On Choosing to Do Things Manually
Why does everything have a plug or a battery (or worse) these days?
Hello, I’m Claudia, and Happy Quiet Life is where I share my view on the world as a Highly Sensitive Person. You’ll find reflections and stories about slowing down & living simpler, reconnecting with nature, mental health & self-care, books & reading adventures. Welcome!
Gardening the old-fashioned way? Yes, please!
Today, as I was cutting the lawn edging in front of our house with my trusted sturdy scissors, crouching and kneeling on the footpath, also scraping the grass out of the sidewalk joints with an old potato knife, I couldn’t help but laugh.
I was waiting for quiet rubber-soled footsteps coming from behind that would stop next to me. Neighbours, well-meaning, who had suggestions on how this work could be done faster and easier.
With an lawn edge trimmer, like everyone else here does.
Burning the weeds with a gas-powered weed burner – or just resorting to chemicals.
No one understands why I stick to my tried and tested method.
Which takes so much time.
Which is hard on the back.
And while we’re at it, I use manual rose shears and loppers to cut all kinds of plants, bushes and smaller trees in the garden.
I sweep the sidewalk and the gutter – lo and behold! – with a broom.
In autumn, I use a leaf rake instead of a leaf blower.
Granted, once a year, a gardener comes to trim the long privet hedge on one and a half sides of our property. With a petrol-powered hedge trimmer. It's impossible to do it any other way. (However, it's horribly loud and I hate it. I try to be away for the hours it takes.)
All these practical modern devices …
Everyone has their own definition of slow and simple. Also of ease and comfort. Or progress. Their very personal approach. And that’s fine, of course.
It’s just, I feel I don’t need every one of these inventions, these modern devices powered by fuel, battery (rechargeable or not), electricity.
Mind you, I’m not opposed to innovation or technology per se (although I am sceptical about some of them). I wouldn’t want to wash my laundry by hand. I certainly love my notebook and all the wonderful possibilities of the internet. I use our electric kettle several times a day for quick tea making.
But while we are at the kitchen: We don’t have a special machine for this and that and the other. No airfryer, Thermomix, smoothie maker, no sandwich maker, coffee maker or espresso machine. Just a toaster and the electric kettle. That’s it. We wouldn’t want all the so-called ‘practial’ devices cluttering our worktop or cupboards. They’d take up so much space in the kitchen, in my mind - and they would cost a considerable amount of money. No thanks. I like it when my items are multi-purpose anyway.
We never had a tumble dryer, I never felt the need. We hang our laundry outside, under the canopy if necessary. But now that we have a dehumidifier, because we need it for various purposes concerning our aging house and the often rather damp weather where we live, I sometimes use it for drying the laundry. Multi-purpose. Perfect.
Moving around using my own two feet
It’s no secret that I love to walk. Walking is my favourite way of getting from A to B.
Sure, I can't get everywhere I want or need to go on foot. And after about 15 years without a car, my husband took over an old small car from within the family (as its previous owner has passed away). We use it once a week for grocery shopping (well, he does, I’m so lucky), for the occasional doctor’s appointment and not much else. I have a driver’s license, but I don’t drive. I don’t like it. At all. It stresses me out.
Where I love to walk, my husband goes by bike. An analogue one.
The increase in e-bikes and e-scooters where we live is astonishing. Where did they all come from? And why?
It's even a very flat landscape here. We don't have any mountains. We don't even have hills. (Although we do have wind.)
Sure, I’m glad for older people or those with physical limitations. E-bikes can be great for indepence and a larger personal radius. That’s not what I’m talking about. Technology can be a wonderful relief and support for them in any way.
But I still don’t get when and why society got so lazy and settled for 24/7 convenience and comfort.
By the way, we get out of the car to open the garage door. No electricity, no button pressing, just a good old metal garage door that has to be handled manually. No problem. In any kind of weather. Really.
Have I lost touch with the modern world?
Maybe I’m just an analogue kind of woman. Or stuck in the past. Plain old-fashioned. Stubborn.
But I don’t see the sense in electric toothbrushes, bluetooth-connected bathroom scales or smartwatches that claim to know more about me than I do. (I don’t even wear a regular watch. I stopped wearing one 25 years ago.)
I very much prefer books to e-books.
I liked the good old paper maps more than I enjoy the convenience of GPS turn-by-turn navigation (although it has been useful). I’m not fond of these small map sections on my smartphone. There’s just not enough overview for me. I also like to rely on myself for navigation and don’t want to trust a machine or an app blindly.
Everything is allegedly becoming easier, but I often find it more complicated or it’s more hassle. Take train tickets, for example. No small piece of paper from a ticket machine any longer, not even printed with your own printer before the journey. The ticket is on your smartphone now, of course. So I’m dependent on an electric device which has to be charged, ready and sometimes needs connection for the whole journey. To be on the safe side, bring a charged powerbank, so you can charge your smartphone to be able to present your ticket. Really? So, it’s even more I have to think of. More, not less! Where’s the ease?
Why I choose to do things manually or analogue
There are many reasons for my decision to often do things manually, physically or analogue.
Certainly, many devices make work easier, especially when it comes to physical labour and particularly in jobs in industry, skilled trades and agriculture, and I certainly don't want to go back to a time when we all had to do very hard physical work every day.
I like modern devices which ease my workload, but also my mental load. Many don’t. They just add. I have to constantly keep an eye on things, think about more things, like buying new batteries or charge rechargeable ones or update apps, and the consequences are more serious if something fails. With analogue things, it's usually enough to take care of them when they break. Pretty low maintenance. I like it!
Many devices or other modern inventions are spectacularly noisy or flashy or attention-grabbing. For me as a highly sensitive person, they contribute to sensory overload and overwhelm very quickly.
Being more on the minimalistic side, I feel often it can be yet another device that sits around most of the time, takes up space, gathers dust, and that I will eventually have to go to great lengths to dispose of. So it’s clutter in my book and I don’t need that in my life.
Many things waste resources unnecessarily, are harmful to the environment (even if only during manufacture) and aren’t particularly durable. These are all very good reasons why I keep away from them as best as possible. It doesn’t align with my values.
But what about renewable energies? Sure, they are great, in comparison, much better than using fossil resources. But sometimes I get the feeling that it makes us believe that electricity is something that we don't need to be mindful about any more. But all those solar panels, rechargeable batteries ... they all have to be manufactured first. Wind and water power change entire habitats dramatically. They are not harmless. Everything comes with a price. (At least, that’s how I see it.)
Also, just because all of these devices exist, they are advertised, allegedly progress and you simply ‘have to’ have them because everyone else has them and they’re so practical—no, not a good enough reason for me.
For me, it all boils down to this:
Choosing to do many things manually is an important part of living my life more simply and slowly in many ways. I take my time, and it feels like a more natural rhythm to me.
I decide for myself what is really useful and necessary for me and makes my life easier – and what only pretends to do so (but is actually more complicated) and tempts me into even more convenience. It’s a conscious decision against consumerism, against the ‘more, more, more’ mentality and built-in ‘progress’.
It’s about being mindful and intentional of whether I really need something that depends on external energy of any kind.
Ultimately, it's about asking myself: What do I really need? Not because it's convenient, or because everyone else is doing it, or because advertising tells me to, but because it makes sense for my life and my specific situation. It’s about making deliberate choices.
Back to the garden
Not everyone has the time or capacity to live their life slowly and more simply. (Nor would they want to.) Not even in the garden.
For me, however, old-fashioned gardening is beneficial in so many way and it’s lovely.
I find it very meditative and satisfying to do something physical. I feel connected to my body, whereas most of the time I tend to be too much in my head.
It's also a great way to let my thoughts wander.
It’s a time for recharging my creativity and feeling in tune with my mind, my body, myself. To feel the breeze, listen to the birds and be literally grounded.
It’s what makes me deeply happy.
I so relate to all of this Claudia!! I find the gardens outside very noisy with petrol lawn mowers and someone always seems to be strimming. I invested in noise cancelling headphones and like you head out into nature whenever I can. Thank you for this post - I am not alone in feeling overwhelmed by modern day noise x 🌱
Yes yes yes I'm so with you on this! Granted some of that is because we just don't have enough power for all these technology things but even then, I find it so important as well to just do things by hand or do them slowly. We don't need so many items to do things that we could easily do by hand. And yes on the weeding, I pull them out by hand too, it takes a while but I really enjoy it actually.