The Philosophy of Minimalism

I heard from lots of you that you liked the idea of streamlining LIFE. It's something I've been playing around with a long time. When I stayed in Italy for a little while, I sold nearly all of my stuff and stored the rest (mostly books and kitchen stuff).

And that was it! I couldn't un-know the lightness of having few possessions.

Since then I have been reluctant to feel too weighed down by things. Which is not to say that I've managed to maintain a sort of minimalism. Rather, it means that I really feel the weight of thing-owning. And it's heavy, man. Rachel reminded me of this on Sunday when she played this song for me...and has since been calling me "little britches".

I used to work as a personal assistant/life-business organizer. I noticed the human impulse, when trying to organize/simplify (I use these almost synonymously because the first step in getting organized is always, in my experience, getting rid of stuff), was to first buy more things in order to organize your other things. Don't do that. It almost never works. Think about it: how many notebooks/planners/calendars/journals do you currently possess? How many of those have more than one page written in them? You bought those with the idea of organizing something, right? Your schedule, your time, your thoughts, your grocery lists, your inner life. So, no more notebooks - no matter how cute they are or how well organized their contents. Buying another WILL NOT make your more organized - it will make your stack of notebooks bigger.

You might be thinking, "Sheesh, Tyler, get off my ass." And you'd be right. Because I, too, own a stack of notebooks with one page written in each.

Here's where I've started with my life streamlining so far.



Clothes.
How much do you really need? One thing I noticed living in Rome, other than everyone being terribly stylish, was that they have tiny closets. Whaaaat?! How can you have tiny closets AND be terribly stylish you ask?! It's the whole quality over quantity equation. Buy ONE lovely pair of trousers and have them tailored to fit you perfectly, and they will the kick the asses of all those other pants you bought because they were on sale (or you didn't want to do laundry...yeah, I've done it). So, I started with my closet. I got rid of everything I didn't LOVE TO WEAR. This is a shift for me. Because it's one thing to love an article of clothing, but it's a very different thing to love to wear it, no? Sometimes I just love the idea of piece of clothing. It represents some evening I might have if my life was a certain way, or my body was a certain way. But, my life and my body are the way they are. Time to get rid of my fantasy clothes for playing dress up in my imaginary life. A life in which I have abs.

Editor's Note/Confession: I'm a little chubbier right now than usual. More than I'm comfortable being. Which means some of the clothes I would love to wear, I can't. So, I'm boxing those up and storing them instead of getting rid of them. Call it a vote a confidence. 

Here are some resources I found helpful:

http://www.idreamofclean.net/2013/05/04/the-path-to-a-minimalist-wardrobe/

http://intentionallysimple.com/a-minimal-wardrobe/

http://theproject333.com/about/

http://www.realsimple.com/beauty-fashion/clothing/wardrobe-basics/wardrobe-basics-checklist-00000000000952/index.html

I donated a big box of clothes, threw some away, stored others that were out of season or currently too small. But, thanks to my good friend Tiffany, I boxed up the nicer stuff from the "right" brands and sold it to these people. A good thing to keep in mind when pairing down wardrobes.



Next on the chopping block:
Books.
For me books are really hard to let go of. When I try to figure out why, I tend to wax a little philosophical. First, I'm kind of nerdy. I appreciate books for preserving oceans of human knowledge and experience. Just their existence makes me feel better about being human. I like the way they smell. I LOVE libraries. For me, books = civilization. So there's that. Then there's this much more insidious and egotistical reason why I hang on to books: I like what they say about me. Namely, "I'm smarter than you. See? Check out my bookshelf. It is both voluminous AND impressive/intimidating." Yuck. And so, I got rid of books. I picked up each one and I asked myself, "Do I own this because I love it or because I like what I think it says about me?" If the latter, it went in the to-sell box.

Another Note/Confession: with all of my pompousness, I dropped my ego into a large-ish box one book at a time and took it to Half Price Books. Want to know how much all my I'm-smarter-than-you fodder was worth? SEVEN DOLLARS. HA! $7. 

I particularly appreciated this essay about the two schools of thought on cultivating book shelves. Essentially, "The first views the bookshelf as a self-portrait, a reflection of the owner’s intellect, imagination, taste and accomplishments... The other approach views a book collection less as a testimony to the past than as a repository for the future; it’s where you put the books you intend to read."  I took a hybrid approach. I kept the books that I've read, but will actually reference since I do actually do that sometimes...keeping in mind the things that I would or could more likely reference online (goodbye giant hardback Oxford Dictionary). I also kept my "desert island" books. The ones I've read over and over and will continue to read. And the ones I will actually read. I suspect that my reference and to-read collections can and will diminish over time. But I'm not there yet.

Here are some other resources:

http://www.becomingminimalist.com/breaking-the-sentimental-attachment-to-books/

http://www.theminimalists.com/reading/



I'll probably write more on this. Like I said, it started out as, "Holy shit! We have to live in 216 square feet!?!" And has become, "Remember how light it feels not to be weighed down by things?"

The other thing I'm thinking about that I'd love to hear your thoughts on:
Food.

If you could only eat 3 things for breakfast and 3 things for dinner every day for three months, what would they be? 

It occurs to me that a tiny pantry, a tiny refrigerator, and a tiny stove/oven will more easily lend itself to simple foods often repeated. More on that later.