Minimalist Thoughts

A few days ago, someone asked me about minimalism. I had done a few local podcasts with a friend about minimalism and as a consequence I am sometimes viewed as a “minimalist.” Hopefully this website URL nixes that idea.

That said, this person asked me if I thought folding phones would be good for minimalism. “After all,” he said, “they take up less space.”

This very question underscores a deep flaw in a lot of minimalists: that ironically, they are still obsessed with things. The obsession with possessions has just switched to a preference for things with a “minimalist aesthetic.” The inner materialist is not destroyed, but rather transferred to new yearnings. Thoughts are still dominated by acquisition, but isn’t the purpose of minimalism supposed to be free oneself of consumerism?

I replied that if you want a phone that helps you to not give a damn about “things,” your best bet would be to have a phone that you don’t give a damn about. Get a cheap Motorola (if you actually need a new phone) or something that that is so low on the status totem pole, it’s unlikely to encompass any amount of time or thought at all. Don’t get a thousand dollar “folding phone.” After all, the whole idea of “minimalism” is to not place one’s focus on material possessions. I don’t think Seneca or any stoic would care about how big or small his phone was. Seeking more compact models that take up less space has the same end result as seeking iPhone upgrades: you’re still constantly looking for the next best thing.

This flaw in minimalism can also be seen in the pursuit of clothes. I know minimalists who are constantly seeking “more minimalist pants.” In most cases these are pants that serve multiple functions: pants you can bike, hike, travel, or go to the office in. They are pricier and tend to be made of more premium materials. And therein lies the issue: the pursuit of minimalist pants is a materialist pursuit. Whatever space you save in “wardrobe space” is negated by the time you lose thinking about pants.

If one was really seeking minimalist clothes, I think a more effective approach would be to shop for basic and affordable things and then forget about “how many things are in a wardrobe.” The whole idea is to not think about your wardrobe at all.

Live with imperfection. That’s the only way to really free yourself of consumerism.

I state this to emphasize the obvious: there is a maximalist lurking inside most minimalists.

Minimalist Chronicles: Part 1 - Detaching from Things

I began my massive declutter in August, shortly before my 36th birthday. There was no single particular impetus for change. I just looked around my residence and perused my belongings and concluded that almost none of them were purchased out of necessity. Practically all of them were purchased from a variety of external factors:

• The fear of missing out (“athleisure” is the newest trend, don’t mind out on what everyone else is wearing!)

• Vanity/the need to impress (buy a car and show the world you’re worth something)

• The fear of being incomplete (marketing tools used to tell you that your life will be worse without it and you’re just one purchase away from being complete)

Shortly before I began my declutter, I imagined my death. That’s a dark thing to imagine. I imagined it nonetheless and thought of what I was leaving behind. What did I see in this vision? Material things, acquisitions, and a mess of stuff for friends and family and loved ones to sort through. But what are the things, compared to the person? What is stuff compared to memory? I had read Everything That Remains by the Minimalists before, but the book’s message was just now being absorbed into my skin. Maybe it’s a lesson I needed to experience to learn.

What do I really want to leave behind? Hopefully a lot of nice memories (and some memories that are just “memorable”) and some undiscovered stories. Said stories would be well-hidden, but some soul may find them, hand-written and locked in a cellar, or drifting in a bottle somewhere out at sea, or by accident by finding this blog, written by some anonymous person, somewhere out there in the universe.

Clothes I have sold in the last two months:

• 13 pairs of pants

• 12 tee shirts

• 4 button-up shirts

• 3 jackets

• 8 pairs of shorts

I do not miss any of them, nor do I feel guilt or shame for having bought them in the first place. At some point in time I made a purchase because I felt a certain fear-based way. I later realized that I made a mistake. You live and you learn. Onward march. Life’s too short to dwell. Cells are constantly dying and being born. People can change at any time of any day of any year.

The closet is much lighter, and I have no intention of replacing the things I sold.

What do I want to get out of this?

I want to re-shift the focus of my thoughts. We only have so much time to think. I want my thoughts to be maneuvered away from buying and towards experiences and connections. There is a lot of world to explore and a lot of things to do. A lot of risks to take. Connection and experience deserve much more time than consumption.

Things are just things. They do not think, feel, or validate. There is never enough of them, and there is rarely a deficiency of them. We don’t need to buy much. Go down the rabbit hole, and you’ll realize that you don’t need to buy anything.

The closet is lighter. Let’s see what’s next.

6 Tips for Minimalist Travel

I do not believe the absolute number of things in ones life will contribute much to wellbeing, unless that number is too high for one to manage or too low for one to exist in nature and society.

A race to compare how many things one owns is as pointless as a race to compare how few things one owns. While an overstuffed room may cripple a resident with its sheer heft and clutter, an empty room will cripple with boredom (and a higher likelihood that the room is empty due to a lack of hobbies).

That said, I believe minimalism plays an important role in travel. The main purpose of travel, in my opinion, is joy, and overloaded suitcases will always be a detriment to joy for the nomad. In an airport, checked luggage will add cost to a journey. It will add time: the time from waiting in lines to check the bags, and the time waiting to collect bags at baggage claim. It will also add anxiety, because any bag removed from the traveler will be less likely to arrive at a destination.

There is never a reason for a nomad to check luggage. Ever.

I lived in China for about two years as an ESL teacher, and most of what I learned about minimalist travel was through trial and error. Here are a few basics for the aspiring nomad:

1. Travel with a backpack, not a shoulder bag.
   As shoulder bags get stuffed, the weight distribution on your back will become uneven. It can strain you. A backpack is more versatile and if properly constructed, allows its wearer to walk long distances. A solid 30-40L backpack is all you need. If you are going somewhere rainy, have a backpack that’s water resistant. I got through China with an Osprey Farpoint 40. These days I mostly fly with just a Mission Workshop Fitzroy. The focus should not be so much on the brand as it should be on shoulder comfort and durability.

2. Bring laundry detergent with you.
   The novice traveler will attempt to bring a set of clothes for each day that he or she travels. There’s no need for that. Just bring one or two sets of what you need, and put some detergent in a small liquid container. Something like these should work. You’ll likely be staying at a hotel or airBnB with a washer. If not, learn to wash clothes in the sink.

3. Merino wool is not necessary, but it’s nice.
   I did not take merino wool to China with me. Admittedly, though, it makes travel easier. I don’t want this blog to be about replacing what you have, however. You can easily onebag travel without merino. Merino wool is antimicrobial and odor resistant. You’ll be able to wear your clothes for several days at a time, and perhaps longer if you switch off two merino wool garments. It’s also wrinkle resistant, which is especially nice for shirts. But if you don’t have merino…

4. Bring a portable steamer.
   This is especially useful if you either suck at ironing or are staying somewhere without an ironing board. Fill the steamer with tap water (make sure the steamer has a built-in filter) and let the steam smooth out the wrinkles from your luggage. They aren’t too expensive either. This will be especially crucial if you are traveling with a lot of cotton or linen garments.

5. Wear your heavier clothes and shoes.
   These days I travel with only minimalist sports sandals as “shoes” whenever possible. They are the most versatile shoes ever constructed, particular for the barefoot runner. I use them for everything from casual walks and dining to working out. These are my favorite. Honestly, they are pretty much all I wear, traveling or not. If you will need more shoes at your destination, wear the heavier shoes and pack the lighter ones. If you are going to live abroad in a place with cold winters, wear your boots and pack your shoes/sandals. Likewise with clothes. If you are going somewhere cold but flying out in summer, wear your summer clothes, pack what you can, and buy cheap winter stuff when you settle at your destination.

6. You do not need many electronics.
   Every item you own takes up space. Physical books, headphones, portable computers… each will be an added weight on your back and on your mind. Luckily we live in an age where there are portable solutions to almost everything. I do not own headphones at all. I prefer to read. I bring a Kindle so that I have plenty of reading material without the associated weight of pages. I don’t own a portable computer because a nice tablet performs everything I need. Poof. I just eased a few pounds off of my back.

With practice, you will become an expert onebag traveler. I suggest taking less than what you need on your next trip and assessing what went wrong afterwards. You’ll likely see that most things left behind are not as necessary as you once thought. They either will not have been worn at all, or eventually picked up at the destination (or often in airports themselves these days).

This blog is focusing specifically on the nomad. These days, I own more than a backpack’s worth of stuff. There is an added freedom that comes from living out of just a backpack. So why, then, do I not subscribe to this onebag philosophy for the non-traveler? Here are a few basic reasons:

1. Hobbies are awesome, and they require stuff.
   I enjoy cycling through rain, sleet, snow, or shine. This requires more apparel than one can fit in a backpack. Similarly, many hobbies require stuff to perform them. It is okay if your belongings enable you to do the things you dream of doing.

2. Having more items prolongs the life of the items you own.
   This is especially apparent for shoes. You will wear through your shoes quicker if you wear one pair daily because you are pressing approximately 200 pounds on a material that likely weighs less than a pound, with each step, possibly thousands of times a day. When you switch your shoes by the day, time allows the sweat in your shoes to dry and the compressed materials to decompress a bit. Trading off shoes is therefore more cost efficient than only owning one pair. Similarly, clothes need time to breathe. The wash and dry cycles on garments wear them out. Washing a shirt several days a week will wear it out exponentially faster.

3. People need art.
   This is the most opinionated of my three arguments in this blog post. Art teaches us about life. It also provides food for our minds. The clothes we wear can be art, as can be the paintings on our walls and the furniture in our living rooms. There is no need to go overboard in a quest to own art, but a piece or two that mean something personally are worth having. We deserve to have some things in our immediate surroundings that spur our brains into thinking about the deeper questions.

There you have it. Plan a trip. Even if you have always checked your bags, challenge yourself to fit everything in a backpack. Force yourself to do so regardless of the length of your trip. Take the risk of lacking enough essentials, and watch yourself come out the other side just fine.