On Minimalism

I have been binging lately.

On cappuccinos and beet salad? No (well, yes -- but that's irrelevant). On blog posts. About minimalism.

Here's a good one. And this. And this one too. I can't stop. This morning I woke up at 7:30 and my first thought was how to mentally prepare the path I needed to walk to get to the coffee shop to begin reading articles on minimalism as fast as possible.

The probably isn't healthy. Minimalism is concerned with making conscious decisions about consumption, and being transparent with oneself about the desires that cause us to, say, feel the dire need to buy a new pair of Jimmy Choos. So maybe I'm being overrun with some bizarre desire to consume these articles. I don't know.

All I know is that it feels right. Sometimes life conspiratorially presents an idea to us at precisely the moment when we need it. For me that moment was last week when my mom forwarded me an article from The Minimalists. The context is that I had left my job five weeks prior, had just completed a two week journey around the U.S. carrying only a duffel bag, and was in the midst of preparations for a month-long trip to Southeast Asia (I leave in two days). I had been feeling an existential need to streamline my life; to direct it away from distractions and towards meaningful pursuits. Some of the distractions were obvious -- drinking alcohol, toxic relationships, a two-hour round-trip commute -- but I still felt like there was something obvious that I was missing.

And then, there it was. Stuff. Possessions. Things. My bedroom (and my life) was utterly filled with meaningless things that I had purchased and stored in the inconcrete notion this was what I was supposed to do with my money. That stuff was supposed to make me happy. That more shirts and more books and new skis and bicycles were a useful, productive, and necessary use of capital.

My trip to New York last month should have made it clear how silly that was. I spent almost fourteen days living out of a medium sized duffel bag, and probably only used two-thirds of the clothing I had brought with me. If I can live indefinitely out of a duffel bag, then why do I have 30 button-up shirts hanging in my closet? And more importantly -- what could I have done with the time and money that I spent acquiring and maintaining those things?

The ways we spend our time and attention tell us a lot about our desires and priorities. It's no wonder I've made next to no progress at learning the piano over the past year -- I spend half of my free time running errands to buy shit that I don't need.

Anyhow -- back to binging. I've spent the last seven days doing two things: reading blog posts on minimalism, and getting rid of my things. Whole boxes of things! Half of the time, I laugh out loud at the absurdity of keeping these things in the first place. For example, I had an old ski jacket hanging from the door to my bedroom closet. (For the record, I barely ski. I hardly have the need for one ski jacket.) Why was I keeping this thing I wasn't using? I did have some vague notion that I would eventually sell it, but it wasn't like I had taken any steps to further that goal. It's been hanging there for almost two years! I promptly pulled it down and gave it to a homeless man on Saturday night. Yesterday morning I saw the same man outside of Walgreen's, wearing the same ski jacket. When he saw me approaching, he nearly started crying out of gratitude.

Giving him the jacket doesn't make me a good person. Hanging onto it for no good reason actually makes me a bad person. Why didn't I give the coat away two years ago? That's 730 days of warmth for somebody who could have needed it; totally wasted. And there are plenty more examples from my apartment alone.

So: Thanks, Mom. I needed this. It's about time for some spring cleaning. Here's to a 2014 devoted to a lighter and more meaningful existence, less encumbered by the upkeep of material consumerism, and doubly-focused on giving attention to the things that matter.