The less, the more

The Less, The More

Soo here we are on the last day.

To sum up: the less we use energy, the more I appreciate bonding over food by cooking together, The more I appreciate activities that are simplified so much because of electricity, and the more I think about the option of living as a minimalist. With originally 15kWh/day, now our total electricity consumption goes down to 10kWh/day. Not bad right?

Here are what I learned for the 2-week collective and individual ‘challenges’:

1. More appreciation bonding over food by cooking together

This is something that is definitely new to me. I rarely cook at all when I’m at home, let alone when I live by myself, except if I’m too lazy or too broke to buy food online. So when we did this challenge, we cook together almost always minimum once a day and it does make a significant change with our interaction. It felt nice feeling like a team, switching between roles: who cooks, who chops the ingredients, who prepares the table, who washes the dishes. And we like to joke that one person is the head chef and we are her subordinates because there is this one person who cooks so often back home, her cooking is so good so we often consult her for help. When the food was mushy or too salty, we laugh it off and still eat it because we know how much effort we put in it (and hey it’s still edible!)

2. The more I appreciate activities that are simplified so much because of electricity

Take portable juicer for example. It makes eating banana, apples, yoghurt in 5 minutes possible! If I do it manually, I would probably choke. So not using the portable juicer makes me appreciate the slow eating process and the less ‘processed’ the food that I consume

Additionally, portable iron simplifies our everyday activities too. To replace this appliance, I used stacked books to straighten out my clothing, but that takes days! And the result is not always crease-free and there is a limited space to do that. So straightening out clothes in 5 minutes with a portable iron is so time efficient!

3. The more I appreciate there are irreplaceable things that electricity can do

I think the hair straightener is one of the irreplaceable things non-electrical things can’t do. If straightening clothes can be replaced by stacking books on it, we cannot do the same thing with hair! Hair straightener is a very useful invention that improves one’s appearance instantly and I have not found an alternative for that

3. The more I think about the option of living as a minimalist

Many gadgets have redundant functions. When I cut off using some of my gadgets, I realized some of them overlaps in terms of function. For example: bluetooth watch, bluetooth keyboard, bluetooth earphone. With this I think about how we can live a minimalist lifestyle, where our belongings have only 1 function and we choose them mindfully.

So those are my takeaways for this body-storming challenge. It’s been a fun and insightful one, see you on the next one!