I just wish they would write about it only a few years after they have started to go minimalist and have actually lived it. There are so many articles who write how great being minimalist is two weeks after they have sold their car or whatever.
I pared down a lot of what I owned simply because I didn't use it and the clutter bothered me, plus I had to move apartments by myself.
At first, it was really great. No clutter, only what I needed, super basic life.
But then you walk into your apartment where you only have a (simple) bed and desk, maybe a few pieces of clothing on the ground and you feel empty and depressed. It isn't because I want stuff... I actually really don't like buying things (that is another aspect: I have major anxiety around money so I hoard money, which is convenient for a "minimalist". Think "money anorexic") It just feels empty. Like another poster mentioned: it consumes you. You constantly have to consider the space / minimalism implications of buying something. It is weird to describe.
Yeah, all of this sounds overly dramatic but I do feel sad when I look at my apartment some times.
My partner is pushing me to buy a couch because they don't like laying in my bed when they come over. Also it is a little embarrassing to pull out the sleeping bag and air mattress when I have guests come over...
It is the same when decluttering. I don't know about what other blog posts have written about it. I decluttered in the same way I meditate: the feelings that arises when you contemplate throwing something away are the various stories, narratives, and attachments you have about that particular object. They are coming to the surface as a chance for you to really examine whether it is necessary or not. For example, someone might buy an object to fill up a room, but they are not even aware of the deeper motivation of staving off loneliness. That loneliness does not surface up until something such as decluttering comes up. The internal attachment you have to an external object creates a kind of feedback loop to keep that object in that place, and anchors your memories. Stir up your possessions, and you also stir up your psyche.
The koan "do you own these things or do these things own you" still apply. If you are obsessing abut what you buy in the space, then these objects -- or rather, what the lack of objects says about you and what social signals they give to other people owns you. That is confining to your spirit. It's not real freedom.
Minimalism, I think, is a great aspiration but I personally don't think is something you should try to live as a lifestyle.
Time will tell I guess.
For me, good minimalism is selling things I haven't used in a long time, or furniture that doesn't "fit" in the floorplan of my house (for example, no one needs two kitchen tables). Stuff that just occupies space.
Bad minimalism is getting rid of decorations (art, photos, plants) and key furniture.
I want my house to feel like someone lives there, so a bare room with a laptop in the middle is OUT.
A much easier razor than "is this minimal or not" is, "am I going to wind up selling this in six months because I don't use it, god that'll be a pain"
I find it better suited as a tool to examine your life and peel away things that aren't needed. That extra space and lightness that is made gives you freedom to do more of what you want and less of things you are forced into.
I personally started minimizing my wardrobe. By having radically fewer individual pieces of clothing, then I can more consciously consume. Case in point, if I have 20 pairs of jeans that I randomly picked up because they looked nice or more likely, I was bored and wanted to distract myself with shopping, then I was much less likely to buy something from a brand that treats it's workers and the environment responsibly; something I personally care about.
I would like to save money so that I can have the freedom to travel for extended periods while I'm still young. Getting rid of alot of things I didn't use but, were taking up space in my apartment allowed me to see just how much space was taken up by things I didn't really need and more importantly weren't adding value to my life.
Ultimately, minimalism for me is trying to give myself the room and the lightness to reach a certain escape velocity from the life I feel I have to live just to survive in my environment to the life I tell myself that I want to have.
It's easy to say, if I had the means, I would travel full time or I would bike across the United States or I would hike the PCT or Appalachian Trail. It's almost a comfort to say, I can't afford it, or I could never take the time off, or what would I do with my apartment for 3 months? It's entirely another thing all together to watch yourself answer those questions and resolve those roadblocks and to see if you really have the will to be the person you tell yourself you really are on the inside but, because of circumstances you don't have to opportunity to be.
Alot of people of financial privilege find appeal in this minimalist life only because it's easier and clearer to see that having everything or almost everything you want doesn't actually make you as happy as you expect you it will. At a certain point there are many people who feel working hard to get more stuff is a losing bargain.
Having less stuff and (for me at least) less carrying costs for having so much stuff, such a nice apartment, such a nice car, so many nights out, so many ways to keep up with the Jones' was something I gladly shrugged off once I saw how much of a difference it was making in my life.
Will I end up a hyper-minimalist in the end? I don't honestly know but, I do know that what I have done so far has impacted my life in real and amazing ways. Having less stuff isn't magic. What is magic is how your life grows when you give it space.
By going to a system of clothes, I have both fewer clothes, less time to shop for them and more outfit options while spending less time wondering what combination I would wear.
Encouraged by that, I'm planning on moving out of what seems like my huge luxury apartment into a smaller one both to have less space to fill up and also to save money.
Saving money and making a plan to confront who I really am. Am I the traveling, freewheeling, wake up in a different country, lover of the outdoors person that I tell myself I am or will I shy away from the new back toward the familiar? Does that even actually make a difference to who I am?
All of those questions can't be answered unless I change my life in an effort to answer them and that's what minimalism is doing for me, allowing me to start answering those questions.
It's at that point you realize that you need to make your own fun and creativity. You're free to start adding creativity to your life in the form of music, art, writing, etc.
I don't know why, but to me that image feels lonely, not empty.
Unless you're in SF, y'all forced all the artists out so there aren't any local ones anymore.
I also have a painting from a street painter in Vietnam (you know, a guy that paints generic "traditional" art for turists) and I love it.
Maybe try treating it as an aesthetic preference rather than a fundamentalist religion and you'll be happier.
Over the weekend the FT published an interview with the famed Japanese architect Tadao Ando https://www.ft.com/content/e0112c50-9f55-11e6-891e-abe238dee.... A wonderful read, and featuring a quote which seems apt:
“Architecture has a function. But at the same time a home is a home for the spirit”
Consciously making a decision before deciding to buy a new thing is a laudable practice; it's the mindless spending of money that really kills you.
It is said that it took Steve Jobs ten years to buy a couch. Without making a value judgement one way or the other on that long decision, I'll just point out that in the end, he did buy that couch.
For me it was largely getting rid of stuff that I simply didn't need. I don't think it's a positive interpretation of minimalism to try to own as little as feasible, even if you don't really want it.
http://khanism.org/perspective/minimalism/
..and I had scaled down originally when I started my journey and moved to Australia. It's easy when you have flatmates because almost everything you own is in your room and I could always pack up almost all of it.
After 11 months of backpacking though, it really wore on me. Being in hostels and hearing people snore every night. Even when I was staying with friends for a month or two, it was still different from having a place of my own.
Now that I have a place to myself again, I just see all the just I've accumulated in such a short time and I remind myself I need to put stuff on eBay soon. I buy things in terms of wondering when and how much I'll sell it for (I just think of it as renting stuff).
I have a feeling I'll always scale down ever few years. Next trip won't be as extreme as two backpacks. I'll probably buy a car (sold mine 5 years ago) and road trip this time.
I will say this tough: that 11 months was totally worth it. I've never felt more okay with my life, healthy and happy about the world. I see engineer jobs as just a paycheck; saving up to see if I can sustain myself longer next time.
Having less stuff is really freeing. It was easy for me to travel, change apartments, let friends stay at my place etc. I had to get creative when I needed something for only a little while. For example, I bought various lenses for my DSLR that I rarely used. So I sold most of them and then in future, I would buy a used lens off Craig's List and then re-sell it after I was done with it.
Most of my hobbies didn't involve a lot of tools. Photography, videography, video games, books, painting, running, and of course, programming.
Now as a married man with a house, it is really hard to avoid collecting things. I used to sell anything that I didn't use often. I have so many things at home at I rarely touch like guitars, exercise equipment, different kitchen utensils. And to be honest, we are not hoarders, in fact, we still own less stuff than most people we know.
It has been 4 years of homeownership and I am still not used to owning so many things. A lot of this clutter actually really bothers me. Many times I go to the kitchen to cook something but cannot find the right pan that I just give up and eat frozen dinner.
So I have to say if you are naturally inclined to be minimalist than it would be great for you otherwise you may miss things or feel empty.
But you have to keep constantly vigilant. Much like training for a marathon, where every day has at least some portion of it taken up by training, each meal involves making good decisions, and kiss your Sundays goodbye because you won't be doing much after that 20 mile run other than taking a nap. The minimalist weighs every potential purchase, has to figure out to get to that party without a car, has to figure out how to cook supper with a single spork. And like anything that takes up a significant portion of your day, you'll talk about it...constantly. At least for the first marathon. After that, you realize that no one else cares but you, so you learn to dial it back.
So like Paleo, CrossFit, and marathons, let's circle back in a few year as you suggest and see how it's going once the novelty wears off. Because all of the chatter of "minimalism" strikes me as n00bs all fired up about their new "hobby", and they'll quiet down when the new wears off and they want to watch a movie on something bigger than 10".
You didn't really reply to the parent comment. They said much minimalism is due to people living in small spaces. I live in Montreal, where up until very recently I didn't have that much space.
At one point, things were too full. So I systematically reduced my possessions. Sold some, gave others away. What did I do with the extra space?
* I bought certain items in bulk. Paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, etc, thus reducing my trips to the store * I got more useful things. Over the years I had to add more business equipment. I had space for it based on decluttering.
I do periodic declutters whenever things start piling up. Mostly, what happens is something was once useful, but then no longer is.
Using the principles people talk about in minimalist posts, I've been able to reduce and better organize my living space. But I still have a decent amount of stuff. It's just on average more useful than it used to be.
[0]: https://zenhabits.net/
[1]: http://mnmlist.com/minimalist-faqs/