I’m not an Everyday Carry fetishist, although I totally understand the eternal appeal of “gear” and the diagrammatic beauty of items laid out neatly on a flat surface and photographed from above. I just don’t need most of the things that EDC enthusiasts like to have the best of: I rarely find myself wishing I had a blade or means of starting a fire, I have a flashlight app on my phone, and one time I bought this really cool pencil and lost it within a week. It’s not the concept of EDC’s fault, it’s mine. (See also Merlin Mann’s EDC.)
So it’s less the objects that Adam Savage carries that I dug about this video, so much as his approach.
- He always keeps his phone in his front right pocket, and nothing else ever goes in that pocket.
- He carries few keys, on a simple but tactile-ly recognizable and brightly colored lanyard (often seen on aircraft components or flight jackets). Always in his front left pocket.
- He carries a straightforward billfold, and keeps it thin—little or no cash, no receipts.
- He carries a collapsible pen and (indigo-stained) notebook.
Except for his phone and (quite lovely) watch, he carries very little that would be difficult to replace, financially. He can fit everything in the pockets of his jeans. And because he always keeps these items in the same place, he never has to hunt for them.
-Pete