out of the boxes. in the meantime, it’s not in my way. the drawers open and shut easily, but i usually don’t even need to open them; i use my one plate, my one fork, and my one spoon, then wash them and put them back in the dish drainer. the next time i need them, they’re right there in the open. the sink is empty; it used to be filled with dishes when i had the option of grabbing another plate from the drawer instead of washing the one.

in the dhammapada, the first words of shakyamuni buddha are:

we are what we think.
all that we are arises with our thoughts.
with our thoughts we make the world.

if you’re susceptible to influence as i am, what you think is in part a result of what you see. if you see disorder and confusion, garbage and waste, these things become a part of your thinking and a part of you. a clean and orderly and simple home is an important aid to a happier life.

footnotes

1. i would love to simply get rid of a lot of the things around here (like two of the three woks), but unfortunately, they don’t belong to me, so they’ll have to sit in (well-labeled) boxes until dan’s sister decides what she wants to do with them.

giving away/selling the stuff you don’t use is the best thing to do with it; it doesn’t do anyone any good in storage, and someone could be using it. i realized this about my collection of books which were sitting on the shelf un-reread, so i packed them up and donated them to the library down the street. if i need one of them again, i can go check it out. in the meantime, it’s available to anyone who wants it.

work

10 Jul 1999 Leave a Comment

by Jeff Covey in ramblings, simplicity

the first item is the reason why i’m able to write this at all. if you’ve followed my what’s new page, you’ll know that i haven’t added anything to these pages in almost two months, despite my best intentions. i’ve just been way too busy. since i started working for andover in february, there’s been a lot of steady work to get ldc on its feet, and it’s only now reached the point at which it’s a little easier to keep it going on a day-to-day basis.

but it wasn’t just that andover was taking a lot of my time, it’s that i had a number of other small jobs hanging around as well. i still had a lot of students at the laurel school of music, so i had to go there (an hour round-trip drive) twice a week. i was still getting called to come and help people with their computers. i still had to drive to umbc each week (40 minute round-trip) to teach my two students, if either of them showed up. i still had to update webpages and write the bcgs newsletter. it was just too much to move into a closer-to-full-time situation with andover while still carrying all the other baggage. i could have gone back to my stay-up-all-night ways of college days, but that’s a losing game.

i wasn’t doing myself or anyone else any good by trying to do it all, so i cut back. this is a little scary when you’re used to having many disparate sources of income; you worry about putting all your eggs into one employer’s basket. i convinced myself it was necessary, and i did some hacking away at my job list and stopped accepting new jobs. i’ll still do work for people who have employed me for years (especially if it’s work i can do from home), but when someone new calls and wants me to come over to his house and figure out why his digital camera isn’t working, i tell him i don’t do that anymore. i’ve turned down some of the old people, also. for example, one lady has had me drive out to her house three times in as many years because windows keeps crashing on her and it doesn’t dawn on her that there’s nothing anyone can do to fix closed code. the pay is all right, but the drive is interminable. ^[1] so, when she called again a few weeks ago, i just apologized and said i couldn’t do it. one part of me worries about burning bridges, but the more rational part realizes that i have enough skills that i’ll have no problem finding more work if i need it. (in a world in which people are amazed when you change the image on their root window, it’s hard for even a quasi-geek to stay unemployed.)

my biggest reason for turning down a job is that it involves leaving the house. at first, i thought leaving each day to go to a job would be a good incentive to get out and enjoy the fresh air, meet people, etc. in practice, it meant getting dressed in uncomfortable clothes, spending time in traffic to get to a workplace, walking just from the car to a building, and sitting down and working. i’m much happier leaving the house because i’m going to do something i want to do. i’d rather just go out and take a walk and say hello to my neighbors. if i’m driving somewhere, i’d rather it was to meet friends or to take my laptop to the state park and work at a picnic table.

so things are falling into a better place in terms of work. if they keep moving in a good direction, i’ll have more time for things i want to do, like writing these notes.

footnotes

1. in your money or your life, joe dominguez and vicki robin point out that to really understand what you’re earning from a job, you have to subtract from your payment all of the expenses that are required in order for you to do the job. in the instance of me driving out to the county to play with doze, that would include:

1. the gas to get me there
2. the wear and tear on my car
3. the cost of keeping two wardrobes, one that i wear at home and one that i wear to job sites
4. the cost of eating somewhere on the way back if it’s late and i don’t want to wait to get home and cook
5. and perhaps the largest item of all: how much money could i be making in the time that i’m driving? if it takes me an hour to get there, i spend an hour there, and i spend an hour driving back, i would have made three times the money if i’d stayed home and worked instead.

calculated this way, i’m actually paying someone a huge amount for the privilege of doing work i don’t like.