Several ideas have coalesced in my mind recently. If they don’t make sense to you… well, that’s too bad because they’re very interesting.
Patagonia has consistently promised that they are environmentally friendly, and I am not about to argue that. In 2004 Yvon Chouinard and Nora Gallagher wrote an essay entitled “Don’t Buy This Shirt Unless You Need It” which can be found here at Patagonia’s site.
The point of the essay is pretty clear from the title, but here is an especially interesting tidbit from the article:
We don’t have enough money, and we also don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough energy, solitude or peace. We are the world’s richest country, yet our quality of life ranks 14th in the world. As Eric Hoffer, a mid-20th century philosopher, put it, “You can never get enough of what you don’t really need to make you happy.”
And while we work harder and harder to get more of what we don’t need, we lay waste to the natural world. Dr. Peter Senge, author and MIT lecturer, says, “We are sleepwalking into disaster, going faster and faster to get to where no one wants to be.”
In this world of abundance, we are not joyful, not like we expected to be. Conspicuous consumption has led us to a disappointing place. In the words of Sheryl Crow (or whoever wrote the song for her), “It’s not having what you want; it’s wanting what you’ve got.”
Alright, alright, don’t get mad at me. I’m not trying to get preachy!
A different article from Ann Stone at C is Just a Letter led me to a very interesting new medical device from MobiSante. The MobiUS, a mobile ultrasound, costs just under $8,000 and will be revolutionary (in my opinion) for developing countries without access to high quality medical care. “Ultrasound imaging is safe, effective and can save lives, however more than 70% of the world’s population does not have access to ultrasound [sic] because it is expensive and not portable enough.”
In a developed world that does not value what it has in abundance, there is a whole world out there needing the technologies we take for granted.
Now the product plug… esyringe is working its way toward a more environmentally friendly standpoint. This is always a work in progress, but we encourage others to start on this path as well. We want you to be happy with what you have and help others toward the same goal. Our syringes are built for quality and longevity. We don’t want you to have to spend more money on equipment that will break down and have to be replaced frequently. Take a look at our products for more information.
This is life at esyringe.
life at esyringe 