I love lightweight backpacking. Have been doing it for twenty years. Dozens of trips, hundreds of miles of trails. It remains a joy today.
The idea of base weight comes from backpacking: how much is in your pack before you add consumables like food, water, and fuel?
Embracing this is about constraints, decisions, and boundaries. Yes, I could bring a palatial 12-person tent and have lots of headroom and places to stretch and do jumping jacks. But every step I take with that 25-pound monstrosity in my backpack is going to add pain and suffering, radically decrease my enjoyment, and limit how far or freely I can travel. By carrying a 2.5 lb ultralight tent (from Dan Durston!), I’m able to accomplish my wilderness goals with greater ease and enjoyment.
Since the beginning I’ve been occasionally bringing these principles into my personal tech life. I’ve been cutting, trimming, refining in pursuit of greater efficiency and alignment. We’re using this tool, but will switching save time? One costs more, but how does that balance against the long-term efficiency loss? It isn’t easy. Like backpacking, the process of tweaking can become an end in itself.
Recently I’ve been again looking for ways to streamline, which often looks like cutting apps and dropping tools. Consolidating and eliminating in pursuit of a more efficient tech base weight. Asking the question: what can I stop using altogether? What can I consolidate? What are the multi-use items? What is truly serving my goals and big picture vision?
Feeds is a great outcome from that exploration. It is the first app made right here by Brooding Jay. It’s a tool that lets me engage with the internet in a lighter and more efficient way, which serves my goals. Yes, I want to see the remarkable, diverse creativity that people share on the internet, but I don’t want to get buried under noise, distraction, and soul-scorching algorithms.
With Feeds, I get to read Substack publications but without the algorithm and the social media Notes feature. I get to engage my favorite YouTube creators without being bludgeoned by recommendations and video shorts. I get Reddit threads without the platform toxicity.
More meaningful content, less distracting fluff.
It’s more with less, allowing me move toward my goals with less weight, greater ease, and more enjoyment. Truly: addition by subtraction.