Every-Year Carry 2024
July 2024
I recently moved to Denver for the summer, into a furnished apartment with my friends Lukas and Samantha. I felt compelled to create an inventory of the items I decided to bring.
If you are on desktop you can see an outline on the right side of the screen, and on mobile you can click “On this page” to view the outline. Each category below has a picture and commentary on the items contained, and at the end I include some closing thoughts on the accumulation of stuff.
Adventure/Exercise
Backpacking
My backpack is pretty banged up, missing a chest strap and torn at the seams. The boots are starting to tear too. Most of the items here have persisted over many trips and years, the sun hat being a notable new entrant, kindly given to me last week by my mother. She also taught me to sew so that I could fix the holes that New Zealand mice chewed through my solo MSR tent (top right) to get at an apricot chocolate Bumper Bar.
The Camelbak was found on the side of the road and has never had a bite valve. The plastic bowl beneath the pot is for coffee and “tea” (pasta water). The metal espresso cups are for coffee during “ultraheavy” backpacking trips. The blue playing cards come on every trip and usually go unused, but they remain part of the kit. Off-camera items include a moka pot or AeroPress for coffee, a journal, and a book.
Bouldering & Climbing
Olly and I co-purchased the big green crashpad in Las Vegas for climbing in Red Rock Canyon (here’s the pad in full 360° action), and I purchased his half of the pad at auction after the trip. I bought the hangboard to rehab a pulley injury developed on that same trip - no surprise since I went from three years of climbing-free Ultimate Frisbee to bouldering every day for a month.
Of course, the climbing gear goes great with the backpacking gear for backcountry bouldering trips like my trip with Lukas and Dan to Middle St. Vrain, which Lukas and I hope to revisit this August.
Running
The “THANK YOU” bag is just for organizing the normal run items: shades from the great Boulder Sports Recycler, sunscreen, handheld bottle, and earbuds.
Productivity
Stationary office
These are the things I use to think and write and code. The whiteboard, from the streets in San Francisco, is currently ziptied to an extendable TV mount to my left for ergonomic whiteboarding. I like to draw by hand when working on life or software design. The drawing pad is occasionally used for work notes, and occasionally for art.
The all-black journal is in fact a pink journal which has been removed and placed in a more appropriate section of this (digital) journal entry, but whose distinction remains.
Travel office
The iPad, keyboard, and trackpad (plus the Roost laptop stand from the previous image) form a portable dual-monitor setup. I haven’t used this setup enough to justify the price and I don’t feel much affection for these items. However, I hope the iPad will allow me to draw more conceptual diagrams for blog posts a la Maggie Appleton.
I have much more affection for the headphones which I’ve had since 2019, and for the “omnicharger” adorned with my friend Nick’s ArchiveBox logo.
Daily Rituals
Journal
Each time I buy a journal I get a different color. This time I chose fuchsia based on a now defunct bracelet-based behavioral-nudging system I created in which fuchsia and lime green represented reflection and execution respectively, as a nod to the colors on the cover of the book I Am a Strange Loop and the ideas within, which I found to be highly analogical to my loopy journalling systems.
These days I am writing down my dreams every morning for lucid dreaming purposes, and journalling in the backyard as I drink my…
Coffee
Sometimes I consider quitting coffee to save money, but the social aspects keep me loyal. Also, now that I’ve categorized coffee as a “daily ritual” here, I feel even more positivity towards the substance.
The moka pot has gone on a fair number of backpacking trips and the AeroPress is starting to make its debut as a lighter and smaller alternative - thanks again to my parents for that one, I truly left home with an armful of gifts this time.
Reading
I am currently in the middle of UNSONG, The Dream Machine, The Art of Doing Science and Engineering, The Art of Gig, Getting to Yes, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Existential Kink, and Laws of Form. I am doing a book club on Laws of Form with some friendly people I met at Edge Esmeralda. It’s telling that nearly all of my in-progress books are non-fiction, as apparently I enjoy only fiction books enough to finish them.
The Wondering Jew was given to me by my sister and I am excited to get started with it. God is a Verb was picked up at a thrift store in Oakland, and features a review from Jack Kornfeld whom I know from Sam Harris’s Waking Up meditation app, so this also shows promise as a Jewish book which may match my current interests, as does Mastering Life, which besides the eye-rolly title seems to document an interesting Jewish life full of adventures, which I told Olly sounded sorta similar to his (The first line of Olly’s “about” page says “This is a daily blog involving the adventures of a 26 year old nerdy Jew on an honest quest around the world to find purpose”).
About half of these books are borrowed from my family, the other half I purchased - I’ve taken recently to purchasing books even when I don’t have capacity to read them.
Piano
I’ve had a number of digital keyboards and none of them really stuck, so I shelled out for this Yamaha P125 with 88 weighted keys. It’s still not the same as a real piano but it’s good enough for me to enjoy and to keep up my music.
Other Social Activities
The frisbee, hammock, hacky sack and speaker form a nice unit for outdoor socializing. On the left, my board game Sneaky Town.
Clothing
Casual
Olly gave me the Maison MIHARA YASUHIRO shoes on the right as a birthday present to replace my “Mardi Gras shoes” on the left, on recommendation of his friend who is a stylist for NBA players. Karen knitted the pair of socks to the left of the shoes.
Note: many outer layers and athletic clothes were left out of this section and included in the activity-specific sections above.
Dress
My sister made me the fractal kippah, which I hold near and dear.
Bags
Something for a trip of every duration. The blue High Sierra has been my daily driver since at least high school.
Memerobilia
Above, a paper airplane made by my nephew Betzalel, and below, a picture of my and my brother’s tent in front of Cotopaxi. Here’s a 360° photo from a nearby mountain where you can see the top half of his torso.
Other Necessities, for Completeness
I also have…
- Toiletries
- Allergy gear
- Bedside electronics
- Hamper
The toiletries and bedside electronics could each make a case for being included in the daily rituals section, but neither is pleasing enough to merit special treatment.
The air purifier was rescued from a past coliving house in Menlo Park and the hamper cost an extra 5 cents for the monkey.
Thoughts
(Not pictured)
Well, I certainly have enough stuff.
I went into this exercise hoping I would learn something about myself, but I hadn’t anticipated the crisp overview of my interests that would emerge and am delighted about that. Notably absent are cooking things, which I enjoy but have left in the Bay Area.
I do think I succeed at accumulating mostly things that spark joy, buying used or free items when possible, and wearing them out once bought. But in fairness I also have many left-behind possessions (not pictured) that I no longer use and probably never will.
I have spoken with my brother-in-law Netzach about how to harmoniously deal with old and unwanted things, and we agreed that there is no good way to do so and that the best approach is to not accumulate in the first place. Of course, this is often in tension with my value to explore. At least after doing this exercise I have a record of how that tension has played out in my recent life.
- DS