
Why I Gave Up on Extreme Minimalism (2015) - farazzz
http://www.janafadness.com/blog/no-extreme-minimalism/
======
BoiledCabbage
I feel like I'm reading a parallel post to "Why I gave up not eating food".

Her story is actually interesting, but the conclusion of the post (and the
title's question) is "I gave up extreme minimalism so I could keep things and
go back to them from time to time."

I mean this isn't exactly profound.

Paraphrasing: "I bought a book to study German. Normally I'd throw it away
when I'd get bored of it. Instead I'm going to keep the book, so if I have the
desire to study German again later I can just pick it back up rather than buy
a new one."

~~~
bayindirh
Not everyone have fixed hobbies or can have regular time for their fixed
hobbies. I'm taking photos for a long time, but it's not a "regular" endeavor
due to life circumstances. Should I sell my photo gear as soon as I don't feel
like taking photos and re-buy all of it as soon as I want to go out?

Similarly I have a lot of books which I sometimes blaze through, or abandon
for some time. However the desire never completely dies out. I simply doesn't
have the time or energy at that time. Should I give away the books I had no
time to read, but still desirable for me?

I also have a lot of small projects which I re-visit and work for short time
regularly. They may be very far from completion, but they reward with very
high experience since I look them from a very different perspectives and as a
very different developer every time.

If that's working for her, and she's happy, let her be.

~~~
nf05papsjfVbc
An important aspect of removing things from life is to make a decision about
whether you intend to continue having something as a part of your life -
either in thoughts, ambitions or as an object you possess. Without resolving
this, the question of "should I keep this?" can not be answered
satisfactorily. Our time is quite limited and these choices are either made
actively through conscious decision making or passively through inaction. I am
still trying to learn to make the decision actively.

~~~
bayindirh
You're right, however sometimes trying to shove things out of your life may
not be easy or effective. I personally decided to dig deeper and understand
why I accumulated that amount of stuff in the first place.

Instead of wasting time trying to actively make this decisions and drain your
mental energy, why not try semi-passive observation? I found that putting
everything away and getting things that I regularly use from that pile, and
getting rid of the least used part regularly (weekly, monthly, semi annually,
etc.) works best.

This way also decluttering doesn't feel like swimming upstream, at least for
me.

~~~
c22
Sometimes I'll just put everything _in my way_ into a cardboard box (for
instance, everything on my desk, or the majority of a cluttered shelf). I
write the date on the box and put it in a closet. The rule after that is I can
take things out of the box if I need them, but I can't put anything else in.
Any time I find a box with a date more than 1 year old I just donate the whole
thing to a thrift store without looking inside.

~~~
borgel
Wow, that's a really good idea. Time to find some boxes!

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tomc1985
I think minimalism works if you can fit your life into a certain categories. I
moved to another country for a year with only the stuff I could fit in a
military duffel bag. The most annoying thing about the experience, after
returning from my trip, was having to re-purchase everything that I had
previously sold off just so that I could take part in hobbies that I had
sorely missed while gone. Lots of endeavors require a small inventory of
things or tools, especially if you want to do well.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Buying new stuff can be fun, however.

------
cyberferret
I'm in a similar situation as the author, in that most of the 'stuff' in my
life are facilitators for my hobbies and passions in life outside of work.

When people walk into my home office and see the number of guitars, amps and
pedals lying around, they are often taken aback. I _do_ have a lot of music
gear, but they are integral to me winding down and de-stressing from my
developer life and exploring another creative side of my life.

When people ask me why I need about 10 guitars lying around and to downsize to
just a couple, I say "No can do... each instrument is so different, and
intended for a different purpose so I can't simply achieve all that with just
one or two".

~~~
alias_neo
It doesn't matter what you replace the word "guitars" with. People that don't
understand your craft will always suggest you have too many of something.

Contrary to popular belief, 2 screwdrivers is not enough for any situation.

A size 10 spanner will not fit every nut, and who only has a single sharp
knife in their kitchen?

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atoav
The question is why these minimalist tendencies exist?

If I had to guess I’d say it is about the feeling of control. If we don’t have
any control over the outside world which has become quite unpredictable, and
we have a hard time to control our own emtions and thoughts, it can be a
soothing feeling to know exactly what you have where. It can also help with a
nomadic life.

I’d argue to keep things strategically. Don’t just keep everything, but don’t
just throw out everything either. Keep organized, label your drawers, sort
stuff.

You should view your space as an external hard drive for your brain: \- it
helps you to keep things in focus \- it helps you to revisit topics (hobbies,
thoughts, emotions) now and then \- it might contain tools for creating things

If your only reason for not using that space is to avoid the mental work it
needs to maintain it, that mainly means you don’t trust yourself with the
decision how to organize your space in a way that serves you.

~~~
guitarbill
> avoid the mental work

for me, that's the most alluring part. i find (good) coding or design work
leads to decision fatigue. more stuff means more decisions. less stuff means
less decisions (even if the initial purchase requires a bit more effort).

if i could manage to keep things organised after a long day, i'd probably do
that. but some people need a strict set of rules, some people need the
opposite (most people just cope/get by and never think about it - is that
better or worse?).

------
stockkid
> The things I have here aren’t just things. They are tools I use to explore
> my passions.

This is actually pretty good point. Many things we are passionate about
requires us to have things. Extreme minimalism could in many ways conflict
with pursuit of our interests.

~~~
scoutt
> So I might be obsessed ... then suddenly become possessed

> “scanners“, “multipotentialites”, “polymaths”, and “renaissance people”.

There must be a difference between having things to pursue some passion and
pathologically having the passion of purchasing to pursue things.

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gdubs
The 'scanner' personality type comes from Barbara Sher's book, "Refuse to
Choose". I read it because I also identify as a generalist. It's an
interesting read, if a bit pop-sci. One big thing I took from it was that it's
incredibly valuable to spend time organizing your environment to make
switching between projects easy. The other big thing was that if you're a
generalist, it really helps to find a career where you're able to work on a
broad spectrum of projects that touch on lots of different fields.

Having a kid that's kindergarten age, I can see being a kindergarten teacher
as fulfilling for a generalist. Every day can touch on a new concept, a new
skill. At the same time, it can allow for a deeper specialization in pedagogy.
For me, it's been app development – through it I can incorporate a wide
variety of interests, while going deeper and deeper on the core skillset.

Personally, I've gravitated towards 'tidiness' over 'minimalism'. When Marie
Kondo's book first came out, we decluttered our lives and it was liberating. I
haven't seen the Netflix show but it sounds like her philosophy has gained a
new level of fame recently. As a generalist, it's been particularly 'life
changing' because I'm someone who can end up collecting a lot of things for
'some day'. By decluttering, I'm actually more inspired because it's easier to
see the various projects and things I'm interested in. I.e., it's easy, as a
generalist, to fall into the trap of thinking that _everything_ is important
and worth holding onto for some future endeavor.

------
osdiab
I hope that startups like Omni ([https://beomni.com](https://beomni.com)) /
autonomous cars + cheap remote storage end up working out well, because it
would allow people to not actually need to own the things they’re not
sentimental about.

I love living light and spending time all over the world, but it seems super
inefficient for me to need to lug all my crap everywhere every time I move,
when the same exact crap is available in every locale.

Typical example is a drill/toolkit, if I’m only going to use it occasionally,
wouldn’t it be great if I could just borrow one one off for a day here or
there? I don’t need to own it, I just want to use it. Multiply across all the
sufficiently generic things I make use of in life, make it convenient and
cheap enough I can depend on those things often, and you can live only truly
owning the things you actually care about.

~~~
nathan_f77
A drill is a great example. I bought one about 3 years ago, and I've only
needed to use it about 4 times. The most recent time was a few days ago, but I
wouldn't have been able to fix something without it. I don't regret buying it,
and it doesn't take up much room, but it would be great if I could have just
rented it each time.

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YUMad
It is no wonder this happens, because 'minimalism' today is just a memepack
attenpting to address the dichotomy in working class people's heads between
the amount of labor they are investing and the amount of rewards they can reap
for it, by attempting to link it to Walden-style minimalism. But it's quite
different IMO. Modern minimalism simply reflect the reality of not owning
enough living space to store things (because they rent and rents are high) and
not enough free time to use them (because they have to work too much).

There is a song by Mes Aieux that I feel explains very well the feelings of
young people with regards to this:

[https://www.youtube.com/embed/3O9FQ4ZSuBo](https://www.youtube.com/embed/3O9FQ4ZSuBo)

(Video is Yellow Vests themed but it has English subtitles).

------
amelius
There's also a middle ground: put the stuff you don't need on a daily basis
AND you expect to not miss if it disappeared into storage. You can even use a
LRU scheme, where you have boxes labeled by year of last use.

------
theshrike79
I'd love to be a minimalist, but pretty much all of my hobbies include me
collecting something or require a bunch of stuff.

Yes, I could go digital with some of my collecting hobbies (books, comics,
movies), but we all know how DRM and digital services are nowadays.

My Criterion Collection Robocop DVD can't just magically disappear from my
shelf one night because of some legal issues. Same with my books and comics,
barring a large scale house fire, they're not going anywhere.

~~~
saiya-jin
Don't organic layers in DVDs disintegrate in 15-20 years? I recall having
issues reading some medias few years ago although there wasn't a single
scratch and it was stored in dark place. So time might take care of that
sooner or later.

These days, I can't even read DVD, no reader in the house.

~~~
mixmastamyk
That's the conventional wisdom, but I've got CD's burnt from the mid-Clinton
administration that still work fine.

------
dawidw
"It’s hard being this way sometimes, because society doesn’t consider it the
norm and provides no guidelines for how us “renaissance people” might build
our lives in a way that suits us. We’re expected to pick one specialization
and build a career around it."

That's a pity that the blogger didn't say how it was easier/different in old
days.

------
mettamage
I can relate to her polymath feeling. I am looking for advice career wise on
hiw to deal with it.

~~~
guitarbill
Every industry needs prototype or one-off work, which can keep things
interesting. Consulting is also an option if you can play the game, or
freelancing if you have an inclination with business.

But finding a job that challenges you completely is unlikely to work, and can
be a bit unhealthy because e.g. lack of boundaries. Consider working an okay
job and using your free time as much as possible. And not every job has to be
40h per week. If you're living comfortably, sometimes less hours/pay is
better.

At the end of the day (no pun intended), the benefit of free time is ultimate
flexibility. Bored of a project? Do something else for two weeks. Hard to do
that at work.

Dream jobs are super rare and usually require a lot more hard work than you
think. Media is really bad at portraying this, and they only really portray
the people who made it, not the ones who burned out.

------
stunt
Extreme version of anything is bad! Why you would do anything extreme!? Isn't
the word obvious enough? Aren't enough examples around us?

------
xupybd
Wow how does someone hop countries like this without a job offer? I thought
emigrating was harder than that?

~~~
nathan_f77
For citizens of the US, Canada, UK, Australia, NZ, etc., it's very easy to
spend a few months in most countries. Most of the time you can just turn up
and they'll give you a visa on arrival. You can also look for jobs while you
are there. Typically you will need to leave the country to apply for a work
permit, and then come back on a new visa.

If you want to stay longer than 6-12 months then you usually need a student,
work, marriage, retirement, or investor visa.

Some countries have special visas for freelancers or startups. Thailand has a
"Thailand Elite" visa where you can pay $15k to stay for 5 years, or $63k to
stay for 20 years [1]. But Thailand and Vietnam are also quite relaxed, so you
can usually stay for a few years on a series of tourist visas. (Especially
multi-entry tourist visas if you apply in your home country.)

If you're a NZ citizen then you can live and work in Australia without a visa
(and vice versa.)

[1] [https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/01/22/thai-elite-
visa/](https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/01/22/thai-elite-visa/)

~~~
xupybd
As an NZ citizen this is good news!

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coldtea
> _They say you can tell a lot about a people by looking at their bedrooms.
> But if you had seen my room back in Honolulu, you wouldn’t have been able to
> tell much about me_

How about "white middle class millennial nomad minimalist hipster"?

