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On My Shoulders

I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time looking at and for bags. Something drives me toward a Shangri-La where the perfect bag for all occasions rests in a temple, waiting for me to pack it with all I need, forever simplifying and organising my life.

Of course the reality is that I asymptocically approach an ideal, never quite having the right bag. I thought my ridiculously large Crumpler messenger bag was ideal, and it was certainly satisfactory for some four years, until I got a laptop. While I could pop the laptop in the messenger bag inside a Built neoprene sleeve, it always slopped around in an uncomfortable fashion. So I grabbed a right-sized laptop bag. The trouble is that a tension then arose between being able to Pack Everything and rational convenience, and I inevitably would be swapping backward and forward between bags for different occasions, inevitably leaving things behind as a result.

My vice, or at least one that I will admit to in a public forum, is a desire to carry way too much stuff around. I never know when I need that stuff. It’s important. It could be useful. And very occasionally is. But a large bag means I carry a lot of crap.

All of which brings me to my latest bag. I acquired a pretty big (70 liter, I think) backpack for travelling, with a removal day pack. Today I moved into that day pack, in order to get used to carrying it, and to figure out just what I should carry. Of course I packed too much, and haven’t packed all I ought:

    • Kindle
      Laptop
      Camera
      torch
      pocket knife
      wallet
      keys
      Gorilla Pod
      Umbrella
      Hair ties
      iPhone
      Headphones
      earbuds
  • I guess that’s not too much. I can fit passport, two Lonely Planet guides, and a stuffed koala, can’t I?

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