There is something very appealing about owning a small number of material possessions and living a "minimalist" lifestyle. But I'm well aware of the messy contradictions surrounding such an issue. Living minimally is a choice you can make when you live in relatively rich country. It's not a choice for many millions of others around the world who make do with little because of their circumstances. What's more, our economies (certainly "Western" economies) are geared to the production and consumption of goods, if not for our own populations then for export to other countries for them to consume. So can only a small number of us choose to live minimally as long as everyone else decides not to? How else are we going to buy the expensive laptop essential to our minimalist life? (Am I being too cynical?)
And does minimal living always equate to sustainable living? If you're jetting all over the world in a plane, is that environmentally friendly? Wouldn't the locals prefer you spend some of your tourist money on their goods and services so they too can live a comfortable life? Many environmentalists believe the huge amount of resources needed to rear and feed animals is unsustainable. Giving up meat or reducing our consumption could be considered sustainable, but it's not what people would consider as part of a minimal lifestyle.
And finally, is it really a choice between a consumer/material lifestyle and a minimal lifestyle? Or more realistically, a choice between excessive material consumption (e.g. 70 shirts as stated in the article) or just a more modest material lifestyle?
I don't really get the idea of "sustainable living"
as in, I'm not supposed to eat beef or fly on a plane, because there are not enough of those things to support everyone on the planet doing at US rates
Like, I get that if everyone started eating beef that would take an oversized share of arriable land, but wouldn't that then be reflected in the price for beef?
I like hamburger, but if I had to pay fois gras prices for it because everyone in China liked it too, driving up the price for beef, I'd probably switch to eating something different
if we're still at cheap beef prices, seems like a pretty strong signal to me, that current beef consumption is in fact sustainable
I don't think you need to worry about the economy collapsing because of a wide spread adoption of minimalism, conspicuous consumption seems to be an innate trait.
"the messy contradictions surrounding such an issue"
Consider another, its OK to keep hobby stuff per the article. I'm sure they were thinking of a (singular) fishing pole or a pair of hiking boots. Anyone into ham radio, electronics, carpentry, computers, metalworking knows you can easily fill a basement over the course of a lifetime while remaining "minimal" as per the strict definition.
I could get rid of my artwork, books, and fridge door clutter, but it wouldn't improve my life very much.
I started to live minimal two years ago. I noticed I wasn't happy at all with my life and decided to go travelling the world, something that I always wanted to do, but somehow never did. I gave away almost all my stuff, what I have left is what fits in my backpack.
I have no job, no house and barely any money. I met my girlfriend during my travels and together we've been travelling for 10 months, of which the last 4 we've spent living in a cave on Tenerife and now we're staying for a short while at a friend in The Netherlands to replenish our funds for further travelling.
I own a laptop, 4 pairs of pants (2 long, 2 short), 6 shirts, some underwear, 2 mobile phones, an external hard drive, a dj controller, an e-reader, some cutlery and a bowl, a tent, a sleeping bag and mat, personal hygiene items, one pair of shoes, two warm sweaters, and a guitar.
I never buy things like clothes, as I can find those almost everywhere for free, i.e. free shops or so called freeboxes at (hippie/nomad) communities all over the world. On Tenerife we did a lot of dumpster diving, something that at first required me to overcome some shame, but now I'm amazed to see for example how much perfectly good food supermarkets throw away, just because the date expired, or because there are spots on the banana's, or a whole bag of apples is thrown away because one got crushed during transportation. Two to three times a week we left with a backpack full of tomatoes, sweet pepper, onions, bananas, avocado's, cookies, milk, cheese, etcetera and cooked meals to share with others. In bins around second hand stores or appartment buildings there are often bags full of clothes, and most of the time (in our case) they even smell fresh/washed. For me, going on a 'recycling mission' feels a bit like a lottery :) General tip: don't go through the bags of household garbage, those are disgusting. (Interested? See http://trashwiki.org)
Anyway, this life makes me really happy, as my life is full with experience, adventure, nice people and no worries. My goal for the next years is to become fully self-sustainable, to live without money and to not be dependent on dumpster diving either, as I am aware this would not work if everybody starts doing it. My plan for now is to find a proper place to start an ecovillage, to put my experiences into practice and be completely self-sustainable, not dependent on any other system than the ecosystem.
So for example what would you do if you decided you want to go for a hike one day? You don't own any hiking boots, only a pair of shoes. Does that mean lot of activities aren't possible for you because you want to own as little as possible?
I'm considering doing exactly this sometime next year, and I have a lot of questions, if you're interested in having an American pen pal! Let me know and I'll give you my email.
This comes up every now and again. Some people seem to like living this way. They're usually young men, although this article mentions a family (but gives no details). It certainly requires shearing off all commitments that might require you to have stuff.
While being very far from "minimalist", I've moved house and helped a few people move over the past year, and every time there is a large chunk of stuff which has to be thrown away. Sometimes it's old tat, sometimes it's genuinely useful and once valuable but consumes too much space (sofas are a particular problem, but furniture and kitchen goods are often victims of this). I don't like throwing things away which have pleasant associations or are still useful, and this leads me to avoid acquiring them in the first place.
(That reminds me, must finish buying a shed for my outdoor junk...)
There's an entire infrastructure of capitalism set up for us to buy things. There isn't really a comparable one for taking them away and getting money back. Partly because owning a thing de-standardises it; it acquires a history and potentially hidden problems.
Another part is that most stuff people own is effectively worthless. I think a lot of people don't really take into account the full cost of stuff including time and cognitive overhead.
>To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
Thomas A. Edison
I fear that all of this minimalism will lead to people being unable to fix things, or to imagine new usages of things; the only reason my cables on my computer desk are cleanly attached and not on the floor is that I had a powertool and some wire attachers and the knowhow to use them. I don't own a dryer but I do remember my dad fixing the family drier several times - I suppose if you lived a minimal lifestyle you would go without a drier, but what about a vacum?
Heck where would we be if we didn't have a bunch of junk computers to play around with when we were kids?
I’ve never thought about this but I agree to an extent. Keeping things around for your children to hack on would very useful for their development. Books and kitchen equipment could also be very important.
I think those that wanted to adopt this lifestyle while raising family would have to look at keeping things that are actually hackable and look to renting the rest. But it may not be cheap compared to just owning said stuff for children to hack on.
Very true. People who take pride in not owning a pair of skis, of a life jacket, or a fishing rod, is people who either are inactive or throw everything away because you can always get new stuff.
A life without room for tools is a life I'm not interested in living. I'll keep buying the newly minted minimalists' old stuff on Craigslist and fixing it up for myself.
Although we own a fair amount of real estate, my wife and I live in a small house, and we periodically do the de-cluttering thing. My wife and I have been talking about going further and perhaps living in an RV and constantly travel.
One thing that facilitates this is having stuff online, and not in physical form: eBooks, audio books, and watch streaming entertainment. I have my library reduced now to only about 200 books, and de-cluttering these would be difficult because I do like physical books.
Edit: also, I have (mostly) worked remotely since 1998 so continuing to do some work while traveling would be possible.
"Some of them have received criticism for getting rid of their things when many families are barely getting by, that their behavior is only for people of a certain income level."
Dammit, I laughed very loudly at this and might have woken people up.
As human species we need to focus on two activities: experiencing meaningful things and creating them. Giving up meaningless materialism junk is a great practice that helps you to focus on real experiencing, but we need to be careful not stopping creating truly meaningful things.
I think this is going to get important economically.
There's only limited amount of resources a person can consume for consuming sake.
The rest is conspicuous consumption (buying a Ferrari to improve your social status) or its watered down versions brought to the ordinary folks via media brainwashing.
However, once over-consumption becomes a sign of low status (consider that being fat was once a sign of being well-off) it will become hard to keep consumption at current levels, not even mentioning growing it further.
Which in turn means that economies will start to shrink. Which, from a current economic viewpoint, sounds pretty scary.
Interesting story except it's far from novel; Zen Habits has been all about this for a long time. On a side note, why are many mainstream news site so difficult to read on mobile? Time ought to be minimizing their use of glitchy mobile JavaScript. Scrolling was painfully glitchy.
Might have something to do with the scrolling: the video at the top autoplays if it's visible and pauses if you scroll past it. If you've already paused it and you scroll past it makes the audio cut in and cut out for a second (at least on my machine). Scrolling back up causes it to autoplay again even though I already paused it.
I always find this curious... In order to live minimally, your interests need to be minimal as well.
I'm a musician and woodworker that also enjoys electronics. It's very difficult to engage in these hobbies without having 'things' unless I'm lucky enough to pass along the burden of having these things to someone else who will let me have unrestricted access to them.
So this popular idea of 'living minimal' is unaccessible to me unless I wish to burden someone else with my hobbies, or to simply ignore my interests.
I still operate minimally in the constraints of that which I enjoy. Despite that, it requires a minimum of ~1200 sq/ft of space and 'things'. So it makes me wonder how minimally you need to live to be minimal enough to be considered minimal?
We don't need practice minimalism to extremities. Personally, minimalism to me is like having as few as possible in third and fourth buckets If I have things bucketed like compulsory , necessary, good to have and luxury.
My problem with minimalist living is that, quite often, adopters reduce any possession.
Although my physical items would fit in a small suitcase, I have several investments and properties to increase my personal wealth. It's not as superfluous as 50 pairs of shoes, as money itself can be used for valuable social change.
Any time I move, I try to divest myself of at least half of everything I own. I've moved with only what I could fit into luggage. The take on it that I'm more comfortable with now is--if I want it, I want something really nice. I work for a site that specializes in antiques and collectibles and such. If I want something, I go searching for a special example of that thing. It sheds at least part of the disposable nature of things.
If I could get my household to a point where we could look around and not wish the house had more storage, I'd be as happy as ... well, I'd just be happy. There's a great amount of stress that comes from having too much "stuff".
[+] [-] chestnut-tree|11 years ago|reply
And does minimal living always equate to sustainable living? If you're jetting all over the world in a plane, is that environmentally friendly? Wouldn't the locals prefer you spend some of your tourist money on their goods and services so they too can live a comfortable life? Many environmentalists believe the huge amount of resources needed to rear and feed animals is unsustainable. Giving up meat or reducing our consumption could be considered sustainable, but it's not what people would consider as part of a minimal lifestyle.
And finally, is it really a choice between a consumer/material lifestyle and a minimal lifestyle? Or more realistically, a choice between excessive material consumption (e.g. 70 shirts as stated in the article) or just a more modest material lifestyle?
[+] [-] pitt1980|11 years ago|reply
as in, I'm not supposed to eat beef or fly on a plane, because there are not enough of those things to support everyone on the planet doing at US rates
Like, I get that if everyone started eating beef that would take an oversized share of arriable land, but wouldn't that then be reflected in the price for beef?
I like hamburger, but if I had to pay fois gras prices for it because everyone in China liked it too, driving up the price for beef, I'd probably switch to eating something different
if we're still at cheap beef prices, seems like a pretty strong signal to me, that current beef consumption is in fact sustainable
[+] [-] digi_owl|11 years ago|reply
Start living more suburban, never mind rural, and you quickly start to get into a "for a rainy day" mentality.
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VLM|11 years ago|reply
Consider another, its OK to keep hobby stuff per the article. I'm sure they were thinking of a (singular) fishing pole or a pair of hiking boots. Anyone into ham radio, electronics, carpentry, computers, metalworking knows you can easily fill a basement over the course of a lifetime while remaining "minimal" as per the strict definition.
I could get rid of my artwork, books, and fridge door clutter, but it wouldn't improve my life very much.
[+] [-] mvanvoorden|11 years ago|reply
I have no job, no house and barely any money. I met my girlfriend during my travels and together we've been travelling for 10 months, of which the last 4 we've spent living in a cave on Tenerife and now we're staying for a short while at a friend in The Netherlands to replenish our funds for further travelling.
I own a laptop, 4 pairs of pants (2 long, 2 short), 6 shirts, some underwear, 2 mobile phones, an external hard drive, a dj controller, an e-reader, some cutlery and a bowl, a tent, a sleeping bag and mat, personal hygiene items, one pair of shoes, two warm sweaters, and a guitar.
I never buy things like clothes, as I can find those almost everywhere for free, i.e. free shops or so called freeboxes at (hippie/nomad) communities all over the world. On Tenerife we did a lot of dumpster diving, something that at first required me to overcome some shame, but now I'm amazed to see for example how much perfectly good food supermarkets throw away, just because the date expired, or because there are spots on the banana's, or a whole bag of apples is thrown away because one got crushed during transportation. Two to three times a week we left with a backpack full of tomatoes, sweet pepper, onions, bananas, avocado's, cookies, milk, cheese, etcetera and cooked meals to share with others. In bins around second hand stores or appartment buildings there are often bags full of clothes, and most of the time (in our case) they even smell fresh/washed. For me, going on a 'recycling mission' feels a bit like a lottery :) General tip: don't go through the bags of household garbage, those are disgusting. (Interested? See http://trashwiki.org)
Anyway, this life makes me really happy, as my life is full with experience, adventure, nice people and no worries. My goal for the next years is to become fully self-sustainable, to live without money and to not be dependent on dumpster diving either, as I am aware this would not work if everybody starts doing it. My plan for now is to find a proper place to start an ecovillage, to put my experiences into practice and be completely self-sustainable, not dependent on any other system than the ecosystem.
[+] [-] chrisseaton|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nmyk|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] martinko|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zer0rest|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|11 years ago|reply
While being very far from "minimalist", I've moved house and helped a few people move over the past year, and every time there is a large chunk of stuff which has to be thrown away. Sometimes it's old tat, sometimes it's genuinely useful and once valuable but consumes too much space (sofas are a particular problem, but furniture and kitchen goods are often victims of this). I don't like throwing things away which have pleasant associations or are still useful, and this leads me to avoid acquiring them in the first place.
(That reminds me, must finish buying a shed for my outdoor junk...)
There's an entire infrastructure of capitalism set up for us to buy things. There isn't really a comparable one for taking them away and getting money back. Partly because owning a thing de-standardises it; it acquires a history and potentially hidden problems.
[+] [-] nulltype|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|11 years ago|reply
I fear that all of this minimalism will lead to people being unable to fix things, or to imagine new usages of things; the only reason my cables on my computer desk are cleanly attached and not on the floor is that I had a powertool and some wire attachers and the knowhow to use them. I don't own a dryer but I do remember my dad fixing the family drier several times - I suppose if you lived a minimal lifestyle you would go without a drier, but what about a vacum?
Heck where would we be if we didn't have a bunch of junk computers to play around with when we were kids?
[+] [-] eswat|11 years ago|reply
I think those that wanted to adopt this lifestyle while raising family would have to look at keeping things that are actually hackable and look to renting the rest. But it may not be cheap compared to just owning said stuff for children to hack on.
[+] [-] xorcist|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amateurpolymath|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mark_l_watson|11 years ago|reply
One thing that facilitates this is having stuff online, and not in physical form: eBooks, audio books, and watch streaming entertainment. I have my library reduced now to only about 200 books, and de-cluttering these would be difficult because I do like physical books.
Edit: also, I have (mostly) worked remotely since 1998 so continuing to do some work while traveling would be possible.
[+] [-] freshhawk|11 years ago|reply
Dammit, I laughed very loudly at this and might have woken people up.
Thats the most American thing I've ever heard.
[+] [-] kailuowang|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rumcajz|11 years ago|reply
There's only limited amount of resources a person can consume for consuming sake.
The rest is conspicuous consumption (buying a Ferrari to improve your social status) or its watered down versions brought to the ordinary folks via media brainwashing.
However, once over-consumption becomes a sign of low status (consider that being fat was once a sign of being well-off) it will become hard to keep consumption at current levels, not even mentioning growing it further.
Which in turn means that economies will start to shrink. Which, from a current economic viewpoint, sounds pretty scary.
[+] [-] unknown|11 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] briandear|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spain|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burger_moon|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zer0rest|11 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jkot|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] digi_owl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] casion|11 years ago|reply
I'm a musician and woodworker that also enjoys electronics. It's very difficult to engage in these hobbies without having 'things' unless I'm lucky enough to pass along the burden of having these things to someone else who will let me have unrestricted access to them.
So this popular idea of 'living minimal' is unaccessible to me unless I wish to burden someone else with my hobbies, or to simply ignore my interests.
I still operate minimally in the constraints of that which I enjoy. Despite that, it requires a minimum of ~1200 sq/ft of space and 'things'. So it makes me wonder how minimally you need to live to be minimal enough to be considered minimal?
[+] [-] Ind007|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dataker|11 years ago|reply
Although my physical items would fit in a small suitcase, I have several investments and properties to increase my personal wealth. It's not as superfluous as 50 pairs of shoes, as money itself can be used for valuable social change.
[+] [-] b1twise|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JustSomeNobody|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vog|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rumcajz|11 years ago|reply
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