I have to admit that it was really nice to get away, even if just for a few days!
I also have to admit that I cast only a cursory glace at my email — from whence the title of this post came — yesterday afternoon and today because I felt no particular sense of urgency to get back into the grind of things.
It does make me wonder how we arrived at this state of being where it seems like we consider "hard work as being next to godliness."
Or something along those lines.
If you consider history, the majority humans tended to work about as much and as long as was necessary to feed/house families, villages, tribes or whatever.
Which seems perfectly reasonable.
Of course, in those times most people weren't encumbered by notions that they "had to have" 5,000 square foot McMansions in order to feel like they were "doing life appropriately."
The little cabin in which we stayed had precisely the following: A place to cook and eat, a place to sleep, a place to sit and read/do, and a place to poop and keep yourself washed.
These are pretty much the basics of life.
With time on my hands to sit and think, I found myself considering the way that I used to think that would be enough — back when I was at University — and was promptly described as "lazy and lacking ambition" because I wasn't having fever dreams about ruling the world and having a mansion on a hilltop.
It also makes me wonder how much effort, blood, sweat and tears we pour into something that might be characterized as a form of psychological virtue signaling: do we actually seek these things because they represent something we genuinely want or do we primarily pursue them because of the "message" they telegraph to the world about how we see ourselves... and how we want others to see us?
The more years roll on by, the more I come to realize that I am quite content with less of most things.
Including less time reading (likely) useless email!
Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful rest of your week!
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2026.06.16 01:26 PDT
1575/2839
Bed, bath, kitchen, a place to entertain a few guests, and laundry. Oh, and a library/craft space. Those are the essentials.
Agreed. Just the basics.
A while back, I read a (somewhat cynical) explanation for the way the "average" US home has grown as being primarily to be a "storage container" for eternally more stuff.
I doin't think it's too far off the mark...
The housing market has been severely distorted since at least the 1990s as political pressure to expand lending and reduce interest rates led to greater and greater speculation, too. Developers approved for more money wanted to get the most bang for the buck and built bigger and bigger houses with cheaper and cheaper materials, leading to HOAs full of McMansions that often became maintenance nightmares.
When I was a draftsman before the 2007/2008 housing collapse really hit home here, I know clients were always focused more on "how big can we build it" instead of "what do we really need, and how can it be done most efficiently." All the serious architects and remodelers wanted to encourage people to think smaller and build better, but sheer square footage bragging rights were still the mindset during the bubble, and became the focus for politicians planning a "recovery" to reinflate it.
But yeah, cheap Chinese crap giving an illusion of prosperity by way of quantities of crap sure boosted the sense for buyers that more space was needed. I grew up in 3-bedroom midwest ranch houses with unfinished basements, and some family friends lived in small farmhouses somewhere around 1200 square feet with a single bathroom, and that was normal.
When I first came to the US for college (1981), four of us shared a 1950s 4BR/1.5 bath house, rent on which was $385, as I recall. In Total. It was about 1200 square feet. Seemed normal.
I thought it was "cleanliness is next to godliness", and I imagine one would have to work hard at, so I'll give that a close comparison level. lol.
Speaking of working hard, back in the days of snail mail, I'd get, well back then, what I thought was flooded with junk mail. I finally took it to task, swearing I'd rid my life of all that junk mail. One day the mailman comes by, drops mail on the tenants side and tells me I don't have any mail. I told him I work hard at it. He took a couple steps, stopped, looked back at me and said, yes you do. Took him a minute I guess to realize I took some weight off his shoulders, lol.
Perhaps it's because we've watched too many episodes of Looney Tunes and Animaniacs for over thirty years?
😄