The stress of using something brand new

I just read Manu Moreale’s latest post, The beauty of broken things, in which he describes how liberating it is to use a product that is already “broken”, and I couldn’t agree more. I feel exactly the same way.

I actually feel very stressed and overly cautious using something that is brand new and precious. This stress can be a bit overwhelming and can be the main cause of the thing breaking in the first place. This has happened to me a couple of times in the last few years.

The first day I drove my brand new car — fresh out of the factory — out of my building’s garage, I scratched it against the wall (in my defence the width of the garage aisle is extremely narrow and there is a 90° turn to negotiate). My neighbour had warned me the day before: “It’s very tricky be careful.” I studied the manoeuvre very carefully, I drew the plans on a piece of paper to see what would be the best way to do it, and still, I ripped the front bumper against the wall, probably too anxious to be efficient.

I was very, very upset that day, but after a while, I felt relieved. Now that the car was scratched, I wouldn’t have to be so careful. What’s the worst that could happen? I’d scratch it against the wall again? Big deal, it’s already “broken.”

Once the anxiety was out of the way, once the car was scratched, once the manoeuvre wasn’t so stressful, it was much easier. I haven’t scratched the car in the past three years.

Last year, while playing around with my brand new camera, I managed to bump it very hard against the radiator in my living room. How did I manage to do that? Well, I was so careful with it and so stressed about where to put it down safely — the desk is too dangerous, I might spill a drink on it! —  that for some unexplained and irrational reason, I decided to put it on the window shelf.

Too worried about scratching it or even putting my fingers on the fragile lens cover part while holding the camera to move it, I didn’t notice that the strap had caught on the side of the radiator: the camera slipped out of my fingers and fell right onto the metal. I was livid. At that moment I said to myself, “You just threw 1000 Euros out of the window. Well done, idiot.” Fortunately, the camera was fine.

The same thing happened a few years ago when I was unboxing a brand new lens for my previous camera (Fuji X-E2): I was so careful that I lost my grip and the 350 Euro, precision-made glass object fell out of the box, bounced on the table, and fell onto the floor. Luckily, it was fine, but I wouldn’t have done that if the lens had been in my possession for a couple of months.

One day, my wife and I may have a baby. I worry a lot about how I will handle such a fragile, tiny living thing. My mother tells me not to worry, because “babies are not made out of sugar” (not sure if this expression translates well into English). I’ll probably be fine. It is a matter of habit and confidence, I suppose, two things that come with time and experience.

Maybe the stress doesn’t come from wanting to preserve something so much, but maybe it comes from the fact that something is new, and we are not used to dealing with it.

Maybe the liberation of using something that is already “broken” or scratched doesn’t come from the fact that the object can’t be broken any more, but from the fact that we get used to it, and it eventually feels familiar.

Maybe that is why I am so enthusiastic about software: it’s almost impossible to break.