One Shirt Vs. Two

I'm sure many of you have heard of this new phenomenon known as decision fatigue. In fact I just read a few blurbs on the internet that make reference to it. One of the more common illustrations of avoiding decision fatigue is the example of Steve Jobs always wearing the same clothes everyday to eliminate the stress of deciding on a wardrobe. Basically, the less decisions that you have make on seemingly less trivial things can lead to better decisions on real, pressing issues. Making less decisions is less stressful, to poorly paraphrase. This concept was reinforced when I recently read an interesting blog by Mark Bridge on his reflections of the TCIA expo. He laments on his encounter with a climber bombarding him with questions on SRT and ultimately coining him as an "old school" climber because of his preference of a doubled rope style.
The debate between SRT and DRT is exhaustive and I think to many skilled and experienced climbers it may even be getting a bit boring at this point (probably an overstatement). Base anchors, canopy anchors, redirects, retrievable redirects, suspension points, mitigating loads and vectors, doubling the force, cutting the force in half, one line versus two lines, and then of course the argument that it's just another tool in the tool box.
This debate gives me much anxiety. I feel as though every time I wake in the morning there is a different variation of a retrievable redirect waiting on my newsfeed.
As a tree climber I favor an SRT setup through and through. I'm a bit OCD with my gear prep and organization, as I'm sure many contracting climbers out there are, and when I show up to a job, the last thing that I need to do internally is start up a struggle in my mind on what style of climbing would better suit me for this particular situation. So, with that said, if you were to consider climbing styles as different pieces of clothing, I definitely wear the same shirt everyday, especially when efficiency is critical and people are paying me good money to wear what I wear.
I think it's important to mention that I've been climbing professionally for only about 8 years. Compared to the likes of the Treemagineers, or some of my mentors, or many of you climbers out there that have 20-plus years of experience, of course there will be different tools in your tool box, and different preferences in style as far as implicating those tools. I was, for lack of a better term, birthed into the industry at the onset of the SRT revolution. SRT, for me, was always an easier way of climbing, and so that's what I ran with. That's the shirt that I wear. It's comfortable, it looks good and it helps me everyday to be successful. It's one less decision that I have to make in my work day, so then my workday is less stressful and I am better able to perform and come home safe to my family.
I've dabbled with many of the toys. Some work, some don't, and some work once in a while in the right situation. So there's another gray area that we often hear so much about when it comes to a newly construed tool or variation there of, "well of course it can't be applied all the time, it's very situational and it's just another tool in the tool box". That's fine. But I really do think that at some point there gets to be way too many tools in the box. You would need another person just to help you carry a box that big to get it to the job site. Is that really efficient?
Now I am not arguing in the least that development of ideas and the progression of gear is in vain. That is absolutely not my intention. I am deeply indebted to those who have made those innovations and researched those progressions so that our industry can be where it is today, and so that I could be where I am today. But, I guess everyone needs to find their favorite shirt to wear. Younger and less experienced climbers I feel have such a great anxiety in rummaging through all of the gear and techniques available, especially with the internet as a resources mainly, that it sometimes may become stressful to them on the decision making end. That worries me a bit.
I'll reference another famous adage that I think came from Bruce Lee (although that may not even be true) that we must chisel away the unessential, like a sculptor chiseling away stone to reveal the true art form within the stone. I like this philosophy when applied to my tree climbing and my tree climbing gear. It's actually the one thing I'm constantly doing is trying to get gear off of my saddle, trying to create combinations of gear that can be applied to many different situations rather than just a few. What is necessary, and what is unnecessary? I think I'll go out to the gear box now and get on with it. And wouldn't ya know that it's pretty cold outside too, so one shirt may not cut it.