Stewart Brand on Maintenance as an Organizing Principle
- Feb 16
- 1 min read
Okay, so this one is definitely a bit niche (even for me), but I was immediately intrigued! I’d never really thought about the idea of maintenance before. A concept that sounds very banal and yet… not at all!
I ended up finding this talk genuinely fascinating. It touches on such a wide variety of themes about life and society, and even (most of all) some big juicy philosophical questions. One that really stayed with me was the idea of the “right to repair,” and the tension between innovation and maintenance that sits underneath it.
I also loved reflecting on how different kinds of maintenance are needed in different contexts (and what they involve, what they require from us, and what they say about what we value). I’m very curious to hear whether others enjoyed it as much as I did.
I found it interesting hearing about kintsugi: the Japanese philosophy of repairing broken objects in a way that highlights their cracks, embracing damage and imperfection as part of what makes something more meaningful.
Another take away would the benefits of sitting with problems rather than rushing to fix them (and potentially making things worse). Anyone interested in Systems Thinking (me!) will also appreciate how the author thinks about maintenance through a systems lens: how everything around us is part of a broader system, and why caring for those systems matters too.
Ok, I'm done (for now!)
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