by James Wallace Harris, 1/25/25
I love computers and digital devices but I have too many of them. For some reason getting old is making me anxious about owning stuff. Like the instinct that makes birds fly south for the winter, aging has triggered an instinct to simplify my life. I’m still young enough to want all the junk I have, but I’m going through an in-between aging stage, where I want to keep stuff and get rid of it at the same time. That anxiety is gnawing at me more and more.
I will give an analogy that young people might not understand. On the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s, Ed would have these guys who could spin plates on the top of sticks. They could keep a row of plates spinning on sticks by running between them and jiggling each stick. Being young means you have the energy and dexterity to quickly run between lots of spinning plates, but when you get older, you slow down and can only keep a few spinning.
Being 73 isn’t that old, but it’s old enough to start feeling I need to spin fewer plates. Deciding what activities I love that I need to quit is stressful. At 73, I’m already old enough to let a bunch of spinning plates fall. That’s depressing, but I don’t have the energy to keep up. I’m starting to lose the energy to even care, which is scarier. I need to decide which activities I love the most that I can manage, and psychically let go of the other ones.
I realize I’ve already been doing this for years, but I’ve been letting activities go that didn’t matter much. What hurts is realizing which activities and ambitions I still hope to pursue that I need to stop thinking about.
When I retired in 2013, I thought I’d do many things with programming and computers. I thought about getting an M.S. in Computer Science even though I would never work as a programmer again. But none of that happened. I thought I would at least learn to program Python for fun. That didn’t happen. I had many ideas for programs I wanted to write but never did. I see that I only programmed when people were paying me.
For years, I’ve kept buying computers and piddling around with them. My most productive activity was scanning old pulp magazines and science fiction fanzines to put on the Internet Archive, but I’ve stopped because of diminishing energy. However, I’ve kept all these computers, scanners, and other devices for all my dream projects that need to be thinned out.
I don’t know if my Hamlet nature keeps me from committing to one computer operating system, or if I’m a child in a toyshop who screams he wants everything. However, mining three computer systems with three different operating systems has become a pain in my psyche.
Reality tells me to give up several dreams and the equipment that went with them. Why keep a Midi keyboard after I discovered I have no musical talent? Well, I kept it thinking someday I’d see how much I could do with Garage Band on the Mac with minimal talent. I’m sure that’s a delusion.
I need to jettison everything I plan to use that is obvious that I will never use. I’ve had this insight many times before but never could pull the trigger. The present reality is my energy reserves are getting so low that too much of them are being wasted on keeping impractical hopes alive. I must commit to the operating systems and computer equipment that will do the most for my aging future self.
If Microsoft wasn’t so heavy-handed in constantly adding features and monitoring my computer, I would make everything Windows. But there isn’t a Windows phone. If I didn’t dislike MacOS so much, I could settle on buying everything from Apple, because I love my iPhone and iPad. I do love Mac hardware, I just don’t like MacOS. And if I had my druthers, I’d go Linux and use all FOSS programs because I admire the concept of open source.
The idealistic computer geek in me wants to choose Linux. And I could realistically pick Linux if I knew I’d never wanted to scan magazines again. Picking Linux also means giving up Microsoft Office. Picking Linux also means living as a computer user minority.
I love my Mac Mini M4 machine because it’s quiet. I love my Mac Air M1 laptop because the hardware is deluxe. And I can use MacOS just fine. I just prefer how Windows, or even Linux works better. However, Linux and Macs aren’t compatible with all my hardware and software.
The most universally useful computer I have is my Windows machine. My favorite phone is my iPhone. My favorite tablet is my iPad Mini. I like Android because it allows for microSD cards and is more open, but it’s nowhere near as easy to use as iOS. I wish iOS devices allowed microSD cards. Buying extra storage for iPhones and iPads is so damn expensive.
I wish I had 2TB of storage on every device I owned to fully replicate my Dropbox filesystem to every device. Dropbox is fantastic as long as I have the space to replicate everything. Selective sync could work, but it seems to have disappeared as a feature on my Mac and Linux machines. I could get an iPad Pro with 2TB of memory, but it’s $2000, and even then I’m unsure if it would sync my Dropbox drive. Maybe I should give up needing 2 terabytes of old files.
I would simplify my life by keeping my Windows computer, Mac Air M1, iPhone, and iPad Mini. But wouldn’t it be more logical to keep my Mac Mini M4 and be compatible with my other Apple devices I don’t want to give up? As Mr. Spock would say, “That is the logical solution.” But damn, I don’t know if I could walk away from Windows.
I could test the logical solution by packing away my Windows and Linux machines for several months to see how I feel.
And maybe that’s an approach I could try with other things I own. Just pack them away, and see how long I can live without them. If I can, then get rid of them.
I wrote this essay to think things through. I realize now, that I’ve written myself into a decision. I’ll let you know if I can overcome my Hamlet complex and commit.
I have decided to pack two computer systems away. I just don’t know which two.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 