As I reach for my laptop
this morning, I remember,
it's OCC 2024 day 1.
I change course and pick
up my mechanical keyboard
and connect it to my tablet.
For my own exploration,
OCC for me is not so much
a 'retro' computing adventure.
It's a practice of minimizing,
of observing and understanding
that I don't need as much
technology that I am offered.
A 20+ years old computer
can do a lot of what I need
as far as technology goes.
We haven't exponentially
grown in our technological
needs. Most people uses a
fraction of what computer
can do today. Cellphone
have the power to be full
desktop.
Sitting in my 'outside'
room, I type while not
even directly looking at
the screen that is set aside.
I hear the lake, look at
the mess in my room, with
the hammock in the middle
of the room. At this
moment I don't really
need a screen. I could
simply be typing this
post to be corrected
later on looking at the
screen.
This process of removing
element from my workflow
until I see what break
has been quite liberating.
On my main computer I started
to question the general layout.
I asked, Do I need a clock
in the corner of my screen
at all time? Do I even need
a desktop? Do I need icons?
I removed the login manager,
I startx manually... One
by one I've been removing
elements that are normally
there by default.
An now the OCC, which reminds
me of the New Year no gear
I participated in a couple
years ago, where I was to
not buy new musical gear
for a year. That experience
was transformative. And I'm
looking forward to see how
much I can trim back my
'off work' technology
usage.
I actually got given a walkman
yesterday. I have a few tapes
to play and though it was
quite fitting for OCC. I
also have a NDS that could
be part of a minimalistic
technology usage, if I were
to expand OCC after the one
week trial.
Thgat's my log for OCC day 1,
I'll log off for now as I
want to save battery for the
whole week!
