stripping away everything that you don't actually use in your day to day life has a remarkable psychological effect.
There are a ton of thunguses in one's life that can be ditched to remove the maintenance of. There's a lot of validity in that particular concept.
But when one wants to develop a fuller life than virtually living - things become useful towards that goal. Let me give some examples.
* Musical instruments. iPad instruments just don't cut it.
* Older books. There are a ton of out-of-print and hard-to-find books that just aren't online, especially in the non-tech fields.
* Gardening requires tools.
* Any variant of a construction trade requires tools.
* Travelling longer distances in a place without a densely connected public transport requires (bike | car | skateboard | etc), which requires maintenance tools.
* Cooking & baking requires a multitude of tools; hosting people for dinner requires kitchenware.
* Offline gaming usually requires game boards & misc accouterments.
I could go on, but those examples are from my own life. The existence of a monk is simply not pragmatically livable for people who fancy dealing with the physical. I like some of Christopher Alexander's writings as he searched for a pattern language in architecture. He considered highly complex systems where people engaged in their environment and lived and hypothesized the idea of the "Quality without a Name", and he had this to say about it, "It is a subtle kind of freedom from inner contradictions". What I see the Minimalism people striving for is this freedom, and they are seeking this freedom by removing as many pieces from the system as they can so that the contradictions go away. I - obviously - don't think that this is the complete solution.
While environments and ourselves do mutually shape each other, I believe that a complete solution is to work towards being consistent and uncontradictory with the things we have both in our heads and outside of them. Sometimes that's getting rid of things, sometimes that's adding things, and other times that's simply changing things around.
Well, that's my 0.02c anyway.
(edit1: formatting)
There is this idea of zen and asceticism that has crept into the conversation and honestly I'm not sure what reputable source people are drawing it from. No one is saying you should be living on a tatami mat and with 256kb of storage. No one worth listening to is saying you should avoid owning a pet or enjoying an occasional drink with an umbrella in it.
A lot of people, particularly in our affluent western world, simply say "yes" to the do-I-want-more-stuff proposition. They don't ask, "Do I need this? Does it serve a purpose?" I think the world would be a better place if people made a habit of asking that question and not being afraid of saying, "No." Even if the answer is "Yes," the conscious consideration of utility has benefits.
As for Everett Bogue, for someone espousing minimalism he sure has a lot of books to sell you.
I think I'll go found a movement based on coupon shopping. Be one with the discount.
"Where'd I put those snow chains?"
Possessions make life simpler.
Snow chains are great if you do things that require them. I used mine just today. But, we all know that guy with the monster 4x4 truck who never actually goes into the woods.
Possessions that you use regularly, value, and are worth more than the trouble they bring you might make life simpler. Possessions that are merely things you're storing "in case you need them", and are moving from one place to another, certainly don't make your life simpler.
I've known many people (including myself) who have found themselves in a position where they wanted or had to move and discovered in the process that when it came down to it, they could happily live without half of the stuff they had accumulated over the years. I did that in my most recent move, and a year later I do not miss any of it, and am still getting rid of things (30+ computer science books recently, and am now moving onto the photography equipment that just gather dust in the closet).
Aside from the negligible space they take up, they certainly aren't having a negative effect on my everyday life, so removing them would have no tangible benefit. In fact, their loss would deprive me of the artifacts of what's been a fairly interesting life so far. Any bulky items (eg small appliances, furniture) that would create any sort of hassle have already been given away to friends who would find them useful.
But I'm not sufficiently self-absorbed to call this a 'movement'. In the words of BSNYC^, it's just a matter of categorizing my things under 'Shit I Need' and 'Shit I Play With'. There's nothing complicated about that.
^ http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-smugness-keeping...