On Minimalism
chriseidhof.tumblr.com
chriseidhof.tumblr.com
Compared to that, I hardly scrape by in an absurdly small apartment, and until recently it was stuffed to the brim. My car is full of things. I'm a slob. And all the poor people I know are too. Recently, I have started to throw away or auction off a huge part of my stuff and it feels really liberating (how many computers does a person need, anyway).
I wonder if being poor triggers people to hoard and/or to prefer complicated items. For example, I observed that rich people tend to have really simple furniture that is reduced to its core function, whereas poor people tend to have complicated-looking things and a lot of them. Poor households are absolutely cluttered.
The second important aspect is taking care of basic needs of daily living: food, clothing, shelter, healthcare (when absolutely needed). For someone engaged in the daily struggle to have such basic needs satisfied, the very idea of getting rid of anything they possess would be an anathema.
Clutter and hoarding are, thus, in (some ways) the unintended results of that struggle. Every item that has been acquired by (very) hard labor, or (minimal) lucky breaks is, from that point on, almost a lifeline. The question: What if I need this again? rings out every time an item is about to be discarded.
However, the other side of the same argument is the definition of needs (as opposed to wants). There are always going to be genuine needs and the point of comfort one feels with their net worth in satisfying those needs is going to define the point at which fear of the unknown ceases to be a driving factor in their decision making process. Including the decision to go minimalist.
That point is, understandably, different for everyone of us. In the end, I feel, it is easier to make the minimalist choice with (a). a solid net-worth (bank balance, property etc.) OR (b). absolute courage when a sense of security is lacking such as when (a) is absent OR (c). a combination of (a) and (b).
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TL;DR : I think, it is easier to be minimalist if you are materially secure; have sufficient support for a minimalist lifestyle from your life-partner or rugged courage and self-confidence if you are single/dependent-free.
Personally, I like clutter. Random toys people give you, buildup of projects and jobs and whatnot. It personalises a place. I understand the appeal of not caring about items - I don't particularly care about most of my clutter - but minimalism is so... sterile. Walk into a minimalist's house and there's nothing really there of their personality, nothing particularly different from any other minimalist's house. I don't have a problem with other people living that way, but for me, it's just so sterile and sometimes even feels unwelcoming.
EDIT: I wonder if part of your rich/poor thing is that the rich have the opportunity to move around a lot for both business and pleasure and so can get a variety of memories and backdrops, whereas the poor see the same thing day in day out, and so personalisation of spaces (or making them more varied) is more important to them?
For example my desk was once home to three computers and various pieces of computer hardware laying around. I don't need three computers, I really don't need a desktop computer at all anymore. Removing the desktops and the rat's nest of cabling makes things much easier to maintain and it looks much nicer. I also don't have to track what's going on with multiple computers anymore. No more sorting out cables, no more putting away bits and pieces, and the room looks cleaner now too.
Another, I like to cook so my kitchen tends to accumulate things either via stupid impulse buys, upgrades or gifts. I don't need a small toaster oven, I don't need a huge serving tray, I don't need four spatulas, three paring knives and two can openers. I have a wife and kid I feed -- we don't need a stack of 10 plates and 10 cups at hand (I can't even seat 10 people, let alone serve that many). Keeping the kitchen to a minimum means cleaning a few more things on demand while prepping and serving food but it reduces the cleaning, sorting and storage time requirements overall. This form of minimalism doesn't mean we can't have pictures on the wall or a vase of flowers on the table, but it's a huge win for reducing the total time spent in the kitchen every day.
For me, minimalism is about identifying my real requirements and removing the rest. Toys and old projects may be a requirement to keep the creative juices flowing, but I'd try to strike a balance between keeping stuff simply because there is sentiments attached and keeping stuff that really matters.
However, I think you're missing a bigger picture. A minimalist's house speaks TONS about the personality of its owner. And there are no two minimalist houses alike. The differences are, shall we say, minimal, but they're there.
PG may have a point that since humans use spacial memory to organize things, a cluttered environment may put more stress on the mind than an austere one.
This would carry over somewhat into your personal life -
it's hard to be wearing thousand dollar suits to work while
living in a rat's nest, I guess
I like your backdrop/decoration thing though, it's an interesting theory. But I still believe that having a nice bank account makes people feel independent and free, in the end causing them to see a lot of superfluous things as they are: clutter.
While I don't disagree with your observation, one contributing factor is that wealthy people can pay for housecleaning, decorating, landscaping, and other services that contribute to a neat, tidy household. Poor people cannot, and especially if the household is a working single parent with kids, there is not a lot of spare time in a day to make sure the windows are polished.
But there are so many things I would not throw away because I need and use them every day: books, cds, musical instruments, cooking gear, all kinds of tools, wires, parts, etc. for tinkering. This adds up to what I own, and yes, it is quite a lot (moving requires the biggest truck I can get with a normal license). For the books and cds I could go to a library, for the tools to a hackerspace, for my food to a restaurant... The instruments, well, that'd be hard.
It seems to me that such a life would be more expensive and require more organisation. In short, it would be far less enjoyable for me.
Family minimalism is a lot harder I think than individual minimalism. Most minimalist blogs paint a picture of a single male hipster with a macbook couch-surfing between RoR consulting gigs. Family minimalism cannot be that extreme.
Our books and cds were the easiest to get rid of, we both have kindles, and noticed that we never re-read books anyway, and listened to mp3s or streaming radio rather than cds. The hardest bit was thinking about what it represents in financial terms.
I would say keep the musical instruments. A couple of ideas I have seen floating around are the 100 things idea, where each person has 100 things, and if you want to buy something and have 100 things you have to decide what to ditch. I think it is fully acceptable to have a musical instrument as one of your 100 things.
The other idea I like is splitting things into the create or consume categories, and feel better about holding onto things that let you create. Anything related to consumption like a TV for example should be on "consider ditching" list.
As far as cooking goes, well if that is your thing keep it. We ditched ours as we ate too much anyway. We worried that we would spend more money and eat out more, but basically we ended up eating less and losing weight.
For us it has meant outsourcing a lot of stuff. Instead of burning all home movies and photos to blu-ray, we are more selective, and upload stuff to the cloud. We used to have external hard drives and actual servers, now it is just laptops and the cloud.
Overall we are spending about the same. What we save on collecting crap, we spend on services. We are saving on power, and go out more. We spend less time at home, and less time cleaning up.
EDIT: Plus now we only need a much cheaper and smaller flat. Rent is cheaper, but heating is MUCH cheaper.
But I cannot possibly bring myself to throw away books. It's (almost) religious. Books are the foundation of civilized culture. The nazis burnt books and destroyed cultures (the things parents teach you..).
No I couldn't destroy them either. Also you have to separate the actual material in the book itself, from the dead tree that gets dragged around with it.
When I was honest with myself, it was purely the financial aspect that made getting rid of my books a difficult proposition. I gave away over a thousand euros worth of books. I kept less than 10 that I hadn't read yet, and will give them away once they are read. We kept a lot of my 2 year old daughter's books, as she doesn't have a kindle yet, but we didn't keep all of them.
Don't throw them away! The trick is to give them to a library. Win-win situation.
The point I'm trying to make in my article is that minimalism makes me happier, but I'm not sure whether this will always be true. Too minimalistic and I will probably become less happy. Also, doing it for a long time might also get old. We'll see, so far I like it.
However paradoxical, minimalism can be also an be attachment. As Buddhists would say, take the middle road.
Taking cooking as an example: food touches on the outer world (think of everything involved in a simple crop, from the farmer to the sun) and the inner world (physically and mentally). Preparing food is very good for exercising awareness and appreciating life, why would one sacrifice that?
Edit: sorry for accidentally downvoting you :(.
One of my favorite lines in philosophical thought is, "Moderation in all things, including moderation."
I used to have quite a bit of "stuff": home theater, nice car, video games, etc. But I don't find I miss it very much at all. If anything, the only thing I really miss is my dog. Right now I'm working on my iPad app at an amazing cafe in Budapest. There really is no other place I'd rather be.
this is why I discourage friends who consider getting a dog but intend to travel lots. it's kind of an anchor.
emphasis on single. no kids. no obligations, no responsibility.
oh how zen you are.
I don't really blog about my experiences or mention them to friends, I just silently do it and feel a little more of life's burdens lift. It's nice to work on getting rid of attachments (in the Buddhist sense).
Sorry, this is quite a naive statement. My wife before pregnancy and childbirth had a different outlook on life... people's personalities change, and having kids often makes this change (large cause of divorces and break-ups).
Also, your kid's personality you can't choose. Some kids are very colicky and stubborn and do much better with stable environment. Others are free spirits. If you have a special-needs or disabled child, forget about it. No choice there.
My wife's friend roams around with her husband (and their kid) - he does short-term contracts around the world. She had repeated complained about the churn and stress to my wife.
Selection bias rears its ugly head again -- you never read blog posts by minimalists who don't write blog posts about their lives.
BTW, I don't even own a television!
Was replacing his book collection with a Kindle an example of "less stuff" or "more stuff"? I don't think it's either. It's an alternative, and in this case, it felt like "less stuff" to him. That was in line with his goal and it worked.
I find not judging people almost impossible. Isn't judging people, things and events what makes me an intelligent creature? What do you (or Buddhists) think of accepting oneself as a judgmental person?
In 2008 I got rid of what I thought were "most of my possessions". The big thing was every piece of furniture I owned except for a desk, a small lamp and am Eames molded chair. I did, however, have a walk-in closet full of clothes and boxes. I also kept the computer, and the TV.
By having no furniture -- not even a mattress -- for months, it really changed my perspective on what I valued about furniture. Sleeping and sitting on the floor tends to do that to you. It really made me think about what I wanted in a bed, or in a couch, or whether I even wanted certain things at all. It also forced me to focus on the space. By most measures I lived in a very large apartment, but I started to notice how awful the floor plan was, how much room was wasted by an excessively large kitchen, oversized bathroom and tons of useless hallway... it was "big", but not in ways that were useful considering how you actually live in the space.
So 8 months later I downsized. Over that period of time I got rid of more things. Useless baubles and kitsch. Clothes I never wore. Books I never needed again. I had purchased a nice bed, nightstands and two lamps, but hadn't acquired anything else, so I brought far fewer things into a considerably smaller space.
However, that smaller space was MUCH nicer than the larger one, for a bit less money, and in a ridiculously good location (subway across the street, in the city instead of 10 miles out). My commute went from an hour a day to being able to stumble out of bed at the last minute and walk across the street. Cleaning was just getting easier and easier. With no junk around, you can just power steam, vacuum, or wipe down every surface very quickly. I also seemed to have to clean less often, in addition to reducing it to maybe 30 minutes a week. Insects? What are those? I think I've seen only a fruit fly and a spider in nearly 3 years. Despite losing 250sqft, I think I only lost 20sqft of usable living space.
But I wasn't done. If I spent an hour going through everything, I'd still finish with a 15-gallon garbage bag full of things to throw out. The former walk-in closet of boxes? It's down to just one box (as of this weekend). Two of the (three) reach-in closets are now empty, so I'm turning one into my office (which reclaims a lot of floor space). I could probably downsize again and still have tons of room, as even with a few more pieces of furniture (partial living room) the place is feeling a bit gargantuan, and I'm worried I might just buy furniture to eliminate the seemingly empty space.
This has been a fascinating thread and I've really been influenced.
However, do not underestimate proper use of color. My bedroom is backed by a Benjamin Moore Jack O' Lantern [1][2] that gives the desired effect (and similar in the bathroom with Shy Cherry). My living area needs something, and I'm considering finding photos (Monaco Grand Prix, Targa Florio) to enlarge and use as panoramic wallpaper.
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One thing I have noticed is the opportunity cost of having useless things. Not just the space to store it, but not having the space to store useful things, and the lost opportunities by not having those useful things.
The most common example are having clothes you don't wear. Since they're taking up space in your closet, you end up running out of the clothes you do wear, and not having enough of the preferred styles/articles you like to wear. So by keeping the articles of clothing around, you end up creating this ridiculous artificial problem for yourself which results in more frequent laundry.
I've noticed similar with pots and pans. The 3-quart pot is dirty and I want to make some pasta? I can't with a 2-quart or 1-quart, so I won't be having a shrimp scampi that night. If I simply got rid of the useless pots I almost never use, and bought more of the ones I did, I'd be eating what I want (and probably better overall).
Additionally if the pots are decent looking, and are well organized, it's free decor. I once went to someone's home and their bath towels were in an open reach-in closet, but meticulously folded and stacked. I was impressed, because someone had made some plain, boring, inexpensive bath towels part of their decorum rather effectively.
[1] http://i.imgur.com/yyi62.jpg [2] http://i.imgur.com/D1DyH.jpg
Even so, I find that after moving the 'stuff' creeps back in again and after a couple of years there is just too much of it.
It's just different stuff... especially tools, it's hard to get by without them.
I couldn't care less about clothes or furniture but tools matter.
Changing my eating habits to reduce my sugar intake will definitely be more complicated than not doing so. The same holds for an information diet.
I understand why you're doing this and it'll most probably have a positive effect, but I don't see how this is necessarily simpler.
My diet is now mostly meat, eggs, fish, and salad with some nuts and fruit. There's really nothing complicated about it.
A better general tip is to have a positive goal.
See what I did there? :)
Instead of reducing sugar in your diet, go for increasing the good stuff - vegetables, berries etc.
Both minimalism and stoicism are about constraints. Therefore, I do not agree with replacing books with a Kindle. A Kindle - like most Internet-connected mobile devices - represents abundance: an abundance of information. Hence I find this point a bit at odds with an information diet. Having physical books puts a constraint on what you can carry around with you (especially important when traveling). Also, which is an argument not heard enough, reading from books - especially hardcovers - has aesthetic value, and it's easier to remember the contents of the book.
Also it's an interesting point you make about dutchies and their agenda's. No wonder people think I'm crazy. I've never had an agenda (or used calendars either for that matter).
(Another point this may be off topic)
Something about your 30-day-no-candy experiment.
If you continue trying to about complex sugars, you'll see that you will not miss carbs at all.
For a different reason (I'm a body builder -hobby-) I tried 3 months with no carbs at all, and I really felt good!
Ask me again in a couple of years time and I'll let you know if you need more stuff for older kids.
Good plan is to say "ok now that you have this new thing we need to get rid of one of your old things" but good luck getting them to accept that happily.
Kids can be a lot more reasonable than people give them credit for.
I also did this with all the news sites I read. Most of it was filler anyway. I end up not reading much news, but somehow I still hear about the important stuff.
And yes, it is very selfish. I try to optimize for my own happiness. Which includes helping others, being nice, adding value, doing things that make life less fun in the short term but better in the long term.