We’ve Forgotten How to Keep Things
On maintenance, stewardship, and what keeping a 60-year-old machine running teaches us about our future with AI.
We are entering an era where we can create almost anything.
And we are losing the ability to keep anything.
Our culture is obsessed with creation. The new product. The new company. The new technology. The next version.
AI has put that instinct into overdrive. We can now generate images, software, strategies, songs, and ideas almost instantaneously. Creation has never been easier.
But increasingly, the things around us are not designed to be understood, repaired, or maintained by the people who use them.
They are designed to be replaced.
My 1963 Land Rover suggests another way.
The Magic and the Machine
The specific model wasn’t just everywhere. For much of the world, it was the first vehicle people ever saw.
It wasn’t designed to be replaced. It was designed to endure.
There is no black box. Every mechanical heartbeat can be felt through the floorboards. Every intention is translated through visible linkages and heavy steel bolts.
When something breaks, you can usually see it.
And, with a little knowledge and the right wrench—or a needle and thread, or a simple screwdriver—you can probably fix it.
That feels increasingly radical.
In his latest work, Maintenance, systems thinker Stewart Brand argues that our culture is obsessed with innovation and the flash of the new. We tend to think of sustainability as an aspirational end state, something to achieve.
But Brand shifts the lens:
Sustainability isn’t something you reach.
It’s something you do.
Daily. Monthly. Yearly. For decades.
I absolutely love this slightly unexpected way of thinking about sustainability. Not as an aspiration, but as an ongoing act of care.
It is the act of keeping things running.
We’ve been taught to measure sustainability by footprint. But another question may be just as important:
How long does the thing last?
The Aspiration of the Unbroken
We have been conditioned to believe that value is tied to the latest version.
We upgrade. We replace. We move on.
My Land Rover suggests something different.
A thing is not necessarily most valuable when it is new. There is another kind of value that can only be earned over time.
The value of having lasted.
The dents, repairs, replacement parts, and worn surfaces aren’t evidence that something has failed. They are evidence that it has survived.
There is an aspiration embedded in that idea that feels increasingly absent from modern design:
Make something worth keeping. Then make it possible to keep it.
The Ethics of Care
There is a distinct ethics of care involved in keeping a 60-year-old machine alive—whether it’s a truck, a mechanical watch, or a cast-iron skillet—that doesn’t exist with a modern smartphone.
The invitation to intervene. Modern technology increasingly locks us out. Proprietary screws. Sealed systems. Black boxes. The Land Rover invites you in. It was built to be understood by the person who steers it.
The stewardship of the old. When I fix a leak or tighten a belt, I am participating in the car’s survival. There is a real joy in maintaining something decades old. You develop a relationship with an object by learning its needs and peculiarities.
The rejection of obsolescence. Maintenance is a quiet rebellion against a world that wants you to throw things away. There’s a bit of punk rock in it, a DIY refusal to replace what can be repaired.
Simplicity is not primitive.
Sometimes, simplicity is what makes something resilient.
This Isn’t Really About Old Cars
It’s about the changing relationship between people and the things around us.
Cars. Appliances. Phones. Software. Buildings. Institutions.
Increasingly, we are surrounded by things we can use but cannot understand, repair, or maintain. When they stop working, our role is simple:
Replace them.
Something is lost in that transaction beyond sustainability.
We lose agency.
We stop being stewards and become consumers.
The more powerful our technology becomes, the less agency we have in maintaining it.
That is where AI becomes an interesting part of this story.
Not because a 1963 Land Rover and artificial intelligence have much in common. They don’t.
But they represent two very different relationships with technology.
When an AI hallucinates, you can’t open the hood to see why. There is no loose wire to jiggle or bolt to tighten. The error is buried somewhere inside billions of invisible parameters and weighting systems.
When my Land Rover stalls, the problem is physical and, at least in theory, solvable.
There is something reassuring in that. The machine reminds you that you are still capable of understanding and fixing a small piece of your own world.
What Deserves to Last?
I say this as someone who loves technology.
I helped build an AI company more than two decades ago that still operates today. I marvel at what this new generation of technology is making possible.
I don’t want less innovation.
But our obsession with innovation has caused us to undervalue its quieter counterpart.
Maintenance.
Innovation asks: What can we make?
Maintenance asks: What deserves to last?
We need both.
Because if AI is going to accelerate the creation of everything, an increasingly important question is who will be responsible for keeping any of it?
And maybe that applies to more than machines.
Companies. Communities. Institutions. Relationships. Ideas.
The things that matter most rarely survive simply because someone created them.
They survive because someone decided they were worth caring for.
My 1963 Land Rover is one of the oldest things I own. I used to think of that as a testament to the people who built it.
Now I think it may be equally a testament to everyone who came after.
Everyone who fixed something.
And decided, one more time, not to throw it away.
In a culture obsessed with making the next thing, perhaps there is something quietly radical about deciding that something already here is worth keeping.
P.S. Huge thanks to Anthony De La Fuente for guiding my interest, confidence, and tool selection along this journey.
My MacBook Pro will turn 15 in 2027. I bought it new. Since then I've replaced the battery, installed more RAM and upgraded the original hard drive to an SSD. And by that I mean that I personally opened the machine, removed old parts and installed new ones, not that I took it to the beyond flippantly-named "Genius Bar" and paid to have those things done.
Me and my neighbor for 5 years, before I moved back to Cleveland last fall, would sit and talk many evenings about how various pieces of hardware, technology and household items of all types we had purchased throughout our lives had let us down, failed at critical times and otherwise disappointed us. We also spent many evenings working on repairs to things like flashlights, vacuum cleaners, air fryers and -critically- cars. I grew to realize through our talks and our projects that I had slowly lost the drive- and then in many ways, the abilities- to take an item that wasn't functioning properly and try to repair it on my own. Like you said, this isn't about cars, but they do make an excellent jumping-on point. Before me and Matt started working together on fixing -instead of paying for repairs or worse, buying new ones- I had only ever, and even then only sometimes, been "able" to change the oil on my car. In fact I even had (what I thought was) a funny little anecdote I'd tell when talking about car repairs where I'd say "as far as I know, underneath the hood there is just a team of hamsters running on wheels- I got no idea what goes on in there!" For some reason, that seemed okay to me. Matt taught me that it didnt have to be thst way, and I didnt need to go to "car repair school" either. I made a promise to myself that going forward, whatwver the issue was that arose on my Toyota Camry, I would at least ATTEMPT to repair it on my own, not just throw up my hands and take it to a mechanic. That allowed me, using YouTube and a couple neighbors in my own building, to install a new windshield wiper pump, a hoos latch, do brake repairs and replace the rear wheel bearings (which was a really tough one, but I learned it and did it over the course of a week!) Each time I learned something new about my car, about a tool, and about myself. Everything I learned would be a resource I could use for the rest of my life.
Almost 10 years ago now I went to a "pop-up" repair-fair, a community event organized by some friends of friends. The idea was a few people would staff it who had certain bits of knowledge, but anyone could bring a toaster, or a vacuum or whatever and someone would attempt to help them fix it, the idea was that in payment YOU would then try to help someone ELSE fix their item. The concept obviously doesnt work out perfectly every time, but the idea itself is, I think, almost perfect in what it tries to convey and instill.
Too many kids-AND adults- these days get a single scratch on their phone and decry it as destroyed, go get a new one, and the worst part, THROW OUT THE OLD ONE! There is no sense of care, or desire to maintain. A truck picks up your blue bin once a week and people have been convinced they're "doing their part," a completely false premise, in my opinion, which is a discussion for another day. But it highlights the fact that its no longer just something that we should be doing. Maintaining and repairing will again become crucial aspects of keeping society running properly likely within ours or our children's lifetimes as resources become more scarce and are hoarded by fewer and fewer oligarchs.
Learning to repair gave me tons of new tools and ideas, good times and good conversations but there's more to it. A sense of ability and confidence that extends far beyond a workbench or tool box. Thanks for shedding light on this incredibly important idea Unc!
I love this.
I have a kitchen knife made from pre-WWII French steel. It was built to last...and that steel holds an edge better than new Japanese blue-steel knives. I love it....and I love having something I use almost every day that is older than me.
Building something (or someone) that endures and perseveres is a type of art.
I think it's true for people too. We're often too quick to replace where we could invest, develop, or restore. Great leaders don’t just recognize talent - they help it become more valuable over time. The people I admire most have played that role in my life. You - Chris Nichols - Shawn Parr - etc. I aspire to be that Rover....still running...still loved...still adding value.