
Minimalist Living: When a Lot Less Is More - snadahalli
http://time.com/3738202/minimalism-clutter-too-much-stuff/
======
chestnut-tree
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?

~~~
pitt1980
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

~~~
Lagged2Death
You're taking it on faith that the price of beef in the store currently
reflects the actual costs of producing that beef. And that it would continue
to do so if the beef industry became even larger and more powerful.

But it isn't true, current "cheap beef prices" (they are actually up a lot
just now [1]) are a reflection, in part, of the public funds and public
property use that are routinely donated to agribusiness.

You can't tell what the cost of beef is by looking at the pricetag, and that's
true about a lot of real-world products and services. You can't rely on the
market to give you a signal in such cases. And you can't tell which cases are
which without digging in to every one.

I don't mean to pick on you, exactly, but your attitude is one I see online
frequently. "I took Econ 101 and therefore I can tell which global industrial
supply chains are or are not sustainable just by looking at price-tags in the
grocery store." When even real economists get things wrong _all the time_.

[1]
[http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=beef&months...](http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=beef&months=240)

~~~
pitt1980
how long can a government distort prices?

even a distorted price gives information, no?

------
mvanvoorden
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](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
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?

~~~
tonyedgecombe
If I only owned one pair of shoes I'd choose a pair I could comfortably walk
ten miles in.

~~~
chrisseaton
Great - but then those boots are too heavy for walking around in a city - and
are those boots suitable for wet or dry conditions?

I'd love to have less stuff, but I don't know how that doesn't turn into
simply having the wrong stuff.

~~~
holri
I love my Waldviertler boots:

[http://w4tler.at/schuhe/jaga-schwarz-herren](http://w4tler.at/schuhe/jaga-
schwarz-herren)

Perfect for almost everything all year. This guy [1] walked 15.000 km with
them. He needed just 3 pairs of them.

[1]
[http://www.globalchange.at/home/willkommen.php?main=home&sub...](http://www.globalchange.at/home/willkommen.php?main=home&sub=willkommen&lang=eng)

------
pjc50
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.

~~~
nulltype
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.

~~~
pjc50
"If it's worthless, why did I pay money for it?"

It doesn't start off worthless. That's why I singled out furniture, it has a
huge gap between cost and resale value despite being "durable".

Then there is sentimental value. Not everything is pure economics. We need
some things to satisfy the part of us that isn't utility maximising robot.

~~~
brixon
America does not have a good used market mentality, so after someone gains
their utility from a purchase they feel that the trash is the only option.

~~~
nulltype
It would be nice if the secondhand market was better for sure. Right now for
almost all goods under a few hundred dollars it's cheaper for me to buy a new
one on Amazon vs the full cost of finding purchasing and transporting a second
hand version.

Moveloot is trying to do this with furniture, which I think is a good starting
point.

------
tomjen3
>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?

~~~
eswat
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.

------
mark_l_watson
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.

------
freshhawk
"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.

Thats the most American thing I've ever heard.

------
kailuowang
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.

------
rumcajz
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.

------
briandear
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.

~~~
spain
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_.

------
jkot
Translated: I only travel with MacBook Air and credit card.

~~~
digi_owl
Give me a T series Thinkpad, or a Panasonic Toughbook and maybe i'll give it a
shot.

------
casion
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?

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Ind007
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.

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dataker
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.

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b1twise
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.

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JustSomeNobody
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".

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vog
This reminds me of pg's lesser-known article "Stuff":
[http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html)

