The Few Things I Own

To some, the point of minimalism isn't about minimizing consumption - it's about minimizing the cognitive and emotional upkeep that comes with owning things. That mindset is compatible with buying new stuff more frequently if you shed the old.

When you don't own much, there's not much to fix.

I own a lot of tools too (I do pretty much all of my own car maintenance - including replacing the head gaskets (a 2 month project I wouldn't do again)), but I doubt that is more environmentally sustainable than hiring experts (with their own tools), and I'm not saving any money unless I count my own labor as "free".

I'm not a minimalist for any moral reasons. I'm a minimalist because owning things stresses me out.

I could move to the other side of the world and carry all my belongings in a backpack. No storage, uhauls, etc. In fact, I have done it.

I could lose everything I own (apart from my laptop and phone) and it'd cost a few hundred bucks to replace. This happened when I got a horrible bedbug infestation in my backpack in Thailand. It was a bummer to have to start from scratch, but not really a big deal in the end.

Not sure what you're getting at with the tools comment. I have nothing that I would need tools to fix.

I guess it depends whether you define minimalist as someone who uses fewer resources (their own and other peoples'), or someone who keeps their item count down. I tend to fall into the first camp, and I find it really annoying when people claim to be being frugal when what they're really doing is pushing most of their living costs onto the people around them.

The other aspect, also, is that it's fine to live out of a backpack when you're single and have no dependents. Once you have other people relying on you, you need to maintain the resources to keep them covered as well as yourself.

Haha, it's amazing how new you can make your stuff look when you add a filter to it! Just to give you a snapshot, I wore my last dress shirt until my bare elbow was hanging out of a tear in the sleeve.

But yea, as others have mentioned, I am not 'minimalist' in the sense of reducing consumption. I am minimalist in the sense of reducing choices.

It feels like you're being too challenged by the notion of a minimalist to get the idea behind it.

I'm a minimalist by necessity - thrice now I've basically had to upend my life in the matter of a few weeks and start brand new elsewhere, and having that sort of threat lingering over you makes you really cautious to have a lot of things. But it also makes you care a lot about the things you own as well. I probably have more clothing than the author claims to have, but I also take pretty good care of it as best I can. I cycle through clothing probably a little less regularly than other people do, but just as anyone else might discard a shirt they haven't worn in a year or that doesn't fit right anymore, I will too -- I just try to get a little more out of it if I can.

I do agree that posts like this come off as challenges; they're "look at me!" posts showing off a little and it can read a bit pretentious, but I don't think there's a need to project flaws onto such a post or person. Once I got past the shock of getting rid of a bunch of things I held attachment to, it started to feel really nice. I just no longer had to worry about a lot of stuff that just sat around, I stopped fretting over money so much, I learned to be a lot more self-reliant and how to do without. I learned a lot more about home repair, about cooking, about sewing, and got healthier as I now walked everywhere.

It's not a panacea, and it's not a superior lifestyle or a magic way to be happy, it's just one way of looking at life. We really do live in an era when you can consolidate down, and being free of just so much stuff feels nice to me. Like you I believe in reuse - I've done the few repairs and replacements that were necessary for my 2012 Macbook Air, and prior to that I had a 2007 Macbook that I repaired until there just wasn't any modern software it could run. Cobblers are still plentiful and fairly priced where I live right now, so I fix my nice pairs of shoes instead of replacing them whenever I can. I carry a small screwdriver set that has been used for countless repairs as well.

It's not a contest, it's just sharing how one lives their life. I know that some people who are minimalists do it to show off - they do it because Jobs did it, or because Zuckerberg did it or because they never got past being 13 and watching Fight Club for the first time. But many people also just do it because they were tired of the clutter. They were tired of having to worry about where to put a bunch of stuff they don't need, what to do if they have to move, or just worrying about having shit that was important only because they spent money on it, not because they actually cared. My folks are like that - they have so much stuff in their house that they constantly complain about, but whenever we try to prep for a rummage sale or for deliveries to a second hand store, it's a battle over every last item, from the old beat up and perforated pots and pans to fake flowers from a floral arrangement side project that never got off the ground 15 years ago. Hundreds of porcelain figurines, several sets of fine dinner plates and cutlery for parties they never have, and the less said about my Mom's Christmas decoration collection the better.

For me, it's just nice to not have to worry about 'what am I going to do with all this stuff?" I culled the lot down to what I absolutely needed, and what the people would let me put on a plane, and that was it.

That is a great concept. Did he achieve this? Is there a follow up on how to throw out all the thoughts?

I don't think it's about an extreme difficulty with choosing clothing. I think daily life's improvements happen in between the lines; series of small decisions we can make that have a larger effect on us when taken together. It's about freeing up space little by little as opposed to monumental changes (which are much more challenging to implement and maintain).

I started doing this with socks. I bought a package of black crew socks and packed away all of my other socks. It simplified a little bit of my life, and I never unpacked the other socks. I eventually bought in for the rest of my wardrobe. It's nice not needing to stop and think "does this go together?" (or the equivalent of my wife saying "you can't go out looking like that!")

Personally, I don't have problems to choose clothes to wear in the morning, but I don't like deciding what clothes to buy (there's always someone to criticize). It's tempting to buy several versions of the same item, but people around you may think you're dirty because you wear the same thing everyday.

Obama also has commented on his choice to have only one kind of suit. I have a few friends who do the same. Not saying that it makes you Obama or Steve but it isn't uncommon to optimize that part of life away once you have a suitable outfit that looks good.

It depends on how much making decisions annoy you. For me, it's a great annoyance, not just in regards to what to wear, but what to eat, what brand to buy, etc. So I devise methods to limit my choices or eliminate it altogether. With clothes it's easy — have multiple copies of the same shirt. Similarly with food, I just order daily specials.

I've aways done this. I don't do it to be minimalistic but rather as a way to just not have a ton crap around.

I also don't wash my hair with soap. Again, no real reason other than I don't feel the need to.

I'm not sure this is how the author is thinking about it. It's probably more like "I'll only have a few pieces of clothing, so I need to make sure they all match."

> Are there really people who are so wracked with indecision about their sartorial choices that they'd rather just... not make any?

Hi, I am one of them. Feel free to ask me anything :).

I also find this to be a nicer balance while I'm not traveling.

If I can fit everything I own in a small compact car then I am happy with my amount of belongings.

That's a very fair point. This is probably a lifestyle for someone who'd otherwise be living on middle class tech worker wages. It's for people who have the luxury to choose their lifestyle. In no way do I view his backpack and duffel as as a solution to poverty.

Then again, I see your comment pretty frequently in response to minimalism. Maybe because it can look like a vow of poverty, but really is not even close.

For me it's about lessening the mental taxation that often comes with the added responsibility of owning things. Mostly from giving you more choices and more things to tend to or care about (even if subconscious). Having to decide what to wear, what to eat for dinner or what to buy at the grocery store might seem like trivial things, but when all of these small things are compounded they end up consuming a large part of your mental energy. Owning less things is just one effort to free up that mental energy to be able to use it elsewhere.

Edit: wording

What good is cookware if you have no kitchen? If you rent a furnished place with a kitchen there's a reasonable chance it'll have the cookware you need. If you have a permanent residence then the cookware needed to create thousands of dishes could fit in a single cupboard.

The trick to livable minimalism is: money. Plenty of it.

At the opposite end of the spectrum you see people who keep everything, including cars in their yard for spare parts, because they know they might not have money to buy the things they need, so keep whatever might be handy in the form of "stuff".

The shirt is merino wool. It's magical stuff. As my top level comment said, I have the same shirt. I've worn it similarly. It truly hasn't stunk, no matter how long I've worn it, or how long it's gone between washings (not, granted, that I've pushed it; I think, at worst, it's gone a couple weeks between washings, being worn perhaps half that time).

> Bit OT, but I remember some guy who went minimalist after the macbook air came out. Like just shirts, MBA, and a kindle. I remember the blog being pretty popular in tech circles, does anyone know what I'm thinking about?

This one?

http://tynan.com/gear2016

(there are other years, that's just the most recent)

The tiny house thing boggles my mind. Where I grew up, I had lots of friends that lived in them. The rich kids made fun of them, called the "trailer trash".

I've recently become pretty serious about building open source "micro factories" so that small communities can be self sufficient without having to spend all of their time subsistence farming.

I think it will take a few decades to achieve, but I'm working on it.

A tiny house might be liveable in mild/warm climates. I live in a cold country and spend most of my time indoors. Couldn't imagine being stuck in a tiny space all the time I home.

I was thinking the same thing before I ready the article; what does this dude do borrow equipment from everyone he meets?! I carry more rock climbing gear on a multi-pitch climb than stuff he owns!

But then I read the description and it sounds like it's for general working out or something? IDK, I've never personally needed chalk for or met anyone that needed chalk for lifting. Perhaps he works out in very humid climates, but I'd think there would be chalk provided at the gyms? Likely an item that could be practically dropped?

Thanks for reading! I don't climb much anymore; the chalk is for ring work and barbell lifts.

> (1) there is no inherent reason why it's wasteful or gross to own a lot of things

Really? Maybe I'm a bit naive, but nearly everything you own was produced and transported by using natural resources and energy, and it will eventually lay on a garbage heap occupying space. So every existing thing at least makes a smaller or bigger contribution to environmental pollution and climate change.

There are economies of scale, though, in those industrial kitchens, just as the utilization of the auto mechanic's tools are higher than those in the two-car garage.

I agree it is largely aesthetics, but there are economic arguments (on both sides, obviously).

I also agree that a lot of minimalism is disguised class signalling. (You don't need to travel with even a suitcase if you bring your credit card.)

After reading your comment -- some of the thoughts of which I have already come to myself -- I realize it could be really hard to tease apart the source of any desire I have to minimalize: do I want to because I think it's genuinely a more productive or helpful way to live, or is it all just signalling? Just curious, have you ever had any fleeting wish to own less?

Not to mention that a lot of the material minimalism goes out of the window once you have kids. Like any ideology, foisting it upon children may or may not be a good thing. I've seen that kids thrive when they are surrounded by a dump of blocks, books, toys, etc. which they can explore by themselves.

I see where you're going, and I like the general direction, but I won't agree with "No? -> You are wrong."

A major strength of human society is its diversity and individual specialization. Everyone needs a different job, so that all jobs get done. If I imagine a work where everyone does the same job, it will result in mayhem because other important jobs don't get done. But that doesn't mean that every job is wrong.

> if everyone else in the world would do what you do, would the world still work?

Do you define the current state of the world as "working"?

You'd be better to say "if more people in the world did what I do, would things get better or worse".

It's not my birth-function in life to perpetuate the way society currently functions. I didn't sign some kind of contract that says I will make life decisions to make sure things stay the way they are now. If I choose to work less, and consume less, that's entirely my choice. If everyone did it there would obviously be impacts, and things would change, though nobody has ever convinced me that society wouldn't be better if people had more leisure time and less stuff.

>>Always, always, always ask yourself the following: if everyone else in the world would do what you do, would the world still work.

The sun would still rise tomorrow. Supposed time as we think to know it really exist. Some people say that there is not such a thing as time and we all are one. In this case everybody is doing what he is doing. And the world seems to work for me.

There may very well be steps to sustainability that should not be continued in the long term or for more than some people. Should the president resign because the world couldn't function if everyone could veto things?

It's easy to be a "maximalist" compared to this. Have a spouse, have kids. Cook. Have pretty much any hobby. Maintain a house (tools, lawn junk). Have people over sometimes who expect you to, you know, have things like a normal person does.

That said, if I were young, unattached, and traveling a lot, of course I'd live like this. It doesn't even seem that special or surprising to me to live this way under those circumstances.

Not quite a sculptor, but I collect a lot of records, somewhere around 2000 at last count. Takes up a lot of space, not to mention 2 heavy turntables and a mixer. That plus music production gear (speakers, amplifier, synths/keyboards, mixer, computer, sound card, not to mention furniture to put it all on, and then there's guitars, guitar amp, pedals...) takes up a lot of space. It'd be nice to live minimally but I'd have to sacrifice my favorite hobbies.

I think there's a show on A&E about that: Hoarders.

While the gym thing seems a bit of a stretch, some people just have less of a smell than others.

> "Practice in poverty. Routinely exposing yourself to fear, stress and hardship in a stable environment to bulletproof your mind for when the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan."

Yeah, I'm not sure this is what Seneca had in mind. More like visiting the soup kitchen as a diner while wearing clothes you got for free.

If he's in Thailand (which I'm assuming from him having a Thai Macbook), then it's actually much cheaper and more convenient to eat out, at least anywhere outside Bangkok. Same situation in Cambodia -- I initially attempted to cook a lot here but gave up since it's cheaper to eat the food in my alley and around the market near my apartment and it tastes better than anything I can cook.

Same here (I spend roughly half of the year on the road). The shirt is not super durable (was too frayed to be presentable after maybe 250 wears), but amazing enough that I immediately got a new one.

The small toiletries I just buy on arrival. As a (fragrant) side note, I've haven't used soap or shampoo for two years.

You can probably get by with salt water (rinse) alone if you don't eat any sugar. Ideally, rinsing after every meal.

Especially since he also describes his Macbook as his "most important item".

Neat writeup though.

Apple products have always been minimalistic. Minimalism has nothing to do with being cheap. Minimalism is doing things like removing the floppy disk drive at the turn of the century, carving a laptop out of a single piece of aluminum, or removing all jacks except one or two.

Besides, it doesn't matter. The writer isn't saying that any one of his possessions is minimalistic. He's saying that his number of possessions is minimalistic.

On iphone, there is no way to close the popup. The only way out is the back button.