I love keeping my electronics neat and clean. Generally a pretty shabby person, I seek comfort in the fact that atleast my electronics are clean. A consequence of which, as you might have excepted, I have a whole cleaning kit for my electronics. This weekend my Macbook was looking pretty messed up, especially with all of the fingerprints on my screen (which magically seem to appear for no reason what so ever). So deciding to clean the object I use for 12 hours a day or more, I spray the screen with a special liquid meant for cleaning sensitive screens or atleast advertised to be so.
Well long story short, I should not have done that. This ended up causing a small scratch on the screen, which upon later reading I found that others have had experiences worse then what I had with their Macbook screens and cleaning liquids. I had gotten very lucky.
Over the next couple of days, I kept using my Macbook as normal, however something in the back of my head just couldn’t let go of the fact that my brand new Macbook is now used in my mind. I know for a fact that this is wrong grammar but the laptop was essentially no longer new in my head. This got me interested into why we like new and shiny objects so much. I didn’t really need to get into a big rabbit hole over it, we know why we like shiny objects: It’s cause they are shiny and new. It is a universally self explained phenomena.
This however got me wondering about the opposite: can we come to love used objects too?
It’s a pretty straight forward yet a beautifully complex topic to think about. Isn’t the purpose on an object to be used? If that is true, doesn’t an object being used inherently make it valuable and hence deserve equal amount, if not more amount of love and respect as compared to the new one?
Think about your bag that you carry to your school or office, it is something that is so integral to your everyday life, yet if an opportunity to buy a new bag comes across, you and me would probably jump at it and never think twice about the bag that served you so well. This really might just me projecting on you the innocent reader, but our seasonal fashion or fast fashion if you may, do validate me to a good extent.
Wabi-Sabi
This is when I discovered Wabi Sabi. Here’s Wabi Sabi summarized by an LLM:
**Wabi-sabi** is a Japanese aesthetic and worldview that finds beauty in imperfection, impermanence, and simplicity. It values natural wear, irregularity, and the passage of time—seeing these qualities as reflections of authenticity and truth. Rooted in Zen Buddhism, wabi-sabi encourages mindfulness and appreciation of the transient nature of all things. In essence, it celebrates the quiet, imperfect beauty of everyday life.
I left in the ** just to rage bait, but that is pretty apt definition of Wabi-Sabi.
I am not familiar with Japanese and this is taken verbatim, but Wabi-Sabi written in Japanese is: 侘寂 (wabi-sabi)
Wabi (侘) the word suggests a humble, simple, and contented way of life.
Sabi (寂) the word means the beauty that comes with age
Together, wabi-sabi roughly translates to the beauty of imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete things. I love how Zen Buddhism makes everything seem like 10 times more poetic than they are perceived to be, but I do agree. We don’t appreciate the transient nature of our existence and as an extension of that, the transient nature of everything else around us.
Another very interesting concept that ties into this is described in the Bhagavad Gita: The concept of समदुःखसुख (Samaduhkhasukha):
सम (sama) = equal, balanced दुःख (duḥkha) = sorrow, pain सुख (sukha) = happiness, pleasure
Samaduhkhasukha refers to being level headed and maintaining your cool in both sorrow and happiness. How we treat our old things talks more about us than how we treat our new things. How you treat your 3 year old laptop tells me more than how you treat your brand new Macbook. How you treat your elders talks more about your values than how you treat your friend.
The concept of Wabi-Sabi has lead to me making some decisions that I am glad I did. Here are some of them:
I have not updated my blob or my portfolio in over a year and recently I picked up the habit of blogging again. Normally this would mean that I essentially rewrite my blog’s entire architecture and site. This would most likely result in me loosing interest and consistency blogging. I like my current website. I like that it carried me till now. So I shall continue blogging on it. You are currently reading this blog on a website with legacy.
After getting my first Macbook, my first instinct was to buy the latest iPhone. My Andriod phone has served me well and continues to do so. I am glad I did not buy an iPhone for the sake of it. If I do end up buying one, it shall be with the proper reasons If I do end up buying one, it shall be with proper reasons.
There are many more cases where this has helped me think things through and appreciate the beauty of used objects more.
Pitfalls
This is not to say that there are not pitfalls to this kind of thinking. I do take the shiny object. I did not stick to older programming practices even after the advent of AI.
It is equally important to know when to choose the shiny object. The only ask is to choose it wisely and to always respect the legacy of the used object that led you to obtain the shiny one.
You don’t break your starter house in Minecraft when building a new one, but don’t live in the mud shack forever as well.