For most of my life, I have been what I consider “scrappy.” I did have one relatively brief flirtation with the pursuit of material things. It lasted about a year and a half, and was born from a number of events that are another story entirely. For the most part, however, I have not followed the normal trajectory of pursuing “stuff”. Stuff does not usually interest me unless it enhances the things I can do. Experiences therefore reign supreme.
“We move from a teeming college dorm to an apartment to a house, and if we’re really wealthy, to an estate. We think we’re moving up, but really we’re walling ourselves off.” - Eric Weiner
The chase for more is born from mimetic desires. We form our desires by studying the desires of other people. It is only natural because we are social creatures. It is what salesmen and influencers prey on.
On a materialistic level, we pursue the homes, cars, clothes, shoes, gadgets, devices, and screens that everyone is in a chase to own. The race makes us frenzied dogs foaming at the mouth for more. We believe we need “it”, whatever “it” is. A model flaunts it in a chic location, under a perfect lighting scheme. It sheens on a corporate VP’s wrist, and the diamonds tantalize! It is everywhere, omnipresent, hovering around us like God, whispering to us that we lack it, but that perhaps if we swipe our credit cards it will bring us salvation. Salvation, of course, is constantly just out of our grasp.
I try to remember: there are some races that are impossible to win.
I have never felt much mimetic desire for things. Only when mistakenly engaging myself in a social competition do they arise. Only for one brief period did I give in to the race. For the most part, however, I was never even on the track.
I lived in a garage during my last year in Los Angeles. I followed that with three years of living with my parents, in my old bedroom, while I worked full time.
For my first major foray into work, I bought one pair of twenty dollar shoes at Wal-Mart and wore them until the soles were completely removed from the uppers.
I drove the first college vehicle I bought until I moved to China, and owning one vehicle felt like owning one too many. I sold it when I knew I was China-bound.
I lived in the cheapest apartment in Chapel Hill with a roommate shortly after moving out of my parents’ house, with approximately 700 total square feet of space to share. I rented it because it was the cheapest apartment I’d ever heard of.
I moved to China for two years. Most of my first year was spent in a dormitory with little heating and no A/C. I spent the summers sweating and the winters sleeping in my winter gloves, jacket, and scarf. I spent most of my second year in an apartment bedroom smaller than most closets. It had a severe roach infestation that I battled until my return to the United States.
My homes, my clothes, my shoes, my cars, were often the worst, and I never cared. I never cared because it meant avoiding debt.
Harsh conditions do not trouble me, nor do people with nice things.
I returned to America at age 33 and it is probably no surprise that scrappiness is now engrained in me. My current apartment is 800 square feet and that feels like way too much. I bought a car fully with cash in 2019 and it also felt like too much, so I sold it in 2020.
I am scrappy by nature. I prefer to sweat. I enjoy wiping dead bugs off my brow and legs after a long summer bike ride.
My mind goes to day 2 of my recent bikepacking adventure. I’m somewhere outside the north entrance to Skyline Drive, at a camp site pretty far removed from what most would call “civilization.”
Next to our tent is a trailer, and outside the trailer is a shirtless man, living alone, drinking a beer and watching the sunset. He’s smiling, but it isn’t the simple urban smile of someone posing for a selfie in front of a cappuccino. Out by the Blue Ridge Mountains, he has nothing he needs to buy. He’s smiling because the mountains are enough.
Remove exposure to those who desire things, and you remove the desires for those same things.
This means removing the people who pursue “more” from your close proximity, but it also means removing exposure to the gadgets that bring them within close proximity.
This is no easy task. How badly do you want to leave behind your longing for more?