Minimalism

Photo by Iswanto Arif on Unsplash

Minimalism simply means, ‘living with less’, and less,(figuratively) is always more.

Minimalism says, “I design and develop experiences that make people’s lives simpler”

I turned into a minimalist almost a year ago. That somewhat complied with my compulsive behaviour to keep everything in a neat order. When I realised that I was almost running out of space for the stuff that I had, which would lead to a mess eventually, I started decluttering. I would literally run over to my friends and beg them to keep the things I didn’t want, and insist on their “utility” in case they refused.

Finally, I was able to give away half my “belongings”.

I gave away bottles of perfumes, creams, shampoos, the clothes I had hardly worn, a little here and there, and reduced my things to the ones that held value to me.

Now my space was obsessively clean. It didn’t need much cleaning owing to the fact that I now had very less stuff, and my idea of cleaning would be to move things back to a 90 degree angle. (Ahh! gives me a deep sense of satisfaction)

Life has become more convenient, and hassle free ever since my personal minimalist movement.

1. I have less clothes, hence I’m not paralysed by the umpteen choices that I would have around me, and I really don’t need to scratch my brains over what to wear for college.
2. I’ve more space and that keeps my mindset in a state of order, since I’m this person who can work productively only when the physical space around me is organised (compulsively), minimalism does me a huge favour.
3. I’m not stuck with a compulsiveness to buy stuff whenever I visit a mall, so I can invest in self enriching experiences that add more quality to my life rather than hogging a large portion of it, without adding any real value.
4. I don’t need to worry about shifting, because last I checked, it took a big suitcase and a couple of paper-bags to fit in the stuff that I possessed, all of which was easy to carry.

Minimalism doesn’t confine to the materialistic belongings only, its application extends to your virtual space as well:-

1. I follow the Inbox zero rule, or so to speak, where I opt-out from all the promotion based emails and subscribe only to the ones that give me valuable information. After reading, I can choose to delete or keep any mail, hence keeping the mail box clutter free.
2. I’ve deleted my social media accounts (for obvious reasons).
3. My iCloud storage is enough to keep me going, without having to pay for extra storage, since I delete the things that I don’t need, watch or listen to.

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

After following minimalism for a year, I realised there were certain other areas in my life that were in a complete mess, and while I was following minimalism religiously, I needed it more in these messy areas.

I realised that I was:-

1. Buying paperbacks, or books on kindle, and was reading them simultaneously. There were all sorts of inputs from everywhere, friends suggesting some thriller, Dad suggesting me something else, than the list of bestsellers, and it seemed as if I just wanted to consume everything, which eventually lead me to a world of more confusion and the land of no learning.
2. Watching 4 documentaries a day, not giving myself the time to ponder more about anything that I watched.
3. Signing up for multiple courses on coursera, without completing any one.

It’s as if I was devouring everything (or at least wanted to) but nothing was actually serving the purpose that it was supposed to.

With Minimalism in play, I would take up one thing at a time, let my system churn the fresh information and produce deeper insights. This way I could gain profundity in any given area, and not just have a surface level knowledge characterising a pseudo-intellectual.

I believe minimalism can help us both individually as well as collectively. If the minimalism movement catches wind on a larger scale than it already has, I believe it can help in solving some problems of the world:-

1. With the economies being at the climax of consumerism, people are being presented with an infinite number of choices. Its a world orchestrated by advertising. The “ad maestros” understand our psychology, and pump in ads accordingly, we are struck with a paralysis of choice, we end up buying everything for whatever reason, which in turn adds very little to our lives, and ultimately leaves us miserable.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

If we turn to minimalism, we’ll only buy things that we need. With a decline in purchase of materialistic, not-really-needed items, perhaps we’ll be able to re-channel the money to solve more pressing problems of the world like poverty, climate change, and we as ordinary individuals can help with that.

2) Netflix’s recommendation system picks up on our streaming behaviour.

Once you open Netflix, there is a deluge of tv shows and movies that it thinks you would watch, thereby creating a paralysis again.

Minimising the usage to only one thing at a time will help us look at things in depth and will add more to our learning, than mere mindless tv watching. You’ll reap from what you pay for.

3) Likewise, every other social media channel, learns our behaviour, feeding us more of what we like, or already know, which creates an echo chamber of sorts, hence, our own views (right or wrong) echo to us, and get solidified over time.

Minimising on these channels will stop us from mindlessly consuming information as is presented on the platter, we’ll take the time to objectively analyse everything and this will help curb the massive conflicts that arise out of social media.

4) I watched a documentary on minimalism - a documentary on important things, starring my heroes Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, guys who are behind a massive minimalist movement, changing millions of lives.

While watching, I bumped into an interesting concept of tiny houses. The idea behind a tiny house is to essentially reduce the space that we live in, and build houses according to our space needs than our whims. With limited resources, and growing population resulting into more space needs, tiny houses are a fantastic alternative.

Photo by Fabian Mardi on Unsplash

Again, I’m not blaming the technology at all, its just that I think, we are ill equipped to handle it or handle the fast pace with which its served to us, hence we end up leading ourselves into a trap, and the only way we can come out of is is by empowering ourselves.

Minimalism doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to cut down on EVERYTHING that you don’t urgently need, rather I think, it is a way of living that we can incorporate, just to make our lives manageable, and come out as self empowered individuals who aren’t being herded in the name of “freedom of choice”, individuals who have the power to make their own informed choices, and the ones who can orchestrate a positive change.

I believe minimalism will help us build self sustainability on a micro as well as a macro scale, and this could help us solve the major problems like, wars fueled by ‘fuels’, water issue, and poverty.

and everything will start from us, the individuals.