July 30th, 2008
I Need a Mobile Phone, But I Want a SmartPhone
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Question: Whatever happened to off-consumption? (Amit, in response to my purchase of a Nokia E71 smartphone.)
Answer: Like there’s no end to acquisition, there’s no end to relinquishment too, and the only absolute ideal in both cases is to give up your life for your pursuit.
When I watched ‘Into the Wild’, I felt fake. My own experiment seemed but a shadow in front of the extremes to which Chris went.
So, of course, my off consumption experiment is fake.
But it’s fake because I need a (any) mobile phone to begin with, not because I want a high-end smartphone like Nokia E71.
It’s a version of the breakfast cereal argument I once had with a reader: if I consider breakfast cereal to be a necessity, I might as well buy the high-end, branded version that I like, instead of the cheap store brand version that tastes terrible to me.
From the beginning, my experiment has been about wanting fewer things, not cheaper things. There’s a difference between the two, even though it’s a subtle one sometimes.
Background: I’m going on a sabbatical for a year, so I have to return my mobile phone and my laptop to my company.
