Mend it

Yes, that thing you're thinking of is probably fixable, and we are all capable.

Mending, repairing, touching up, patching, etc

These are words that used to just sit in the vocabulary of the average person. We grow up with patches on our pant knees, the TV remote that’s wrapped in electrical tape or the garage that’s got one car or another getting some maintenance done to it. Buying something required research, forethought and well after doing everything you could to fix what was broken until it just wasn’t possible.

This wasn’t 100 years ago, or even 50. I’m in my early 30’s and had all of these things growing up and much much more. Buying new was something reserved for Christmas and birthdays, clothes got the added holiday of “Back to School”. There was a thing called your “Sunday best” which was your best set of clothing that was reserved for (usually) your religious services, and your other clothing were varying levels of life left in them. Sunday best, then school/work/going out clothes, then ‘work around the house’ clothes, then they were turned to rags for cleaning or patching. Same with electronics. The newest game console used to be the “Family” console and the older one would then be given to whichever kid wanted it most. This electronic would be treasured and if something went wrong with it, the kids and adults would try their hand at fixing whatever the issue may be, or get their friends who knew how. (I helped a ton of friends fix their Xbox 360’s when it gave error codes) Somewhere down the line, though, we went from “Mend and Make do” to “Throw Away and Buy New” and in several directions, I think we are worse off for it.

We are poorer in skills and money.

Let’s take a PC for instance. You use the PC and for 80% of the time, its fine, but for that other 20% of the time the screens randomly go black and the fans start blasting at 100% speed. You cannot do anything with it, so you turn it off and on again. No error codes, no bright red flashing light that says “Error: This happened”, nothing. Everything goes back to normal until randomly this happens again sometime down the line, maybe the same day or maybe tomorrow. You can 1.) research into how to fix it or 2.) throw up your hands and buy a new computer. This happened to me and I went down the research path, so I’ll let you know how it went. I found out it was a power supply problem that was specifically a faulty electrical output to the power supply, I’m not looking to get electrocuted by a 1000 watt power supply, so I bought a new one which was about $150. Problem solved. Now, if I threw up my hands and said “better just go buy a new pc”, I’d be out a little over $1,500 to get the same quality and same strength of computer and I wouldn’t have that knowledge in case something like this happened in the future.

This is what I mean when I say poorer in skills and then I mention poorer in money. Every oil change, every patched sock, every reupholstered chair teaches you something new which then saves you money on both this item with its extended life and the extended lives of all future items who’s repair falls in your skill’s juristiction. My PC is a visually obvious rate of return but sometimes it isn’t that transparent. Sometimes, its polishing your dress shoes which makes them last an extra year or so and pushes out a $100 purchase.

Lets say you live till you are 80, and you get your first car at 20. The average car’s lifespan is 12-16 years, so lets split down the middle and say 14. On average you’re going to have 4.3 car purchases if you literally purchase a new car and run it till the tires fall off. What this will look like, is you’ll have done five car purchases, but will have only used the last car for 30% of its life. Now, lets say you do your own maintenance (for the most part). It’s already cheaper to do your own tire rotations, brake pads, oil changes, etc by hundreds of dollars so you are more willing to do the maintenance even earlier and at factory recommendations. Lets say this extends the life by a measly 2 years, so you push the age of your car to the upper limit of the average car’s lifespan. Extending the average life of your car from 14 years to 16 years, you cut your car purchases down from 4.3 to 3.75. This is one less car purchase, with 25% of the lifespan left in your fourth car purchase. Tens of thousands of less dollars spent, while also spending less by doing your own maintenance.

We are poorer in community.

Come to find out the faulty power supply was part of a larger quality control issue, and I let other know of the issue. This is an unspoken, but powerful bonus to knowledge: communal prosperity. In the PC example, you spreading the knowledge of the faulty power supply model can in turn help others in multiple ways: they know to steer clear of that model, they know if they are having similar issues that it may be the cause, and if they are having issues but aren’t similar, they know to look elsewhere to fix their issue. In the end, one mention in a community setting can save money in multiplicative. It can save money for others, and if something similar happens to them, they would want to help others the same way they were helped.

What does this look like when you just purchase the new PC instead? No knowledge gained, no conversations had, no money saved, and everyone feels like they are their own island. Buying instead of mending when possible lowers the potential of community.

What can we do about it?

I want to start from square one. Inventory taking.

What do you already know?

No repair knowledge is too small. Did you sew a pillowcase in Home Ec? Clean the dust out of a computer? patch a bike tire? Anything and everything counts.

Once you have tallied up all the things that you have already done even once before, look at the type of repair that interests you most. Are you an electronics kind of person? Do you like the more relaxing, sit on the couch kind of repairs, or are you a focused do-nothing-but-this kind of repairer? This will keep you interested in your learning journey.

Now, look around the house that matches the description of types of repairs you are interested in, even if they haven’t quite failed yet. Squeaky bike tires, PS5 that seemingly screams on start up, that pair of socks who’s heels are looking a little bare. These will be your first projects. Low stakes and no urgency as they still work.

Research the issue and work on that item until it’s problem is fixed! I would highly recommend not using AI for this for one very specific reason: When you naturally go through forums and web posts, comments and youtube videos, to find the solution you are also wading through information that your brain will pick up and think about later. If you don’t quite have the issue that person is describing, you may have it later and will think back to what the commenter said. This is important to a ‘jack of all trades’ kind of learning.

After that problem is fixed or if something breaks during your work then move on to the next most urgent item and then work on that. This way, you will round out your knowledge with things that you weren’t quite focusing on.

Remember, above all else, that the beauty of knowledge is that you can obtain it as long as you live. Whether you are 6 and stitching together two pieces of scrap fabric as practice, or 80 learning about electronics and how to solder, you can always learn new things. So if you are genuinely starting from scratch, welcome, you’re in good company!